Digital Painting

I've been tinkering with some digital painting again. I've mostly followed this nice tutorial from Nate Kadlac.

The process I've landed on is to grab a picture, draw over it with a pencil or pen. Fill in the shapes with a color. Make a layer for the shadows, set it to 20% or so. Then paint on it with a dark color. I've tinkered with duplicating that shadow layer and changing the opacity and blurring and smudging. Not quite there yet, aesthetically, for me. I'll tinker some more.

Here's my progression. I'm liking where this is all heading, as the last picture is closer to what's in my minds eye. Generally, I'm not interested in "realism", I like a more stylized vibe. My goals with Digitial Paitning are to have no goals. I just want to get better at it, cause I like it, and it's fun. Someday maybe I will be able to create my own art without tracing and such. That's really it.