Your studies are amazing! I am from India, and was in a similar situation 3 years ago when I was 21. I would like to pass on some advice that helped me, I met one mentor for a very short period, but he helped me with invaluable advice. He said- 1. no matter what, your hardwork won't go to waste. You just need to be honest about your criticism towards yourself, so if you're overdoing it, do less. If you're underdoing it, be more honest. 2. After you get good at fundamentals, don't let anyone tell you how to do your art. It's your style, be proud of it. So, back then I was 21 and had no social connections, etc. I kept studying, I took a break once in a while too to destress. It's very important to disconnect from your pursuit to basically get a better overall look of where you stand. Eventually, I found Proko, a few other discord art communities, where I was able to work at least 5-6 hours a day and have fun while doing it, since others also join in. So try to have fun, trust the process. Do not compare yourself to big superhero professional artists, I have less than 2 years of work experience and I'm not super happy with my fundamentals still, it's a constant process. It never ends and there lies the fun! It's completely different when you're studying and when you get professional work. There are so many new factors, time saving methods, etc. involved, but most importantly- direction. Art directors, managers, executives guide you into their specific vision. So there's a lot of collaboration that happens I'd assume for others too. Hence it's different from one person doing concentrated studies, I feel like studying without feedback was more stressful for me. If you're unable to get results from head studies, try something new you always wanted to. Try experimenting, and make a couple of serious pieces out of those. For head studies, I think proportions help. Please look up traditional methods of measurements, I love the 2 pencil technique where you measure angles as well as size. It really helps with faces especially, since most of it is just placing the features right. Try larger canvas sizes, make mistakes, and then redo it, but after analyzing your mistakes. Take notes right on your canvas so you remember which mistakes you need to fix next time. For lines, a lot of artists tend to refine their lineart with multiple passes. So if it's wobbly at first with your sketch, that's okay, but try for 2 more refined layers. Look at how other people's lineart works, if you're working digitally - I can guarantee that a professional artist already has their preferred sensitivity setting, their preferred brush settings. Easiest way to try and mimic this is to trace over an artist's drawings, adjust your pen settings, see which gives the closest and most natural result. Tracing is okay when you are studying, but do not rely on it solely, it will take away critical thinking ability. In this case, lineart tracing helps to construct new brushes! I hope you find this encouraging, it is very nice seeing someone from a very similar circumstance to mine, so I was a bit eager to respond here. Please keep working, share your work with others, look at how others are being critiqued. It is a constant process for all artists, I would love to see your work here again! :)

Gorgeous! Love the dynamic scene

Thanks for the detailed response Kristian, I'll be sure to check out the videos you've mentioned. This is very helpful! I'll definitely try to loosen up a little ^_^

Thank you so much! I was trying to be conscious of this when drawing.

I agree, the horses were definitely tough for me. I've posted my latest study in this thread, by using fewer values I'm trying to focus on just the larger shapes for clarity. I will continue to focus on all the points everyone has brought up. Thanks for your help!

I agree, their shapes are also very distinct and since the backdrop is so light, they pop more easily even though they're not the darkest elements of the painting, it's such a good piece! And thank you :)

Hey, this is actually very useful. Thanks a lot! Yes, I noticed the soldiers were a bit off later on. Thanks for the paintover, I was debating which value to use for the backdrop. I have never attempted this exercise before, this was my first try, I will use fewer values and then go over to 5. I have one more question, as you can see my horses don't exactly correspond to the image, especially the 2nd (from the left) rider and his horse. How do you think I should simplify these complex objects? I haven't tried sketching them out yet, I mostly only use brush and erase tool to create my shapes.

Thank you so much for your feedback! I couldn't see this in time and went ahead and finalized a design which you will find attached in this comment. Upon reading everything here I did go back and try out new designs. I used the Met Museum's library to come up with ( what I think ) were some really cool designs. If someone hadn't told me to look outside of teapots I never would've thought of it, thank you so much. Your suggestions on the material sphere and the paintover is also very helpful, I have to understand value control and lighting better, as you'll see in my image attached below. Thanks once again!

Hey Seth, thanks for the pointers and your insight. Focusing on which style I want to recreate, as far as game studios are concerned is a great idea. I'll keep this in mind going forward. I definitely need to work on my form and values. Your paintover is highly appreciated. It's so obvious my values are all over the place when I look at your version. I'll give these areas more thought. Thank you so much! I will come back with better and more artworks soon!

Hey Dan, that is definitely a good question and possibly a fun discussion! (Guild Wars 2, Larian, Gris, Hollow Knight) The only reason I haven't tackled my favourite games' artstyle so far is that they seem too good to recreate. That said, what you said about filling in the gaps makes a lot of sense. You're absolutely right about the light and shadow. I was too focused on nailing the perspective in that piece and ensuring there's nothing noticeably wrong with the placement of my objects, so the actual values and light and shadow ended up being an afterthought. The miniature city pic was the most challenging perspective drawing I've picked up, and it clearly shows. I'll work on these concepts some more before I challenge myself with these large pieces. Thanks for your insight and kind words, I appreciate it quite a bit :)

Hey Nate, thanks for the kind words. This makes sense, I should get cracking on the whole community feedback thing; just haven't settled on a place yet. A few well-known communities I've been a part of were mainly focused on traditional, or fine art feedback. I'll keep it up!

Hey ritesh, I feel you, I have skipped the initial stages many times before and it's completely set me back a few times. This time I'm determined to do it right. Thanks for your feedback and sharing your experience :)

Thanks for your feedback Gabriel! I don't think it's for lack of trying, but clearly the way I have been trying to apply my fundamental practice's knowledge is not efficient. I will work on that as you have suggested :)