Hello,
I am a new member and just recently took a closer look at this website, after having followed Marcs Youtube channel for a while :smile:
I will post finished artworks and probably wips here. I hope I can learn a lot here with you all :blush:
I'd like to start with some newer pictures of mine, to let you see, where I'm coming from.

"Past and Future"

"Chibi Winter"

"Infinity Engine Contest Entry 2017"

As you saw, I love anime styles as well as paintery styles. I think the overall topic I am interested in are humans. This year I tried to focus on getting better skin tones.

My newest:

20 hour painting. Had some difficulties with the shadows.
But overall I like the feeling of it. Had multiple references for this.
At first I did the lighter parts of the desert with the lasso tool, worked really well.
Got this method from an Aaron Blaise video, in which he created mountains like that

15 hour portrait. I didn't use photo references, but I looked at some asian artists on artstation and tried to understand, how they draw skin. I focused on the skin and metal in this one, not so much on the hair. I have the feeling, I improved my skin a lot this year :smile:


Work in progress screenshot and comparison. Drawing this made me realize how important it is to just compare yourself with your past self and see how much you grow! And it made me realize what photo studies and actually understanding color and values does. This year I really invested time in learning, and I think I can be proud of how far I've come.

14 days later


Happy new year!
I finished the one year improvement challenge :smile:

Hey! These are looking really good and you seem to practice and paint a lot which is always good when you want to improve! So here's my advice: i guess some general anatomy studies wouldn't do you wrong, especially regarding faces and expression (I should do those too) . Also, your colors are lacking some depth. You seem to be using grey as your color to shade, whereas you should be using brown, or pick any color than grey, just try it out! Same with your highlight, try yellowish/golden colors or even blues to imitate the sun/sky.
Obviously you picked a kind of purple in your piece with the woman with the green eyes and its looking great, but try to go even deeper with the values, it'll make the piece pop even more!

Hello, thanks for your advice, @jilltonic :smiley:
Yes, I only spent time so far to get the 'general' face down, not doing much with expressions yet.
What surprised me is that you said I use grey, which I don't and that puzzles me quite a lot. Do my colors come off as too muddied? I stopped using the 'from greyscale to color method' becaue of dull colors, these here from 2017 are started in color, while checking values with the black and white filter in photoshop. Would be great to hear your thoughts :smile:

2 years later

Hello, it has been quite a while :smile: Forgot my password for this side and got busy in real-life.
I painted a bite more in 2020 and I would like to share some of my works.



Lately with these three drawings I have been focussing on color and on skin especially. I also started using a lot of references to get colors right.
I would greatly appreciate feedback or tutorials you know concerning skin.
2017 I thought my skin tones were always to light and unrealistic, now I feel they might come off as too saturated.
Tell me what you think <3

For skin, I think variation of colors is important, otherwise you can end up with skin that looks flat and plastic. By that that I mean not only changing the values, but also playing with the hue and saturation a bit more when the skin goes from light to shadows. You do that already a little bit, but I think it could be pushed more.

Remember that different paintings will have different lighting, so this specific example of skintones will not work for all paintings, but it will hopefully show you what I mean :smile: