I have done some studies myself and it seems I can’t quite get the formula right for the steps I should take to achieve X painting style result:
Art by Shandzii on Tumblr: @shandzii on Tumblr
Art by Ibanplay on Twitter/X: x.com
By painting result I mean like, paint this area 100% opacity with color X, select the area and airbrush it with contrasting color Y, and then finish it off with something like this and that. I just don’t get it 
I don’t know a way of reverse engineering a picture, but recreating should be possible if you know how to achieve which effect. This means, you have to know your tools and how to use them, what needs which effect, filter, whatever.
But as always if something has to be recreated without knowing how it was done, you have to experiment, there is no easy way only ability and knowledge can guide you through such tasks.
Michelist
This is incredibly complex. Mainly because, it is not that linear, going from one step to another. Another is that, there are so many different aspects to consider.
It is often better to have a mentor for this kind of things so you can ask them what to do as you work.
Also, you give two pictures that has vastly different styles. They aren’t done remotely in the same way.
Considering that you give two works with very different styles, it might be that you are not after a specific style but more of the overall impression? I’ve looked at your works and it seems that you are having trouble making your work look cohesive. Like, the whole image doesn’t form into one whole? You also seem to prefer stylized over realistic.
Art styles aren’t effects.
There’s no sure recipe to achieving a particular look, only steps for each element in a piece that will produce effects you’ll then combine into a style. I know it sucks to not have an easy set of steps to follow because it makes everything uncertain, but it’s your task as an artist to adapt your workflow to each piece.
I’d say the first step is to take a look at these pieces and identify what you like about them. Is it the lines? The shading? Of which parts and materials? The lighting? You need to break it down into chunks to then discover what they’re meant to represent and ways (plural, there’s often more than one) to produce that one particular effect.
That “what they’re mean to represent” part is important. EG the dragon creature colors. It’s blue to purple, why? The general ambient light is blue, then there’s a light haze in purple from a source outside view in the foreground, hence the parts further back are bluer due the distance to light while the golden mask has many purple highlights for being closer to the purple light source + being a metallic material. It also has a grayish, almost green lighter area on the top. It’s the blue ambient light again, it can read as greenish due yellow surface color + blue light.
Knowing what you’re representing allows you to make decisions that’ll read as style. You can just represent it, omit or play it up. That gray on the mask? It could be omitted, using a light yellow instead, it can be a more or less neutral color like it is, or it could be taken up to eleven by throwing a real green there. Note that there aren’t any other reflections on that mask. The artist chose to omit them to achieve a more sleek look.
This is the art part of the style. There’s the technical, how to achieve the effects themselves. In this case I’m guessing for the first artwork each new step in value is an isolated layer, while the second keeps elements isolated but mostly paints in the same layer. A gradient is applied on them, they build on top of each other behind the lineart layer. Last, on top of it all, a group with very soft gradients with effects like color dodge, multiply for shadows, lighten. Because they’re not contained in areas they create that atmospheric feel.
That’s it, I hope it’s helpful. If possible tell us exactly what you’re trying to do here so we can better answer, is it a tech question (about which effect), an style question or what?
Fr fr 
I just literally go by instinct and pray it looks good. I should really lab more at what am I really trying to do 
Artist more or less go by instinct. However, the good ones have honed their instincts with practice and study.
It is like playing a sport. The players don’t go there and think, do step 1, then step 2, and then step 3 and so on. They don’t need to think about every step.
This comes to studying and practice. Focus on specific aspects that you want to improve on. Learn about them and then practice by applying what you learn. In your case, I advice you to first study forms (shading and the like). You seem to be struggling the most in this aspect as I seen in your works. You also struggle a lot with color.
You can try to add critique-wanted to your topics so people know that you are looking for critiques.
I very much know your frustration, I’ve lost count of the amount of hours I spent staring at other artists artworks to understand hoi they did. Right now I’m at a point where I’ve found my own style and which I’m proud of. You will never achieve the same exact style of another artist unless it’s a style with a developed method for copying like Manga or Disney. This is however a good thing because art is a personal expression. You can however, try to copy another artwork exactly. This will give you a great insight in how to create that kind of style. Just make sure that you apply that experience in a personal piece to really integrate the knowledge you gained. Becoming an artist is long hard work. You will not become as good as your idols after making a few drawings. It will take years and suddenly you realize you’ve surpassed your idols in ways you couldn’t predict.
However, I think you could really benefit by doing focused studies on the fundamentals: anatomy, perspective, shading, color theory and composition. If you’re interested you can read my blogposts on these topics, had a little study group over on mastodon for a while back: brinckmann.no
@Brinck said it very good, the only thing(s) needed are time, perseverance and the will to practice, practice, practice. AND try to experiment with all functions and filters Krita offers, G’MIC for example is a great tool for some of the most genius and most crazy effects, and it is much too often an undiscovered gem in Krita’s arsenal of tools (nearly 600 new possibilities to have fun painting). Take a picture of yours (a copy, to not ruin your work!) and throw all sorts of effects and filters, layer-styles, blending modes at it to see what they’ll do with your picture. See what layers and grouping of them can do for you, not seldom these are a (THE) key to your desired effect.
It is not unlikely that you discover some of the things you want to recreate this way. And that are lessons that can be fun too, because of the unexpected discoveries and also because of many of the most nasty, ugly and unsatisfying results too. Pictures you show in a horror cabinet, but what the heck, nobody is born a master, a master is born through work, masses of work, done over and over again until it clicks and from that moment on it just works, and you don’t even know how it happened. That will be the best moments when you stand back and look at your work and wonder how the hell you made this stroke of genius.
From then on, you’ll probably be much more relaxed when you sit in front of your canvas and let the things flow.
Perhaps you should make a habit of one of Bob Ross’ views, enjoy all the little accidents, and make them the starting point for the next interesting part of your picture. What is better as any copy of other artists work? Your own independent creations!
Michelist
This actually doesn’t look bad. Seems like you practiced a lot.
The color here is quite cohesive but that even dark gray background looks really off compared to the rest. The lack of color and its dull nature makes it look out of place compared to the colorful and energetic cartoon feel of the rest.
Your shading style is very inconsistent. Look at the shading on her coat. You are clearly using bands to create your shading. Now look at the face and hair. You are using a simple cell shading. With her forearm you have blurred or blended the shading smooth. You also use hatching in some parts and not in others.
The lighting is also inconsistent. The main source seems to be the hand and it glows purple? That seems to be supported by the purple highlight on her coat and highlights on her hair. But her face and hair indicates that light is warm, maybe a little yellowish white light. On the other hand, her cloak indicates that it might be a cool white. And while the coat and hair highlights does indicates purple light, it monochromatic purple which is not like how it was indicated with the way the hand is lit, which indicate that it isn’t monochromatic. Her eyes are pure white too making it looks like it is a separate from the rest, like a cut-out, a pure white thing unaffected by any lighting.
The shadows are also inconsistent. Most of the shadows have a purplish tinge to them, but to cloak’s shadow doesn’t have any purplish tinge.
There is the purple rim lighting which seems to be caused by that purple light splash thing at the back, but the rim lighting is brighter and less saturated than the source of light which is kinda not how that works.
Still, this is good progress. This one is definitely a vast improvement from your earlier works.
Thank’s guys for not sugarcoating it This just feels like another game to get good at, combo game and all, just need to find the right route to take to make something good
Hi, I think you could benefit from trying to do an exact copy of a portion of your idol’s artwork. I have some reservations against copies, namely it’s a lot of work and then you end up with a non-original work, which feels bad 
However, let me tell you why I think it is worth it to do at least once in a while:
I was amazed time and again when I saw color roughs made by pro artists – they are 95% as good as the finished thing! They just lack the polish, final touches. This means, you can probably get 80% of the impact in 20% the time if you get good.
Last point - and take it with a big grain of salt as I’m just an inexperienced hobbyist - but for me the fundamentals are a big turn off. Practicing just fundamentals is a sure way to kill your passion for art. Instead, think of what you want to paint/draw, try it, and once you hit a roadblock, try to study and figure out that one thing to let you progress. Just always try to study in context and with the purpose of overcoming an obstacle to your next masterpiece 
I hope this helps. If anyone thinks the above is rubbish, please tell me, I may be wrong after all.
First thing first, try to understand why do you wish to reverse engineer an artist. What is the thing you like about them? The way they pose, maybe the way they stylise eyes? This response is very important because it shows you the road to traverse
Then systemise, brake into smaller chuncks, and concentrate on what you are having your fancy on! (BUT IF you just want to replicate their full artstyle, or something analogous, you can disregard this)
Anyhoo, the greatest tool you may find is a timelaps, or sketches
You wish to see the process at hand of how they make their pieces, as much as possible, and these show you just that!
Such will help you a lot! (Also, do try to find the newest of the bunch for accuracy, as artstyles are by their nature changing things)
You may even dm the artist if you want, asking them for sketches of theirs, or more, and maybe even become friends in the process (psychological warfare)
So,
yeah,
I use such as a basis, and I find it to be a pretty good fundation for tasks like these!
Second, try to deconstruct their actual pieces: first try to understand their preffered proportion and shapes, then maybe composition, or maybe even the way they light stuff, or why they light said stuff in ‘that’ certain way. Study what they have, study other people that studied the people you wish to study (it happens quite often actually, don’t start from scratch, you could even use those as ‘sketches or timelapses’, but be careful with such for they might not give you a genuine picture of what you have to do, maybe just a hint or a nudge) and try to draw something they didn’t draw in their artstyle
And well, third, repeat!
Seconding what @activity has said … eg timelapses are gold dust. Some artists do many many layers, with many many filters, and only breaking it right down to seeing the original sketch, then seeing each stage of them creating the painting, is going to really be helpful in seeing clearly how they work.
Sometimes a painting is too complex to emulate just yet … I can look at a painting I may have liked to study privately by doing a master copy and just go ‘nope, there’s more filters on that than my brain can even see’, lol. Other times, if the painting is less complex, it’s probably a better place to start, before going to more complex stuff later, as it’s important that your brain can see what’s going on in order to be able to replicate that, which can take time.
Always good to examine what it is you like about an artist’s work, and put that on your memo board … maybe collage all the artists you like, to clarify what it is you really want to bring in to your work. Is it the colours, the use of light, the composition, the lines, the painterliness, the movement, the subjects they choose?
Once the pressure of trying to recreate their painting is put to one side, at least temporarily, you may find it very exciting to analyze things, then decide which bit you want to work on first … and along the way your own interests and style are bound to come through more too, and you’ll find it increasingly becomes natural to include the qualities emphasized by the artists you like.
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