Maybe try painting the same simple object using the different textured brushes. Then compare the different finished products. It may help highlight the different strengths and weaknesses better.
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Yeah I had to do that, there’s no other way than going back to trial and error for finding out specific brush usage 
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Edit
the idea is simple, it comes to the detailing again that makes it hard. I’ll try to tackle things that I know how to draw first.
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Turns out it is not just environment, I can’t do details or clean up if I drop the reference midway.
This is full body in 3 hours, I am guessing it will have same fate with Lucy drawing previously, where I have to iterate and actually draw the lines in order to do proper clean up and put in the missing details (lucy still have many missing details).
But how do you draw lines in environment situation? it is so many and looks like random, or is it not? is there a pattern…
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Oh, the surroundings—that is/can be the most tricky part of a picture, the importance of which is often not really recognized. Here you enter the next level of art and relate your figures to objects for a wide variety of purposes.
The environment can be unnecessary decoration, embellishment, or accessory, just as it can give a scene the content that makes it work in the first place. It can therefore be insignificant but also meaningful. Whether it is hinted at (vaguely) or depicted clearly and precisely, it can strongly influence and change the effect and narrative of a picture and be both right and wrong.
I believe that depicting the environment correctly is often a whole new challenge. I wish you much joy and success in the next level, and many cool “bosses.” 
Michelist
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@Michelist Thank you for the encouragement, I’ll try to keep everything in balance, because eventually I want to draw artwork with the environment as the main focus also.
On the other side of note, since I never played Elden Ring myself, mostly I just watch playthrough… wow how many years since I mentioned that I want to buy it and I kept using my spare money to buy other things, emergency stuff keeps happening. I digress, anyway I showed my rough painting to my friend, and he said that he bet that this version of Queen Marika is not what Fromsoft design. I think if he made that bet, he’d win.
So I am not gonna clean up this version, I am going to follow Fromsoft actual design.
I did several search on Queen Marika’s in game model and concept arts. To my limited knowledge it turns out she has no character model in game, and her famous chained model is actually a background object. There are few statues, painting maybe and that chained model which is dying??.
Anyway, I think she actually wear 2 piece clothing. The cut on the skirt is not wide or high but it is long, since I think the skirt is just a very big cloth wrap around her waist. The top has normal cut on the chest and not low like what everyone wear for cosplay. She does have necklace, wear circlet and wear some belt like accessory too. I think the long v cut on the chest idea came from the original artwork where she is posed tilted forward and the dress is just hanging, so showing more of her chest area.
If only I could visit the game, or find a video that showcase that intact statue of her, inside what looks like a church ruin, I probably could make more sense of her design. But this is exciting, if there’s no real in game character model, and the famous looks comes from a ‘built from scratch’ model that is created for mod, then all the more interesting to draw her, since I would add something new to the interpretation.
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The redesign done, but some part still needs its lines to be completed. I can sense that I lose control again whenever I use clean lines technique, start shouting at people without proper reason, highly irritable, so I tried to not meet people if it is not necessary. I know lineart process triggers me the most, but it’s the only one I know that give that certain finish looks. I really hope I can find a process where I enjoy the journey and the result.
I think I haven’t mention the ref here. Main ref is miss Sora’s (Sayathefox on IG) Queen Marika cosplay. She knows, I sent her my wips.
Anyway, pixiv artists’ techniques again then, they’re effective and efficient, but hard to do when you mind jumps around.
Edit:
I broke my sugar intake limit just for this. I can feel my eyes’ pressure rising… ooh it’s high, blood sugar is definitely high
edit 2:
I don’t think much when drawing these. I can’t see small patterns, hurts my brain, so I tried to not pay attention and just focus on listening to a 7 days to die let’s play.
2 more parts for the lines, the chain on her waist and her arm bangle. Then it need small light indicator shading on some parts, then the actual painting part could start.
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I have some concern with my Queen Marika’s illustration. I am gonna test some stuff in smaller scale (crazy that this start because I have question about how to draw texture for mountain).
So what I did with Queen Marika is having a main ref from real life photo and push it toward. what I hope to be a more semi realistic style painting. This current test is the opposite because I use a stylized drawing and hopefully able to push it into semi realistic. Present variables are the same, goal is the same, just need to test my understanding of the visual art fundamentals, and my controls of the techniques and tools.
Ref is by @eysselia here in this post
Right now this is part one, which is the sketch but with color like what I did with Marika at first.
Even now my eyes still give warning about her right cheek, hopefully I can find out the problem during the line drawing.
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The moutain wasn’t forgotten uwu.
The character is cleary recognisable and it’s definitivly a semi realistic style so I will say you have succeded in part one. Cheek tend to be a bit bulging, maybe it’s that ?
On another note, looking at your adaptation made my day 
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Thank you 
glad my practice can make someone’ day. The original reminds me of Phineas and Ferb. I hope I can maintain the face structure like the pointy nose and the sharp chin.
Found the problem, did some perspective check and found the tapper ratio based on the differences of her visible shoulders and used that to fix the face.
Edit:
I can’t gather focus but I’ll start anyway, can’t wait until I am in good condition to draw. It’s messy but I can’t help it. I need to take care with the lips protrusion, if I give it the wrong value level, I might make it protrude too much. What is the right value level for it? idk exactly, but I know the range given the surrounding shading. So need a bit trial and error, but I am faster now at estimating.
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Hey! It’s always refreshing to read your thread and learn by proxy about the areas you explore! Thank you for sharing.
I just wanted to make a quick comment on your last portrait and this difficult view angle (I struggle with that too).
One thing that helped me get the “curvature plane” of the mouth was simply imagining the position of the dental arc underneath. Wrapping the top lip helps to avoid making this area too flat and two-dimensional.
I often struggle with this because when I want to make a character smile, I think of the ◡ symbol, but in this perspective, the arc is ◠. This creates a paradox in my brain and it’s hard to stop thinking in 2D/smiley/symbolic terms and just trust that applying the anatomy of smiling lips in this perspective will work.
Here’s a quick visual to make what I’m writing less confusing:
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Thank you very much for the reminder! I often got tunnel vision and didn’t even consider to do checks again. I redraw the mouth in perspective and put back the expression that I want. Hopefully the mouth muscle movement now match the curvature of the face since I did it in 2 steps; draw the normal one like you did and add the mouth movement on top of that.
Sometimes when I draw things like this where I have to think 2-3 times harder, I just want to stop and instead draw something from a manga page or other already existing artworks. Feels like in that situation, I work more on reflex, eyes’ input immediately go to hand muscle as output, bypassing the brain… lol. Not much added to the community or my own skill progress, but it’s all fun without the stress.
Edit:
I got some focus back, or else I can’t never do precision drawing. Going to try to finish the hair or the torso today. Thanks to people here and other place that comment on my practice. Can’t get a grip if the voices that hovers around you said negative stuff all the time. I can fight it back when I am relatively happy, but everyday is a struggle, so for me happiness are from when things go according to plan.
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Really good improvement! She looks good this way. 
Don’t worry about the tunnel vision effect and skipping mistakes you usually would have the skill to fix if you had focus on them; it also happens to me all the time (eg. this morning on my sketchbook, a disastrous hips-in-shortcut pose).
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sorry there isn;t much update. I just need to write something.
Uh write down your thoughts, memories is slipping so need to check at least once a day. Don’t watch news unless emergency, you can’t handle the stress especially with the current global problems. There;s one actual work that you delayed for months, finish that first, you have the skill, just need confidence. You know how to do it, I know how to do it, your experience is enough to clear the assignment.
We have come a long way, it is unfortunate the path is like this, but still much better than what others have. You can only go up
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some old stuff from more than a decade ago, I don’t feel right if there’s no picture attached
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Well there this “trick” who kind of help refocus in a general sense (it’s hard to do it when there are too much pressure but I hope it can help).
Sometime taking 20 to 30 min to do nothing execpt breathing, preferably with good natural luminosity. No exercices, no concentration just letting evrything pass and go.
It can seem to be improductive, but on contrary it’s necessary as human we need to breath and not just literraly. Moreover somes studies have shown the benefit of a bit of sunbathing (well we do need to be careful of strock and sunburn).
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Did similar test with help of @zeki , I use her photo for the pose and expression for this Mercy, face is different I make sure of that, can’t be too safe in this day and age.
So same as before, rough sketch paint to establish the idea especially the lighting, then it should be somewhat clean lines to help establish form and details, then the actual render process.
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The face is … just wow!
Michelist
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Thank you Nohara, I’m really happy to be the model for this.
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@Michelist Thank you, but if there’s no ref from zeki’s photo, I doubt I can draw the same expression just from memory.
@zeki You’re welcome, you have great expression in the photo. You know one of my dream is to draw ordinary people as their favorite character. Not everyone can cosplay because of various reason. But It is hard for me to learn how to do that, since I need the input and cooperation of the people who has their face drawn.
On the other hand, I really have bad splitting headache for 2 days now. I think I messed up my eating schedule. I just can’t handle stress no matter where they come from.
Edit:
I can’t control it, I just can’t calm down.
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House almost got flooded again, heavy storms only several days in between.
Edit:
Try to move forward carefully.
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Her warm smile is nice, and feel like there is another emotion in now.
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