i think i have answered somewhat similar questions in the past but it's been a long while and i really don't mind answering again <3

i've been drawing since very early childhood, i've simply always enjoyed it! scribbled in all my notebooks when i was in school and doodled on the back of my hands if i didnt have a notebook... when i was in high school i would spend pretty much all my time outside of school either drawing or playing minecraft lmao :') so practicing came very naturally to me because i just really really liked drawing and looking at other people's art, and i wanted to be better like them!

i did have a slight "break" from drawing when i was in university because at the time i thought i wasn't going to do anything with it on a professional level, so i just focused on my studies and finally building up a social life. but after i was done with that i decided that not drawing made me miserable and i got right back to it :) and then getting into skz was what finally made me draw as much as when i was a teenager again!!

i have to say i almost never truly practiced in a very orderly way and that's something i find myself regretting now... i think i do know a lot about the basics of drawing, color/light theory, how to make a composition appealing and how to draw realism, because that was always what i naturally had an interest in and focused on. but whenever i now try to do something else i feel like i'm 14 again and i need to figure out how everything works, which is so intimidating!! and it's so tempting to just stick to what i feel comfortable with... but i really want to broaden my skills and get more comfortable doing other styles, and relying less on references. i just wish i had done that when i was still young and had all the time and energy in the world for it lmao

one of the things that did really help me get better at art was watching other people do it. i've never been in any art classes so i just looked for teachers on the internet! there are so many useful youtube channels out there with loads of tutorials on anything you can think of, and besides that i loved watching speedpaints or livestreams from other artists bc that way i could study how they approached art. i'm a very visual learner in general so i've always loved zooming in on other people's works or taking pictures of painting details in museums, in order to soak up all the information i could.

as for blending/rendering techniques: i'm sure you've noticed i change these up quite a bit sometimes! i honestly feel like i'm still very much searching for a technique that i truly feel comfortable with. when i get lost in a drawing i almost feel like i'm meditating and i can easily over render stuff by endlessly blending things in... which isn't a bad look necessarily, but i feel like it causes the work to lose some visual interest. so i've been trying to keep myself from smoothing everything too much, and i've actively been trying to add more texture where i can! i'm still trying to find the right brushes for that, too :')

that's not really an answer about my technique tho, hmm... i think my technique can be compared more to sculpting a statue rather than making a drawing. i find it hard to do linework and it's easier for me to throw colors on the canvas as quickly as possible and start creating likeness that way... i think of my drawings in a very 3D way, so i find defining facial features with just a line VERY hard (which is also why i find anything that isnt realism very difficult!!!); i need the planes of the face to be visible asap. so yeah i usually do a sketch to get the general proportions right but then i like to go in with rough colors on a fairly zoomed out canvas, making sure to add lots of small color variations by exaggerating what i see in the reference, and then i will just zoom in more and more as i go to define smaller areas. i like to make sure the areas that have most visual interest (like the eyes, nose and mouth) are rendered the most because they catch the eye of the viewer and i want them to look good even when zooming in. but i also simply enjoy drawing those features the most so i spend more time on them anyway.

finally, while i am still looking for the perfect brushes, the things that are mainly important to me are that i almost never touch the blend/smudge tool (because i have more control over the exact definition and amount of blending when i do it manually with brushes) and that i don't like using brushes with soft edges, for the same reason. i like to be very conscious in my blending decisions and for that precision i need brushes with slight texture and pretty hard edges.

i feel like i have mostly rambled a lot but i hope that was an interesting answer for you aaa :') always feel free to ask more, or ask about certain more specific things if you feel like i've left some stuff untouched!! i really love getting questions like these and getting an opportunity to talk about art 💕