my first digital art. ever. of all time.

[jack.steel]

Hey im new to these forums and very new to digital art as a whole, ive always been interested in getting into entertainment design but have never really known where to begin, i just finished highschool and thought it was a good a time as any, so i bought a Wacom Bamboo and spent 10 hours today and have produced 3 unfinished, directionless, hybrids of digital paint and photographs ive taken.
Obviously the works as a whole need improvement but what aspects should i focus on practicing most?

[TinyBird]

You can't avoid the things you can't do by painting over photographs. Start by learning to draw and paint basic shapes.

[Elwell]

Ten whole hours in, huh? Have a cookie. Do more.

[jack.steel]

Yeah thats a good point, i really only used them so i could practice getting use to the tablet without worrying about perspective or a colour pallet, i will continue practicing my fundamentals

[jamsession]

you still have a long road ahead even if you want to work matte style with photographs. composition, lighting and perspective are the foremost you have to master (assuming that you want to work with mixed medium).

[Stoat]

You can get interesting results mixing photos and painting, but it's really hard to do well. I would consider it an advanced technique.

Start with this thread in the Photoshop forum. Look at all the paintings on the first page and then try it yourself. Best first step I can recommend.

[Thoolhoo]

Ten whole hours in, huh? Have a cookie. Do more.

Congratulations, you are 0.1% there! Remember Jack, it's 10,000 hours to professional level

[jhonshadow]

I agree with what Tinybird said, try to do some studies first. Take an appel or something and paint it while you look at the appel u will need to search for the colours and will have to look at the shading and lighting aswell. It's great exercices, I also started doing "stuff" now I start with the basics and Improving faster hope it helps!