so when I started my University Portfolio, I was failing miserably at making realistic artwork. my pictures had zero shading and no colour. because I'm a stuborn arse I needed to find out how I could turn my shitty little sketch into something good. now because I already knew how to use Adobe Photoshop I transfered some of my sketches onto the computer and began to edit them.
at first I would just color them in (it looked bad). then I traced the outline to give it an "inked" effect (it was starting to look good) then adding in some block colours. after some hours trying to get a drawing that looked like it was done on paint to look decent I decided to scour the web and get examples of other digital artwork. and then it dawned on me....I must shade this son of a bitch. my first try at shading was by using the gradient tool....at first it looked good but about an hour later I hated it. after trying to get the gradient tool to look good I tried a new technique and that is the technique I am using today :D

If your reading this in the future and my artwork is amazing, then check my very first pictures to see what I mean