Landscape Sketch 1

Well, THIS is a hideous mess that doesn't really deserve to be in my gallery. o_O
I bet it looks surprisingly impressive as a thumbnail, but once you see it at its full size, it's laughably bad.

I'll scrap it soon, but I'm uploading it as a way of saying to myself "right, you! Do better than this! Come on, it can't be hard at all!"

I have what feels like zero experience doing landscapes, but they're something that I feel I really *need* to do. So I'm starting with the very basics, by trying to reproduce some relatively simple photos. Here's my very first attempt, which is appropriately awful, but I suppose it serves as a stepping stone or something. Yes. I already said that.

I tried two new techniques here, which it seems everyone and their little pooch uses all the time, but I've gone years without them.
One is starting with greyscale first, then adding a Colour layer over the top of it.
The other is making custom brushes! I did that before, years ago, but I'd completely forgotten how. Now that I know again, I'm hoping I can use that a lot. I couldn't have done these hyper-realistic leaves without it.

So yes! Here is some digital vomit which I am only wasting peoples' time and the internet's kilowhatsits by uploading, but oh well. I'm *hoping* that within a week, I can outdo this. Hoping.