jthrash 2025-03-16 12:37:05

I don't think it's very software-specific--I mean, I don't think I have to have FireAlpaca specifically (as opposed to Krita, Gimp, or any other tool useful for digital 2D illustration) to give critiques on the aesthetics of this piece vs. your pieces.

A lot of it simply comes down to practicing anatomy, perspective, solid drawing (basically it looks believable and "3D" even if it's just supposed to be a 2-Dimensional drawing) varying line weights, and all those usual fundamentals. In particular, the example you showed here seems to be made by someone with such a strong grasp of dynamic perspective than they can make their stuff look dynamic simply through a strong, easy-to-read pose and pushing the perspective to be as much in the viewer's face as possible.

All I can really suggest is use images like these as reference (don't copy the image, of course, at best that's plagiarism and at worst you don't really learn anything when you just trace over an image), use your observational skills to figure out what works so well in the composition, and just draw, draw, and draw until you're satisfied with the final results (then just draw some more to stay in good drawing shape). There really is no shortcut, I've found just sticking to practicing one thing for like the next 12 or so months is the best way to improve at that one thing before moving on to improving something else for the next year.

I also don't suggest jumping around to radically different styles and mediums during that learning process, like I tend to do--for example, I might suddenly decide I want to dabble in game programming again once the drawing practice gets a little boring, but if I want to be a master at ANYTHING, I have to recognize I can't be good at absolutely everything and just focus my efforts on what I'm already pretty decent at and actually have time to practice every single day, possibly multiple times a day. It might be hard if you have some form of ADHD, or, let's be honest, crave the immediate and constant gratification you typically get in short-form content like TikTok videos, but it's worth it to stick with something for a long period, at least until you're satisfied with the results.

Some more concrete feedback I can give you to get you started might be improving the line work in your drawings. Use thicker lines, and vary the line weight--for example, use the thickest line weights for the character's outer silhouette, a medium-width line weight for the character's important inner details, and pencil-thin lines for minor extra details and textures/shading. You don't even need a drawing tablet with pressure sensitivity (though it helps a ton to further vary the line weights), but at a minimum vary the line weights with 3 different thicknesses.

You can study frames of animation from Japanese anime if you insist on using thinner lines, but even then you can tell the inking artists typically vary the line weights quite a bit if you look closely.