The best tips for getting better at simi-realistic art?

when using outliner pens, don't use the blackout liner ones use a pink outliner pen. The reason why is because it takes all the attention away from the outlines, and I will let people focus more on your drawing versus the outline. I hope this helps

photography had emerged as an elite art pursued by a few creative individuals for a few wealthy patrons. but now, said bauldelaire, it was succumbing to "the great industrial madness of our times." it was becoming a mass production industry that catered to middle-class tastes, including a taste for gadgetry. the stereoscope, the first 3d imaging system, had turned looking at photographs into parlor entertainment. a "thousand hungry eyes were bending over the peepholes of the stereoscope as though they were the attic-windows of the infinite.