How to improve rendering / anatomy? Looking to learn realism and then stylize

[novel ravine]

hiii, im myself still learning!! but a tip that really helped me was using grey scale!!, heres a trick above all layers make a new one , nd use bucket tool to fill in black colour then go in blending modes nd use the saturation one, it will turn the rest of the layers in grey scale and u can toggle it off and on to check ur values!! , see colour comes later, first comes value that's wut i learned so far through studying fundamentals, especially if ur learning realism first, understand value is important, using the blendin mode trick u can check if ur rendering seems flat , and another trick is pick 3 colours, 1 for dark value,2nd for light value, 3rd for middle value, use those 3 only to render and then it looks decent u can go into details and add more colours!! btw ur doing great!! keep going!!

[mild abyss]

Ty i will try doing that ! Does this also mean using grey/black to start and then adding saturated colour or just using saturated colour in grayscale?

[slender blade]

Use grey scaling

[slender blade]

Make it first grey scaling then
Go and make an extra layer and make to color mod
And start coloring
Then add lights

You will get something like this