You should DRAW. No shortcuts, draw places, buy books on drawing/painting environments, hunt for threads with wisdom on art forums, draw in lines, paint in tones, portray forms in perspective.
@Blaisoid I never thought of it like that. I always wondered who in speed paintings people immediately knew what a _____ looked like or what it needed to look perfect. I never really though that they could have painted that material a bagillion times already. As for diverse locations, thats another good point, because if…
(I have checked the wiki already) Lately i've been learning to paint (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88339 please make sure you compare the first page to the last few posts ;) ) and I've progressed quite a bit. I enjoy painting characters, but like 3d, I never feel like im fully expressing myself and…
ok, some random thoughts: i know what you mean, i was at that point 2 years ago myself. back then i was a part of a mod team already and one day i thought i should give environments a try. So i just started painting areas. my first concepts in perspective were so crappy that i soon switched to painting isometric views.…