Hey! Good work so far! The reason your painting feels “stiff” is that you’re not really considering the forms of the objects and are instead painting shapes that feel somewhat random. Even without adding lighting, shadows, or very defined shadow shapes, it’s still possible to create volume using only midtones. It mainly comes down to keeping the three-dimensional form of the objects in mind while painting. If you struggle with adding volume while sculpting through painting, it can really help to draw contour lines or simple forms like spheres, boxes, and cylinders on a separate layer. Doing this prevents you from painting random shapes without structure. As for the right forearm, the pose itself isn’t entirely correct. If you try to imitate the position yourself, you’ll notice it’s actually very difficult to rotate the forearm backward in that way. So, you either need to add more twist to the upper torso (to the point where it’s almost facing the viewer), or adjust the forearm position as I did in the example above. Hope this helps!
