hello! sorry if this gets asked a lot, but what layering technique do you use to be able to mimic the traditional paint feel in your digital paintings so perfectly? the final result in your works is amazing, and so entrancing too!

Hi! I've found that there are three things that really help get that gritty traditional paint feel for me. The first is including mixer brushes in my painting process; you can get multiple colors on each brushstroke with a photoshop mixer brush, and I found that sparingly using a mixer brush provides my work with more satisfying textures and dimensionality. I use Grzegorz Rutkowski's mixer brushes (he has a gumroad where you can buy them and imo they are worth it - his mixer brushes are included in his general photoshop brushes set, I believe, but I don't think you can go wrong with any of his sets/tutorials - he even has a "'Traditional look' in Photoshop" tutorial).

The second is having a noise layer: fill an empty layer over the artwork layers with 50% value gray, go to filter > add noise, set the layer to either overlay or soft light, and reduce opacity to your liking. Traditional work will never look as smooth and clean as digital work and that little bit of extra texture can do a lot.

The third and final thing is just finding different stock textures, such as paint strokes, grit, canvas textures, staining, and crackle, and adding them to layers set on usually either overlay or soft light at very low opacity. I paint traditionally as well, so sometimes I'll photograph particularly dimensional paint strokes on my oil paintings and use those as textures on my digital work.