From Cel-Shading to Painting

I dont know about others, but i'm having trouble when i try to soft shade or even paint (while coloring). I assume it's because when i started CGing i started with Cel shading, and just got kinda stuck with it. I got used to shading certain spots and picking shade colors. So i could slowly work towards to completion of pictures.

But now when i try to play more with blending and soft shading rather than "filling the spots"i always get stuck. It's like i don't know what to do, wehre to stroke, where to blend, what colors to pick, when to stop, ... The final pic never looks "right" in my eyes and seems just like a big mess. So what i always do is that i end up fixing everything just for it to look like Cel shading all over again...

I always wanted to learn how to paint, or at least color witha more painty ish style, because i personally think the technique holds more potential to play around and variety of themes. Celshady look will always rebound to anime, cartoons, comics. That's not a bad thing, but i'd like to aim for a more serious approach ˆˆ I'm known for drawing mostly cute stuff, but i've always looked up to concept artists like Redjuice or Elzheng.


So i don't really know what to do. I've been looking through tutorials, but didn't learn much. Mostly because the tutorial creators have experience with traditional media, so they have the natural ability to paint digitally too, they know what they're doing. But for me, who has no idea what to do with watercolors or markers, it's tad difficult!

I guess i'll just keep trying til my brain will accept the painty look and won't make me redraw my messy paintings otl

Any tips or opinions on this?