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[Spreggo]

Jopax, using higher opacity brushes will help you make clearer choices about value and color. Maybe 70 to 90 percent opaque, and make use of the eyedropper when blending. Using a lower flow and a higher opacity should make your brushes a little easier to use and your images become more definite. For the most part, reserve low opacity brushes for adjustments at the finishing end of the process. Otherwise, they make the whole image look rather noncommittal.

It may also benefit you to work from a neutral background (medium gray, or a warm medium tone) and working out from that in both directions.

[Jopax]

Yeah, i never did get what flow exactly does, to me it seemed like the opacity setting but with less of an effect

[Spreggo]

Flow indicates by how much a brush will layer over itself.

Example:
Running a brush at 20% opacity over an entire canvas without lifting your pen will result in a solid, 20% opaque layer of color.
Running a brush at 20% flow over an entire canvas without lifting your pen will result in a layer of varied opacities, as any time the brush runs back over a mark it has already made, it increases the opacity there by 20%.

Flow allows you to scrub in colors more like you might with a real brush, up to the maximum opacity you have set. It ends up working more easily and naturally (with a lot more control and definition) than just using a low opacity. Playing with flow will let you be a lot more painterly, avoiding the scratchiness and that 'drawing with a flashlight' look.

[Spreggo]

BTW: The Airbrush setting ties flow to time rather than movement. So instead of building up 'paint' by moving back over a spot, your build it up by holding over that spot.

[Spreggo]

Also keep in mind that real paint is generally used very opaquely, with some exceptions. Anyone who tries to tell you that paintings are made from 'layers of translucent glazes' is woefully uninformed. For the most part, glazes are reserved for the final steps of a painting to enhance color, or achieve lighting affects that may be impossible otherwise. Glazes of expensive pigments were used historically not because that was the most effective way paint, but because using them from the get-go would be prohibitively expensive.

[Jopax]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I used a gray background this time, and i must say it is much easier to flesh things out now, also a bit of playing around with custom brushes(see those windows, i was too lazy to do each by hand so i used a brush ), still, it could use work i think, but for a speedpaint at 3 am it's ok XD

[Spreggo]

Definitely looks less streaky, with a better range of values
Keep it up ~

[Omegastick]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Something I quickly whipped up and is my first proper picture with my tablet (which is now about five years old). Any criticism is appreciated.

[lordnincompoop]

Stretch it horizontally a bit.

[Jopax]

Also MOAR contrast

[Spreggo]

I think it would benefit from a more careful drawing step before painting - not a fully rendered drawing but just some indication of major forms, their proportions, and placement.

[Jopax]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Don't have much to say, color contrasts yay?

[Jopax]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And a quickie that did away with my headache, now i have chest pains, CUURSEEE YOUUUU COOOOLD

[Outcast Orange]

I like this version the most.

Maybe some day I'll actually be able to draw good characters.

[Spreggo]

OO: I'm not quite sure what she is? It sort of looks like a human head on a black giraffe neck. It looks interesting enough, but I can't decide what to think about the character itself for a lack of information.

Jopax: Definitely improving. I think the next step is paying more careful attention to how you handle edges. Right now they are all over the place. Further reading:

http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/2009/04/about-edges.html
http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-about-edges.html
http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/2009/04/more-about-edges_21.html
http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/2009/04/yet-more-about-edges.html
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/06/depth-and-edges.html

Those articles add up to a pretty good introduction of edge handling.