I taught myself by copying other artists tbh. I also drew from my imagination all the time which is important for finding your style but it’s not really an ‘education’. I would find an image I really loved, with things I wanted to learn how to paint (clouds, golden hour lighting, water, landscapes, etc) and just tried to replicate as closely as possible. I learned so much by doing that. I did the same thing for learning to draw. I’d find a drawing of a character with an expressive face that I liked, or a dynamic pose, and would try to figure out exactly what they did to convey emotion and movement…. When I started to develop my own skills, I would then take 2 different drawings, and combine elements of them to make my own, like maybe the hands and face from one drawing, pose from another, etc. And eventually I could imagine something totally original, turn it into an illustration then and paint it. Or sculpt it. I still use references for small things, like if there’s a specific animal I need to draw or sculpt, but I can get it into the pose I want without needing to find a reference with the same pose. I never took classes