Burger [Study+Timelapse]

more than a study, this is very technically a tutorial on how to draw/paint food, with the aim of explaining my process and tips, check the attachment for the timelapse!

-Even if you're drawing a fantasy food that doesn't exist, look up references for at least similar things in texture, trust me, un-reference food can be immediately seen as bad or bland

-Generally speaking, food tends to look more organic with colored lines, black outlines tend to make the drawing flatter and more sticker-like, which MIGHT be an aesthetic, but its an "experiment pic-to-pic" thing

-Focus on Highlights, pretty much food tends to be "glistening" somehow, like being clear candy or an oily burger, grains of salt reflecting bits of light, and generally having rim lights help give it focus, sometimes without needing much detail.

-When painting food, start as close to gray as possible with your color palette, make it muddy and desaturated, its better to do it this way because rather than tweaking individual colors, it works better to add a layer in Overlay mode at the end, and blast it with more saturated colors, usually orange. if you do this with an initial saturated palette, the result might look neon and artificial (in my study here, im not super happy with the lettuce looking so bright, it looks a little radioactive) but sometimes it's worth trying it out and experimenting (again in this study, the cheese ended looking oddly white-brown-ish on one side, it could have been more orange-yellow with something like a multiply layer)

-Regardless of if you do painted or cell shaded, its probably a good idea to do a "last pass" and enhance the shading by adding more contrast, though it might depend on the food item, things like sweets and candies benefit from pastel color portrayals and softer contrast, while savoury meats benefit from higher contrast.