Let's copy me some styles!

One of the main things I really wanted to get at least slightly, kinda, sort of, a little bit competent at was rendering. I've done a bit in the past but it's always come out quite bright and very cartoon like. I wanted to have a look around and see how the big boys are doing it. And no, I won't be saying "big boys" again.
I found a couple of pieces, well pretty much several websites full, of work I loved and because i'm a sharer let you in one it.

A very different take on 'Robocop' here, at a glance this looks so detailed but if you look closer it's very sketchy and probably took around half an hour. He's using large brushstrokes but with shading in all the right places. And again. there's only a handful of colours here, It's almost just shaded with blue but it looks perfect. Gunna have to get a bit rougher with my colouring for more effect perhaps.

Here we've got some semi-detailed sketches but looks how much depth is added just by using a couple of tones to separate the different areas. Sean Galloway often uses a similar technique and i think I may give it a bash myself.

 I'm not that drawn in by the subject matter of this, little but too "destroy the ring" for me but that speaks for the rendering. Again as soon as you focus on the robe you can pick out almost every simple stroke but the colours are so complementary that it takes a while to hit you. Oh yeah and the background is ace, the sketched figures in the background would probably take me around 3 days.
So basically i'm gunna try and loosen up a bit for my final piece and hopefully avoid that 'happy american' feel.