Ah, I was afraid to start painting at first, myself. I'm currently a full time freelance artist, and I work with both paint and traditional/digital illustration

Ah, I was afraid to start painting at first, myself. I'm currently a full time freelance artist, and I work with both paint and traditional/digital illustration. I'm also nearly completely self taught. My first piece of advice might seem a little bleh: Just start! Really. Grab some premade canvases from wal-mart or Amazon (nothing super pricey or massive), and a starter set of both acrylic and oil paints. I say both, because both of them work very differently from each other. Acrylic dries much faster, and water washes it right off, but (in my personal experience) oil paint is much better for colors and mixing them up and doing all sorts of crazy neat things. Learning to draw first is nice, yes, but it isn't exactly necessary. I started drawing and moved to painting, but I've met other artists who started with painting and went to drawing with graphite. Art is fluid and unique to each individual, and no one does anything the same way. Just starting out, don't try to imagine a massive, amazing piece your first time. It'll just bum you out. Start off with simple things, like painting a vase, or some scattered objects around your house. You aren't trying to impress anyone yet, so just do simple things to learn how the paint works, how it reacts to different strokes and different brushes. With acrylic, add a touch of water to thin it out and let other colors bleed through. Add a little linseed oil to oil paints to make them thinner and easier to blend. there's all sorts of videos and courses you could take, but honestly, I've never really looked into any of that. They help, yes, but painting is a very personal, emotional thing. In time, you'll find what you like, what you don't like, how you like to hold brushes and use them, etc. There's no right or wrong way to do it. It all sorta boils down to what works for /you/. Though, I do recommend this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNB3XY67Q-I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNB3XY67Q-I The guy is a little boring, but he teaches you how to make ANY color with oil paints. This was a huge thing for me when I was learning. If I can help any more, you can find me around the net by searching my art name, doublePopsicle, and toss me a message wherever! (I draw NSFW furtrash stuff, just an FYI)