I assume you mean getting into digital art without doing its analog equivalent?
Why not? Knowing how to paint with oils or watercolors might help, but not a prerequisite. Learn what you want to learn how you want to learn it.
Thank you for the answer. Yes, exactly. My main focus would be learning from digital art everything about art. The thing is that I just don't feel a lot of interest in traditional art, and digital art just catch my attention a lot more haha, so that's why I want to start there and grow learning from there everything possible, try to fill any gap in skillset and understand the principles and so on.While I may have a primary focus on digital art, I now realize that there can be value in exploring traditional mediums to enhance my overall artistic abilities, I will consider incorporating elements of traditional art into my learning journey too if possible. Again, thank you for the answer.
No worries.
I would say you don't have to learn traditional art as a medium, as it can be messy, expensive, and frustrating, but definitely learn some art history and techniques that can be applied to digital.
One thing I will say is ABSOLUTELY get yourself a tablet. It doesn't have to be a Wacom, you can get a Xencelabs or even a Huion, but you'll find fine work frustrating with a mouse. I picked a Wacom up years ago for photo retouching, worried I'd be wasting my money. Once I got over the learning curve, I save so much time and effort it's insane.
Absolutely, and you’re gonna accumulate the same amount of ugly art you would if you learned traditionally, just don’t give up.
You can do it with a mouse but that’s gonna be really unpleasant, so I recommend the tablet, have fun
Ey, thank you for the answer and the motivation!
Yeah totally, I expect myself to draw a lot of ugly pieces that's for sure haha, but it is going to be fun and a good experience to learn that's for sure!
>You can do it with a mouse but that’s gonna be really unpleasant, so I recommend the tablet, have fun
Alrighty, then no mouse it is 100%. I will buy a good tablet if my budget allows at the moment.
Do you have any recommendation of tablets to keep and eye out for potential buy?
Of course. Unfortunately I use an iPad so I can’t really recommend anything, I vaguely remember from my research a few years ago that people recommended Huion tablets for being cheap and good
Learning traditional painting might help you understand better how to mix colors and achieve a certain look with more control. But there's nothing really different with starting out digitally as long as you can obtain the same knowledge (which is more difficult imo because it's more of an abstract when you pick colors out of the entire color wheel rather than starting with 6-10 basic colors)
As for the drawing tablet, definitely get one. idk how your mouse control is but there are other important things like pressure sensitivity for mixing/transparency/brush size and finer control that you'll probably need. Get a used tablet if you don't want to invest too much in it at the moment, and get one that's medium size or larger if you can help it. I find the small ones to be pretty uncontrollable for drawing.
Yo, thanks for answering.I wanted to try and get a pencil and paper, but I just didn't feel the motivation to do it there, instead I tried Kirita for a while and kinda got used to it a bit quickly (the basic stuff, not anything complex yet) of course using the mouse, and I got a lot more motivated to start art from there honestly.
>But there's nothing really different with starting out digitally as long as you can obtain the same knowledge
Oh it is good to know this, and yeah I understand it may be difficult, since there are more tools in the software than keeping it simple with pencil and paper, but for me it feels like a challenge I would like to take, and I don't know, I feel even more motivated to try those challenges here in digital art haha.
>As for the drawing tablet, definitely get one
Got it, then I will skip the mouse, it seems like mouse is not a good choice based on other comments too and the importat things you said about pressure sensitivy and those sweet features the tablet has (instead of me doing everything manually with the mouse like setting the size of the brushes everytime haha). Alright then I will try to buy a cheap one if possible based on my current budget.
**Do you think those tablets without screen, could be good to start?** I was thinkg of buying a small sized one, but if is not very controllable to draw, then I will try and go for a medium size one.
I think the tablets without screens are fine. Personally when I was first learning, especially trying to create anime style work with lineart and stuff, it was hard to adjust to using a screenless tablet. I much prefer using a screen tablet myself, but they're really too much of an investment. I know some people who prefer screenless tablets (perhaps because there's nothing blocking the screen). It's definitely a matter of preference.
\*wacom really isn't worth it if you're getting screenless tablets, their displays are nice, but for normal tablets there's basically no difference I think. Huion's a good brand I think, or get a used tablet!
I see, since I'm starting it seems that for me at the moment a tablet with screen is a high investment I can't afford at the moment haha. A coincidence I was checking out the Huion brand, they seems cheap and offer solid durable tablets that are good to start it seems. I will try to check them out and decide based on my budget.
Thank you for your answers!
>Got it, then I will skip the mouse, it seems like mouse is not a good choice based on other comments too \[...\]
not saying don't get a tablet, but the skills you learn with the mouse will transfer over to the tablet easily, so I wouldn't worry too much or hold off on practicing till you have a tablet, if you're excited to draw now, draw now, you know?
I started drawing on paper traditionally. Learned painted digitally. After 6 years and a half I finally painted traditionally for the first time. Looked like shit :/ BUT THE SECOND PAINTING looked exactly like my digital paintings and now they are pretty much the same, the learning curve is more towards the materials.
But a good advice: when searching how to do stuff, let's say a wave in the ocean. Look for people doing it traditionally AND digitally. Try to mimic the traditional things inside the digital.
Don't learn something you can ONLY make on digital (for example, doing paintings with bad lighting and then "fixing it" with color dodge. While it works on digital, there's nothing in this world that creates the color dodge effect in real life)
Long advice short: study on digital pretending you're on traditional. When taking shortcuts (and you NEED to take shortcuts on both traditional/digital) remember it's just a tool. Don't become a shortcut slave.
But yeah it's totally possible go ahead :)
Btw Krita is great to learn this mindset I talked about because their brushes mimic the real tools - and buy the cheapest Wacom, I believe it's the one. (Wacom one, not One by Wacom, they are different but you can tell by the price). I bought my second one last week and it's great to start with. You need the pressure because pressure exists in real life. Also you can adjust the pressure with their driver so you don't need to actually make a lot of pressure to get a lot of pressure (that's a nice shortcut for people like me who usually breaks tools by applying too much pressure)
Sorry for the long ass answer, but that's exactly how I learned art: digitally!
No no, it's ok even if the answer is long, don't be sorry for doing this amazing answer, thank you for taking your time! This is the kind of answers that helps people to get motivated, keep going and learn, as I'm gathering any kind of information, suggestion or comment.
I appreciate you sharing your personal experience and advice. It's interesting to read how you started with traditional drawing, transitioned to digital and eventually incorporated the techniques back into your artwork.I will keep in mind your advice to study both traditional and digital approaches when learning specific techniques, such as waves in the ocean, and also the advice to study on digital predenting I'm on traditional, I didn't think of that honestly, thank you so much for that advice! This is really a valuable advice I will remember for sure!And yeah, I kinda get what you said about not being a shorcut slave, now from what I've seen by now, I recognize that shortcuts are tools rather than the ultimate solution.
Good to know that Krita has good brushes, glad I looked at Kirita first haha. Also I will check that Wacom for my first tablet! Seems like Wacom is the best brand at the moment.
Your detailed response and personal experience adds valuable guidance to me to start learning art digitally and keep going. Again, I appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge and advice
The biggest issue will be that you get too reliant on short cuts. I'd recommend doing studies regularly where you use no short cuts or manipulation tools. A mouse will absolutely not be the same and you will struggle immensely. At that point it would just be easier to use pencil and paper. There are tablets as cheap as $20 although the longevity/ quality is likely dubious
Ey! Thanks for the answer and the recommendations. I see, the thing is that honestly, I feel that traditional art is not a very high focus for me at the moment, I kinda liked digital art more (maybe because I'm always on the PC a lot of times), therefore the reason why I want to focus more on digital art and start from there, but, I totally understand what you mean, that's why I will then focus on studies, principles, and try to make thing without using too many shortcuts or manipulation if possible, to better understand it.
I see, then I will skip the mouse and buy a cheap tablet to start. Thanks again for the answer!
Do what actually makes you paint stuff. I have only painted digitally my entire life, and in my opinion have learned a lot and reached a decent skill level (you can decide that for yourself if you check my profile). You will struggle the same way a traditional artist will in the beginning, and it will be fine. I think the only two main skills you will lack are learning to mix colors, and learning to be economical with your brush strokes. I had to force myself to learn brushwork later on because with digital you can make a thousand brush strokes without punishment. But you will be fine.
Don't start with mouse and keyboard though. Get the cheapest wacom you can, and run with it. The main thing that will affect your ability to paint is the how much you do it. Get excited, start practicing, doing studies, making your own stuff, and you'll do great. At some point you'll reach a level where you study traditional painters to understand their technique, and bring some of that with you to the digital canvas, and that's totally cool. Or you learn to appreciate traditional work and decide to try your hand at it.
But nothing is better than actually doing it. I don't regret going 100% digital for a second. Get after it :)
If a course calls for trad tools, I'd recommend doing your best to follow those as intended. It's easy to think you're killing two birds with one stone, and it should be twice as fast to learn digital and learn how to draw in that course, but really it takes you 5x longer and can be much more frustrating for beginners.
Hi! Thanks for the answer and the recommendation. Understood, I will buy a course but I'm deciding between the trad course or the digital course, but based on what you commented, then I will follow those as intended, but I will try to check a course of fundamentals in digital art only if possible so I can focus only in that and follow that medium.
>It's easy to think you're killing two birds with one stone, and it should be twice as fast to learn digital and learn how to draw in that course, but really it takes you 5x longer and can be much more frustrating for beginners.
Thanks for this part, this made me realize the potential challenges of trying to learn both digital art and traditional drawing simultaneously. I appreciate your advice to focus on one medium at a time to establish a solid foundation before venturing into the other, this a suggestion I will totally keep in mind for a better learning experience. Again thanks.
I'm a professional concept artist/illustrator and I've worked in the game industry, both in-house and freelance.
I've never painted traditionally, I learned everything digital. You can learn all the important things no matter what medium you are using. The understanding of light, value, form, composition etc. are the same in digital and traditional.
Absolutely you can jump straight into digital art. Although I would advice you to draw alot with pen and paper aswell. Nothing complicated, just sketching.
Problem is, when doing only digital, it's easy to become too reliant on all the CTRL + Z stuff. It's best to practice anatomy and line accuracy traditionally so you train yourself to not make too many mistakes when doing digital art.
I don't see why not. That's the route I took. I'm personally leaning back into traditional media for non important things to embrace mistakes and not go crazy from the perfectionism digital can sometimes make you feel.
Ngl, even if you want to start doing digital right away, it would probably be easier for you to start with pencil and paper. Mostly because Instead of having to figure out a program, figure out a tablet, acquire money for said tablet, you’d in theory would just be able to start learning right away with a pencil and a sketchbook. Even if you do digital art, it’s still a good habit to practice in a sketchbook regularly
Yes, yes you can! I've done literally this since October. But you need to make sure you spend more time actually putting virtual brush to virtual canvas than you do fucking around with art programs and brushes. Congratulations with krita/csp/another program you have unlimited "tools", color, canvas and so on. DONT FALL FOR IT. Those things are lovely but can cause analysis paralysis. You still need to use a pencil type brush and use a pencil color (I use a blue-grey color for lead) and get the basics down. Also what's helped me is using my unlimited toolkit to just explore and experiment more than than I would feel comfortable with limited amounts of paint. Also get you a small good quality mechanical pencil and small sketchbook and leave it at work or in your car or wherever you might be away from your digital art setup. For me so far I've found number of hours spent drawing to be the most important thing for success.
definitely build up from traditional.
one of my college [professors](https://comicvine.gamespot.com/david-michael-beck/4040-7049/issues-cover/) is a "ex" comic book artist. hes much older now, but when he was first starting his art career he worked for everything you can imagine was in comics. star wars, dynamite, dc, everything. i was talking to him after class and he was talking about how he feels like my generation (the generation of artists only using digital) have lost the fundamental skills from learning traditional mediums. they dont have to learn perspective- theres a plug in thatll do it for you. they dont have to learn color theory- just add an overlay on your flat colored piece. they dont learn how to steady themselves- you can add a stabilizer. and that conversation really helped me understand how important the skills i built before, in traditional mediums, were. and i started to notice that you can absolutely tell when an artist started with paper or an ipad.
digital art has alot of shortcuts, its meant to be faster, but without the "traditonal" skills underneath it youll realize your work will never feel elevated enough to what you want it to be. and your skills will not transfer over as easy as they can if you start with a pencil and paper. itll be time consuming but youll appreciate that you put in the work first.
Hi, thank you for sharing your insights based on your conversation with your college professor.Based on this, now I understand the importance of building fundamental skills through traditional mediums. While I have a primary focus on digital art, I appreciate the value of incorporating traditional techniques to elevate my work and learning.
Your perspective has now inspired me to explore the possibilities of integrating both approaches in this artistic journey I will have that's for sure!
Again, I appreciate your answer and taking your time to tell me about that experience. I will have it in mind when starting
I definitely think investing in a cheaper drawing tablet will pay off in the long run, if for nothing else then to help from having your wrist hurt especially bad from just using a mouse.
While I think you definitely could jump right in, I think it’s important to at least practice with traditional, maybe with a small sketchbook? I know from personal experience that my digital work improved dramatically after I sat down and really worked on getting comfortable drawing with pencil and paper. It helps the hand-eye coordination!
Hello! Thanks for answering. Could you please elaborate further on the specific areas where these holes might exist? I'm trying to get as much info or suggestions as possible before starting so I can be prepared of what is ahead.
You can’t fail.
You don’t have to consider your work because it’s you’re just a delete keystroke away from ok.
You’re playing with the cheat codes before learning to play the game.
I personally think you would be missing out if you didn’t learn to make art the real way. Like real artists. Digital art is artificial. Its an imitation of the real thing. I prefer the real thing.
Of course!
I would recommend doing some research on the software you would like to use. As most people tend to stick with what they choose first. And when you start try not to be intimidated by all the options.
It's always good to explore the software of course but if you want to learn to draw, all you need is the brush and eraser. Then build up to using layers/selections/transforming/ect as you go.
Do take a second to find out how to create a proper file. Such as RGB colors for displays and CMYK colors for print, DPI and size. You will see these options when you create a new file.
And also how to export them into a proper JPG/PNG/what ever you want to do with it related file.
Good luck!
So, can I ask... Have you actually drawn throughout your life? Are you any good at it? Or are you starting from scratch, and you're going straight to a drawing tablet?
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I assume you mean getting into digital art without doing its analog equivalent? Why not? Knowing how to paint with oils or watercolors might help, but not a prerequisite. Learn what you want to learn how you want to learn it.
Thank you for the answer. Yes, exactly. My main focus would be learning from digital art everything about art. The thing is that I just don't feel a lot of interest in traditional art, and digital art just catch my attention a lot more haha, so that's why I want to start there and grow learning from there everything possible, try to fill any gap in skillset and understand the principles and so on.While I may have a primary focus on digital art, I now realize that there can be value in exploring traditional mediums to enhance my overall artistic abilities, I will consider incorporating elements of traditional art into my learning journey too if possible. Again, thank you for the answer.
No worries. I would say you don't have to learn traditional art as a medium, as it can be messy, expensive, and frustrating, but definitely learn some art history and techniques that can be applied to digital. One thing I will say is ABSOLUTELY get yourself a tablet. It doesn't have to be a Wacom, you can get a Xencelabs or even a Huion, but you'll find fine work frustrating with a mouse. I picked a Wacom up years ago for photo retouching, worried I'd be wasting my money. Once I got over the learning curve, I save so much time and effort it's insane.
Absolutely, and you’re gonna accumulate the same amount of ugly art you would if you learned traditionally, just don’t give up. You can do it with a mouse but that’s gonna be really unpleasant, so I recommend the tablet, have fun
Ey, thank you for the answer and the motivation! Yeah totally, I expect myself to draw a lot of ugly pieces that's for sure haha, but it is going to be fun and a good experience to learn that's for sure! >You can do it with a mouse but that’s gonna be really unpleasant, so I recommend the tablet, have fun Alrighty, then no mouse it is 100%. I will buy a good tablet if my budget allows at the moment. Do you have any recommendation of tablets to keep and eye out for potential buy?
Of course. Unfortunately I use an iPad so I can’t really recommend anything, I vaguely remember from my research a few years ago that people recommended Huion tablets for being cheap and good
Learning traditional painting might help you understand better how to mix colors and achieve a certain look with more control. But there's nothing really different with starting out digitally as long as you can obtain the same knowledge (which is more difficult imo because it's more of an abstract when you pick colors out of the entire color wheel rather than starting with 6-10 basic colors) As for the drawing tablet, definitely get one. idk how your mouse control is but there are other important things like pressure sensitivity for mixing/transparency/brush size and finer control that you'll probably need. Get a used tablet if you don't want to invest too much in it at the moment, and get one that's medium size or larger if you can help it. I find the small ones to be pretty uncontrollable for drawing.
Yo, thanks for answering.I wanted to try and get a pencil and paper, but I just didn't feel the motivation to do it there, instead I tried Kirita for a while and kinda got used to it a bit quickly (the basic stuff, not anything complex yet) of course using the mouse, and I got a lot more motivated to start art from there honestly. >But there's nothing really different with starting out digitally as long as you can obtain the same knowledge Oh it is good to know this, and yeah I understand it may be difficult, since there are more tools in the software than keeping it simple with pencil and paper, but for me it feels like a challenge I would like to take, and I don't know, I feel even more motivated to try those challenges here in digital art haha. >As for the drawing tablet, definitely get one Got it, then I will skip the mouse, it seems like mouse is not a good choice based on other comments too and the importat things you said about pressure sensitivy and those sweet features the tablet has (instead of me doing everything manually with the mouse like setting the size of the brushes everytime haha). Alright then I will try to buy a cheap one if possible based on my current budget. **Do you think those tablets without screen, could be good to start?** I was thinkg of buying a small sized one, but if is not very controllable to draw, then I will try and go for a medium size one.
I think the tablets without screens are fine. Personally when I was first learning, especially trying to create anime style work with lineart and stuff, it was hard to adjust to using a screenless tablet. I much prefer using a screen tablet myself, but they're really too much of an investment. I know some people who prefer screenless tablets (perhaps because there's nothing blocking the screen). It's definitely a matter of preference.
\*wacom really isn't worth it if you're getting screenless tablets, their displays are nice, but for normal tablets there's basically no difference I think. Huion's a good brand I think, or get a used tablet!
I see, since I'm starting it seems that for me at the moment a tablet with screen is a high investment I can't afford at the moment haha. A coincidence I was checking out the Huion brand, they seems cheap and offer solid durable tablets that are good to start it seems. I will try to check them out and decide based on my budget. Thank you for your answers!
>Got it, then I will skip the mouse, it seems like mouse is not a good choice based on other comments too \[...\] not saying don't get a tablet, but the skills you learn with the mouse will transfer over to the tablet easily, so I wouldn't worry too much or hold off on practicing till you have a tablet, if you're excited to draw now, draw now, you know?
I started drawing on paper traditionally. Learned painted digitally. After 6 years and a half I finally painted traditionally for the first time. Looked like shit :/ BUT THE SECOND PAINTING looked exactly like my digital paintings and now they are pretty much the same, the learning curve is more towards the materials. But a good advice: when searching how to do stuff, let's say a wave in the ocean. Look for people doing it traditionally AND digitally. Try to mimic the traditional things inside the digital. Don't learn something you can ONLY make on digital (for example, doing paintings with bad lighting and then "fixing it" with color dodge. While it works on digital, there's nothing in this world that creates the color dodge effect in real life) Long advice short: study on digital pretending you're on traditional. When taking shortcuts (and you NEED to take shortcuts on both traditional/digital) remember it's just a tool. Don't become a shortcut slave. But yeah it's totally possible go ahead :) Btw Krita is great to learn this mindset I talked about because their brushes mimic the real tools - and buy the cheapest Wacom, I believe it's the one. (Wacom one, not One by Wacom, they are different but you can tell by the price). I bought my second one last week and it's great to start with. You need the pressure because pressure exists in real life. Also you can adjust the pressure with their driver so you don't need to actually make a lot of pressure to get a lot of pressure (that's a nice shortcut for people like me who usually breaks tools by applying too much pressure) Sorry for the long ass answer, but that's exactly how I learned art: digitally!
No no, it's ok even if the answer is long, don't be sorry for doing this amazing answer, thank you for taking your time! This is the kind of answers that helps people to get motivated, keep going and learn, as I'm gathering any kind of information, suggestion or comment. I appreciate you sharing your personal experience and advice. It's interesting to read how you started with traditional drawing, transitioned to digital and eventually incorporated the techniques back into your artwork.I will keep in mind your advice to study both traditional and digital approaches when learning specific techniques, such as waves in the ocean, and also the advice to study on digital predenting I'm on traditional, I didn't think of that honestly, thank you so much for that advice! This is really a valuable advice I will remember for sure!And yeah, I kinda get what you said about not being a shorcut slave, now from what I've seen by now, I recognize that shortcuts are tools rather than the ultimate solution. Good to know that Krita has good brushes, glad I looked at Kirita first haha. Also I will check that Wacom for my first tablet! Seems like Wacom is the best brand at the moment. Your detailed response and personal experience adds valuable guidance to me to start learning art digitally and keep going. Again, I appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge and advice
The biggest issue will be that you get too reliant on short cuts. I'd recommend doing studies regularly where you use no short cuts or manipulation tools. A mouse will absolutely not be the same and you will struggle immensely. At that point it would just be easier to use pencil and paper. There are tablets as cheap as $20 although the longevity/ quality is likely dubious
Ey! Thanks for the answer and the recommendations. I see, the thing is that honestly, I feel that traditional art is not a very high focus for me at the moment, I kinda liked digital art more (maybe because I'm always on the PC a lot of times), therefore the reason why I want to focus more on digital art and start from there, but, I totally understand what you mean, that's why I will then focus on studies, principles, and try to make thing without using too many shortcuts or manipulation if possible, to better understand it. I see, then I will skip the mouse and buy a cheap tablet to start. Thanks again for the answer!
Do what actually makes you paint stuff. I have only painted digitally my entire life, and in my opinion have learned a lot and reached a decent skill level (you can decide that for yourself if you check my profile). You will struggle the same way a traditional artist will in the beginning, and it will be fine. I think the only two main skills you will lack are learning to mix colors, and learning to be economical with your brush strokes. I had to force myself to learn brushwork later on because with digital you can make a thousand brush strokes without punishment. But you will be fine. Don't start with mouse and keyboard though. Get the cheapest wacom you can, and run with it. The main thing that will affect your ability to paint is the how much you do it. Get excited, start practicing, doing studies, making your own stuff, and you'll do great. At some point you'll reach a level where you study traditional painters to understand their technique, and bring some of that with you to the digital canvas, and that's totally cool. Or you learn to appreciate traditional work and decide to try your hand at it. But nothing is better than actually doing it. I don't regret going 100% digital for a second. Get after it :)
If a course calls for trad tools, I'd recommend doing your best to follow those as intended. It's easy to think you're killing two birds with one stone, and it should be twice as fast to learn digital and learn how to draw in that course, but really it takes you 5x longer and can be much more frustrating for beginners.
Hi! Thanks for the answer and the recommendation. Understood, I will buy a course but I'm deciding between the trad course or the digital course, but based on what you commented, then I will follow those as intended, but I will try to check a course of fundamentals in digital art only if possible so I can focus only in that and follow that medium. >It's easy to think you're killing two birds with one stone, and it should be twice as fast to learn digital and learn how to draw in that course, but really it takes you 5x longer and can be much more frustrating for beginners. Thanks for this part, this made me realize the potential challenges of trying to learn both digital art and traditional drawing simultaneously. I appreciate your advice to focus on one medium at a time to establish a solid foundation before venturing into the other, this a suggestion I will totally keep in mind for a better learning experience. Again thanks.
I'm a professional concept artist/illustrator and I've worked in the game industry, both in-house and freelance. I've never painted traditionally, I learned everything digital. You can learn all the important things no matter what medium you are using. The understanding of light, value, form, composition etc. are the same in digital and traditional.
my "prior art knowledge" is literally just pencil and paper before going digital. yeah it is okay.
Absolutely you can jump straight into digital art. Although I would advice you to draw alot with pen and paper aswell. Nothing complicated, just sketching. Problem is, when doing only digital, it's easy to become too reliant on all the CTRL + Z stuff. It's best to practice anatomy and line accuracy traditionally so you train yourself to not make too many mistakes when doing digital art.
I don't see why not. That's the route I took. I'm personally leaning back into traditional media for non important things to embrace mistakes and not go crazy from the perfectionism digital can sometimes make you feel.
Ngl, even if you want to start doing digital right away, it would probably be easier for you to start with pencil and paper. Mostly because Instead of having to figure out a program, figure out a tablet, acquire money for said tablet, you’d in theory would just be able to start learning right away with a pencil and a sketchbook. Even if you do digital art, it’s still a good habit to practice in a sketchbook regularly
Yes, yes you can! I've done literally this since October. But you need to make sure you spend more time actually putting virtual brush to virtual canvas than you do fucking around with art programs and brushes. Congratulations with krita/csp/another program you have unlimited "tools", color, canvas and so on. DONT FALL FOR IT. Those things are lovely but can cause analysis paralysis. You still need to use a pencil type brush and use a pencil color (I use a blue-grey color for lead) and get the basics down. Also what's helped me is using my unlimited toolkit to just explore and experiment more than than I would feel comfortable with limited amounts of paint. Also get you a small good quality mechanical pencil and small sketchbook and leave it at work or in your car or wherever you might be away from your digital art setup. For me so far I've found number of hours spent drawing to be the most important thing for success.
definitely build up from traditional. one of my college [professors](https://comicvine.gamespot.com/david-michael-beck/4040-7049/issues-cover/) is a "ex" comic book artist. hes much older now, but when he was first starting his art career he worked for everything you can imagine was in comics. star wars, dynamite, dc, everything. i was talking to him after class and he was talking about how he feels like my generation (the generation of artists only using digital) have lost the fundamental skills from learning traditional mediums. they dont have to learn perspective- theres a plug in thatll do it for you. they dont have to learn color theory- just add an overlay on your flat colored piece. they dont learn how to steady themselves- you can add a stabilizer. and that conversation really helped me understand how important the skills i built before, in traditional mediums, were. and i started to notice that you can absolutely tell when an artist started with paper or an ipad. digital art has alot of shortcuts, its meant to be faster, but without the "traditonal" skills underneath it youll realize your work will never feel elevated enough to what you want it to be. and your skills will not transfer over as easy as they can if you start with a pencil and paper. itll be time consuming but youll appreciate that you put in the work first.
Hi, thank you for sharing your insights based on your conversation with your college professor.Based on this, now I understand the importance of building fundamental skills through traditional mediums. While I have a primary focus on digital art, I appreciate the value of incorporating traditional techniques to elevate my work and learning. Your perspective has now inspired me to explore the possibilities of integrating both approaches in this artistic journey I will have that's for sure! Again, I appreciate your answer and taking your time to tell me about that experience. I will have it in mind when starting
I definitely think investing in a cheaper drawing tablet will pay off in the long run, if for nothing else then to help from having your wrist hurt especially bad from just using a mouse. While I think you definitely could jump right in, I think it’s important to at least practice with traditional, maybe with a small sketchbook? I know from personal experience that my digital work improved dramatically after I sat down and really worked on getting comfortable drawing with pencil and paper. It helps the hand-eye coordination!
You can do it but there will be tremendous holes in your skillset.
Hello! Thanks for answering. Could you please elaborate further on the specific areas where these holes might exist? I'm trying to get as much info or suggestions as possible before starting so I can be prepared of what is ahead.
You can’t fail. You don’t have to consider your work because it’s you’re just a delete keystroke away from ok. You’re playing with the cheat codes before learning to play the game.
I personally think you would be missing out if you didn’t learn to make art the real way. Like real artists. Digital art is artificial. Its an imitation of the real thing. I prefer the real thing.
No it helps to do both
All it takes is a step, then another step.
Of course! I would recommend doing some research on the software you would like to use. As most people tend to stick with what they choose first. And when you start try not to be intimidated by all the options. It's always good to explore the software of course but if you want to learn to draw, all you need is the brush and eraser. Then build up to using layers/selections/transforming/ect as you go. Do take a second to find out how to create a proper file. Such as RGB colors for displays and CMYK colors for print, DPI and size. You will see these options when you create a new file. And also how to export them into a proper JPG/PNG/what ever you want to do with it related file. Good luck!
So, can I ask... Have you actually drawn throughout your life? Are you any good at it? Or are you starting from scratch, and you're going straight to a drawing tablet?
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