Before I started with digital art, I was a traditional artist. Most digital artists I know started out as traditional artists too. Because of that a lot of them are also very good traditional artists and for a long time I rarely saw it the other way around i.e digital artist that have little experience with traditional or none at all.
In recent years I saw this changing a bit. Probably because of tablets and drawing devices being more available and digital art being more accepted as actual art than 10 years ago when I was starting the transition from traditional to digital.
Artists still advise beginners to start with traditional, sometimes for the wrong reasons i find, but still I see more and more artist that start digital and have only little connection to traditional art.
I wonder how you got into it? Did you start out as a traditional artist and then transitioned to digital, or jumped right into the digital sphere? What was the reason you decided to mainly do digital art. Do you still do traditional sometimes?
As I already mentioned I started traditionally. Markers were my main medium at the time. My first contact with digital art was in web-design class, were we had a photo editing course in PaintShop Pro 6. I was curious if I could also draw digitally. Surely it would be easier (boy was I wrong). I had a hard time finding a affordable graphics tablet but eventually did my first baby steps in digital drawing and painting. For a long time I did sketching and line art traditionally and colored it on the computer. Space and money constrains further pushed me into digital and away from ink, paint and markers. After all a set of Copic markers costs 250 bucks, that’s already halfway to a decent tablet, right? And I don’t have to get a new tablet after every few months. But I also liked the bright colors you can have digitally, the level of detail you can put into it, and that it is a little more forgiving, which is nice when you are still a beginner. Nowadays my workflow is completely digital. I rarely do any traditional works though I still have a sketchbook to note ideas when I’m on the go. I don’t have any mobile device I can digitally paint on.
Well that’s how I got into it. How about you? :3
That’s an interesting topic for me, as I’m the one with no traditional background. Being a kid, I was obsessed with video games (now I realize I was more into the worlds created there, than the games themselves, but it’s not something I could realize back then), which led to random childish drawings and having fun in MSpaint. I was very lucky to come across some GIMP tutorials, and to get my first bamboo tablet from my family, as they realized I may need it (to that point I had no idea that the thing even exists). Kind of accidentally I ended up being Digital Painting freak.
Because it is stated so much, that you have to know traditional techniques as well, at some point I started learning how to sketch, which was a bit of a life-changer for me, as I realized that you actually have to practice regularly, instead to jumping straight into illustrations when you feel like drawing (which happens way, way too rarely).
After 2 or 3 years I abandoned traditional sketching, as now I use digital for practice too. I feel a big external pressure to start it again, but somehow digital medium feels more comfortable for me, and still makes it possible for me to progress at good pace. I know I will need to learn traditional at some point though.
Well to do art traditionally, for example comics, you need a proper drafting table, you need a few really nice expensive brushes, good quality black ink, all kinds of rulers, a good quality overhead lamp, quality paper, lots of it, plus tracing paper, special rubbers, pencils, knives…basically a room or space to put yourself and all this into, and if you happen to bump the ink bottle at some last crucial stage of the inking, you can watch your whole page get drowned in black.
Digital art at first represented one thing, getting rid of all that stuff and not get my hands dirty or cut up.
My main problem with digital art is that I had to learn to draw on a tablet while looking up at a screen, that’s a very different connection to drawing directly onto paper. However I also feel that a little remove of that direct control can be interesting, I will probably always be fighting that in some way, even as I get more used to it, it can never really be the same as on paper, but you can try, retry, fix and erase in ways that paper won’t allow. That for me is the trade off.
I only use note books to scribble ideas and sketches, and then scan them into the computer, and these will be very rough because I will complete them in digital form. I love having a whole studio in a program like Krita and a small tablet as my work desk, I know I’ve sold my soul to the devil but I’m too old to care.
Lucky you. I had to drive around the town from IT store to IT store to even find someone who knew what a graphics tablet or digitizer tablet even is. And my parents didn’t care either. Although they never hindered me on purpose they also didn’t support me since “artist isn’t a real job”.
It probably doesn’t hurt but for the most part I think, nowadays you can safely skip the traditional part, well unless you want to draw traditionally at some point. A lot of traditional techniques (not all unfortunately) can also be emulated digitally so in theory you could learn them on your device. I remember when I switched to digital, that’s what I did at first because it was all I knew. Only after abandoning the Idea that digital should work like traditional, then I really went ahead with digital painting.
Yes, this and the space. I only had basically nine square meters of space for all my art stuff, it was just not enough to store all the things you need and create over time. Although I like getting my hands dirty some times.
It’s funny. Now after getting a screen tablet recently, I miss the indirectness a little. Now a quarter of my screen is always covered by pen, hand and arm whereas I could always see the whole image at all time when I was using my old tablet. You have the same when drawing traditionally of course but only recently when switching back to that same kind of working with the screen tablet it registered in my brain as a drawback.
I started as a traditional artist like most people.
My first foray into digital art was making artworks with a mouse in an online video game called Platform Racing 2 and Platform Racing 3! In those games, you designed platformer levels that people race trough!
With a crude set of tools, you could paint backgrounds and artwork along the level to make them look nice! In Platform Racing 3 you could even paint the tiles you use to build levels! I spent a lot of time, especially in Platform Racing 3, painstakingly painting blocks and artwork for my levels with a low opacity circle brush with a mouse! I was awarded “Level Of The Day” for a level where I drew a lot of sea-life for an ocean-themed level. Young me was so proud! Platform Racing 3 got shut down in 2015, and I wish I had recorded my levels while they were up, since they were my first real digital artworks!
When I was younger I saw digital art as a way to make things in the games I played. I think the game Spore is one of the reasons I love digital sculpting, as I now enjoy sculpting creatures, just like I did in that game. (Though some may say you can’t call Spore, sculpting).
It was later I got a drawing tablet, which I got mostly to color my traditionally inked artworks. At that time I thought that was when I started doing digital art! But in reality, I had been doing digital art for a long time!
It’s true. People often don’t realize that digital art is so much more than just painting and drawing. In my country games for example were not considered an artform for a long time. Nowadays we have awards for them too, just like for music or paintings.
BTW I liked a similar game but forgot the name. In that game you had to draw lines to guide and propel a sled.
I was young, then I tried to paint like those pretty girls on the internet are painted (I didn’t know about anime back then, but it was anime ) and I was copying bigger pictures or photos square by square from a printed out image with a grid. Skip a lot of years, I was only drawing on margins, but still being super proud of those early copied pictures. I researched stuff a bit and decided to ask for a tablet for Christmas and start to use Krita (easy, just googled “free open source painting” and got it). I got the tablet. It stayed in a drawer for two years. Then I had very long vacations and decided to try learn how to do art properly, which apparently meant watching Borodante’s videos (he had 10k subscribers at that time). Then I tried to paint, because I played Life is Strange and it was beautiful. It didn’t really work, but here I am now Still trying.
That’s interesting. I think my country (Norway) was kinda early in trying to consider games as an art form. Our government uses a lot of money to fund game developers and the game developer scene and wants Norway’s video game presence to grow bigger. What country are you from if I may ask?
Oh yeah, that’s Line Rider right? A version of Line Rider was hosted on the same site as Platform Racing 3! That was also a fun game!
A bit of offtop, but it’s Lounge topic anyway - have you played LiS2 already? I just played the first episode, but I hope to finish it soon. I think about making a Let’s play version on Youtube… (starting with the first one again). And then maybe a rant version for BtS (not all of it deserves to be ranted about, just some parts, but would play all of it if at all).
Shit yes, I loved that game. I spend so much time playing it while I was sitting in CS and programming class x3.
Oh, Norway is great. I always admired them for their progressive politics and policies and that it’s always cold there. I just hate warmth. Summer is my least favorite season. I hate to admit it but I live in Germany. Do you take immigrants? Asking for a friend x3.
I have bought LiS2, but haven’t gotten around to play it yet. Planning on playing it when summer comes and I get a lot of free time (maybe earlier if I need something charming to play) Really liked LiS1 and BtS, so I have high hopes for Lis2, I really hope it lives up to it’s name! Almost a bit nervous to play it since I loved the first one so much, and I feel my hopes naturally are too high!
A rant version sound fun! Did you like the first part?
Yeah! We actually get a good amount of immigrants from Germany! Germany is placed 8th in amounts of immigrants in Norway according to a 2018 statistics site!
I have been to Germany once, it’s a beautiful country!
I know this went way off-topic, but you should see our prisons! “Bastøy Prison” is an island where some of the worst criminals of Norway can walk around as they please. There are no bars or walls! They can ride bikes around the island, live like ordinary people, they have a library, live in houses, have their own sound recording studio, make their own food and so on.
Looks like this:
Very offtopic and controversial… but I’ve heard this quote that the point of prisons isn’t to punish or to scare people off from doing illegal stuff, but to make sure the rest of the society is safe. So basically you pay to keep criminals away Not that bad of a concept.
Also I did like LiS1, some parts of BtS and I quite liked episode 1 from LiS2, although I have a harder time to get into issues presented there because of the cultural difference I believe. Not that I don’t think those are issues; more the other way around, I can’'t comprehend that a civilized society still lets this happen.
Yeah, and also it’s more of a rehab thing. They get treated with respect and is helped to become good citizens. When the prisoners are released, almost none of them return to Crime! Which is very unique and kinda mind blowing!
Nice, I am excited to play LiS2! But yeah, from the early gameplay they showed it does seem a bit harder to grasp onto than LiS1
This sounds like the Prison where Tom Paris is an inmate in the first episode of Star Trek Voyager. I guess it’s the year 2371 in Norway already. At least in some aspects x3.
I started out as a traditional artist, and I started out at a very young age thanks to my older sisters being prolific artists themselves. Digital art intrigued me at a young age but I didn’t really get into it to much until around 2013 when I got into game creation.
I played around with both high-res and pixel art for my games. 2016 was when I really got into the swing of things, I started using Blender for 3d modeling at this time, and krita for my 2d art. Overall I improved a ton in the last few years doing both of those.
I still do plenty of traditional art with my handy-dandy sketchbook and pencil. And Watercolor occasionally too.
Pokemon is what got me into drawing and digital art.
I was 12 around the time Pokemon Black and White was released and i was obsessed with it, like, a lot. I think I had 300 hours played in total. Kid me saw a ton of fanarts when looking my favorite pokemon on google images and I wanted to do the same. I started making poorly drawn pokemons on Paint, then on Corel Paint Pro (wich i had absolutely no idea on how to use it, because I was a dumb kid).
Then my grandpa gave me a tablet and 8 years later Art is my primary activity and I plan on becoming a professional artist
I was awarded “Level Of The Day” for a level where I drew a lot of sea-life for an ocean-themed level. Young me was so proud! Platform Racing 3 got shut down in 2015, and I wish I had recorded my levels while they were up, since they were my first real digital artworks!
) and I was copying bigger pictures or photos square by square from a printed out image with a grid. Skip a lot of years, I was only drawing on margins, but still being super proud of those early copied pictures. I researched stuff a bit and decided to ask for a tablet for Christmas and start to use Krita (easy, just googled “free open source painting” and got it). I got the tablet. It stayed in a drawer for two years. Then I had very long vacations and decided to try learn how to do art properly, which apparently meant watching Borodante’s videos (he had 10k subscribers at that time). Then I tried to paint, because I played Life is Strange and it was beautiful. It didn’t really work, but here I am now 
Still trying.
A version of Line Rider was hosted on the same site as Platform Racing 3! That was also a fun game!
(not all of it deserves to be ranted about, just some parts, but would play all of it if at all).
Almost a bit nervous to play it since I loved the first one so much, and I feel my hopes naturally are too high!
“Bastøy Prison” is an island where some of the worst criminals of Norway can walk around as they please. There are no bars or walls! They can ride bikes around the island, live like ordinary people, they have a library, live in houses, have their own sound recording studio, make their own food and so on.
