For those who think that you don't have to be able to draw to create digital art....
it's not true in the slightest. Drawing tablets and computers can be used as tools to draw, just like a pencil and a piece of paper. If you do not know what to do with them, they are useless. Artists who may be good with traditional media could struggle with digital work initially. I know I certainly did. It took me a while to get used to my drawing tablet. Even until today, I am learning new things. I will take you through a bit of my personal art history to prove my point.
This is a picture of a drawing I did for my uncle when I was in high school in 2014. I had gotten pretty good with colored pencil, and I was really proud of this drawing. I still like it today. This shows that I had a handle on traditional drawing. But digital art on the other hand...
This is a digital drawing I did in the same year. Yeah, so it’s terrible. The characters are stiff, the drawing is flat, and just really uninspired, and there are proportion issues as well. My art skills did not translate to digital media. I had a lot of practice to do in order to get better.
I did this the next year in 2015. It's clear that I have grown a lot. I am paying more attention to light and form, but there are still issues. The hair is not rendered well, and the face is oddly shaped. The suit looks airbrushed. I didn't sculpt it the same way I sculpted the face, so there is a disconnection there. Let's move on to 2016.
This is probably the most successful drawing I did in 2016. The face is nice, and the textures work well in this piece. It has dimension, and the flatness of the background actually compliments the figure. I had come a long way, but of course, it's not perfect. Her jaw is a little skewed, and I relied on line a little too much in this drawing. And I should have lined the eyebrows. It doesn't make sense for me to have taken those lines away, since the drawing is line heavy anyway. Now 2017...
This is one of the best drawings I have done this year. I am really proud of the hand in this piece. It's painterly and shaped well by the color and light. I still need to work on adding dimension in my cast shadows and getting rid of lines completely, but that will come with more practice and taking risks. My point is that I did not get to how I draw digitally in 2017 over night. It took a lot of practice. What I learned in my traditional art, I had to learn how to address those things with a drawing tablet, and it took some getting used to.
If anyone ever tells you that you don't have to be able to draw to create successful digital art, you tell them that is not true at all! I'm sure you can show them with the evolution of your art.
Thanks!
