Layered and built up enough, the lines and shapes can be used to compose a piece of art. The artist can then manipulate the straightness or curve of that line, or of the edges of the shape, and fill the shapes with solid colours or gradients. Put simply, instead of making pixel-based strokes as if with a brush or pencil, as you would in digital painting, vector artists designate points for the software to draw a line or shape between. Illustrations are also perfectly achievable with vector art. This kind of art is often used on t-shirts, logos and graphic elements - anywhere that a clean finish is desired. Vector art produces a similar end result to digital painting, but with a distinctive cleanliness to its aesthetic. Technology has come pretty far, and digital painting and drawing actually feels pretty good nowadays - I can’t say it feels exactly like traditional drawing and painting, but it is a lot of fun and satisfying in its own right. The artist moves the stylus over the tablet like they would a brush over a canvas the art software on their computer interprets this movement as a digital brushstroke on a digital canvas, formed of pixels. You use a stylus either on something like an ipad, or with a drawing tablet plugged into a computer, in conjunction with some art software like Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Krita or Procreate. Digital Painting is often used for imaginative illustration work, particularly in the fantasy and science fiction genres for games, films and books.ĭigital Painting emulates traditional painting, such as oil, acrylic and watercolor painting. Digital Painting and Drawingĭigital Painting is my personal expertise, and it’s what I concentrate on giving advice about on this website. For example, many artists will model or sculpt in 3d, to create a base image for their digital painting.

There are specializations, and also instances of combining these. These are many of the main disciplines, but this list is not exhaustive. Hopefully these explanations help you figure out the direction for your own digital art and career. If you’re new to it all, it can be confusing to figure out which type of digital art is which, and what the many different kinds of digital artists actually do! ‍

Digital art hasn’t been around very long in the grand scheme of things, but it has already become a giant industry filled with lots of different types of art and artist.

Digital 2d art