TRADITIONAL VS. DIGITAL ART

(Note: I want to firstly apologize for the lack of updates here over the last while; I was going through some family crisis, and my life seemed like it had gone to shit. Couple that with my lack of will/energy, and you get, well, not a lot of posts. So thanks for sticking with me.)

I am a very fortunate person; a friend recently purchased me a WACOM tablet, and urged me to get CLIP STUDIO PAINT EX, as it was on sale. Thisnis my first time having t to do digital art in ten years (apart from some phone apps, which were surprisingly decent). 

I want to talk a little bit about what I have discovered since getting these tools.

1. Coloring is super fun. I haven't had access to a lot of coloring methods in a while, apart from colored pencils, which are super Time-consuming and limiting. While digital coloring is still time-consuming, itself, t's really nice to be able to watch a piece come alive in a way that you haven't experienced in a very long time. Of course, it adds another layer of difficulty, and sometimes I end up doing less thorough detailing, because I know a color will make up for a textured shadow - still, this is all part of the (learning) process. It's so fun!

2. Layering is...it's so useful. I am a pretty indecisive artist a lot of the time, and I don't like to have to just keep erasing over and over until I figure a thing out. Certain things are more difficult to figure out than others in a given drawing; for instance, I am often at a loss as to what type of hairstyle to give a character. So instead of sitting and just IMAGINING what a hair style would look like, I can set up multiple layers and cover my bases!

This was the beginning of a recent piece I did. I started with the body and a blank head, which I knew I could then manipulate in any way I wanted. 

From here, I set up another layer and gave her a wind-blown look. Unfortunately, I didn't like how big the hair was, nor how I had sketched it with the wind. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Next, I thought, "Well, since she's wearing a t-shirt that says '#1 BAD BOI,' why not give her some kinda butch haircut?" While I do think it's cute, it just didn't hit me the way I wanted. 

In my frustration with my simply making-up hairstyles, I took to the internet to find a good woman's look. I came across a cool one, and drew it as best I could. 

Yeah, that's like a v simple look, but I just liked how it fell across her face. I then inked the thing up!

I was just gonna have this be like a floating half-girl with a white background, which sounded appealing enough, but I added a blue gradient behind her which looked like water, and, based on how I had drawn and colored her hair, it looked wet. Essentially, I drew her in some (surisingly non-reflective) water, and then threw some mountains behind her to give her setting more umph, and now she's just a total babe hanging out in the water off some iand while wearing a #1 BAD BOI tee.

3. The difference in page-usage (both in terms of size and in terms of amount of pages used) is substantial. Because the size of my screen does not change even when the settings of the page change, it's really hard for me to reconfigure my brain to recognize how to reinterpret size; I almost always start out with the same head size, and so, even is my canvas is HUGE, I still end up not being able to fit a whole body - even when I made totally sure that increase the canvas size from the last new page opened. Thankfully, I kinda figured out how to work with that today. Instead of just being like, "Wow, what a shame, I guess I'll just never draw full body stuff again," I just draw as much as I can and then go edit the page and make it taller. It's kinda dumb that I have to do that, but whatevs, ya know? You gotta do wutchu gotta do! (Kinda worried about comic-size pages, where I won't be able to change the size because the parameters are very important)

The second part of number 3 is kind of frustrating, though, again, because of me, and not because of the program. When I am working traditionally, if I start going page-after-page and getting nowhere, I'll either give up, or settle on a random drawing and end up churning out SOMETHING decent (I hope), therefore keeping myself from using too much paper. Since the file sizes are not super intense, I can kinda just open a new page anytime I am sick of what I am working on, or anytime I find that something is not working. I think this actually kinda limits productivity. Instead of being like, "Oh dear God, this paper costs a lot of money," I am like, "Who cares, I have all the space in the world!" And so on any given day, anytime I find myself annoyed with something, I'll just KEEP OPENING NEW FILES, and I sometimes won't produce anything worthwhile, even after working for hours. I know that's something for which I just have to be more disciplined, but, ya know, it's still a thing.

4. I think I am putting less emphasis on detailing, and more on boldness. This isn't so much an issue as just an observation on what different tools allow you to do. BUT, I really want to make sure I DO NOT stop worling hard  detail, since that's just part of my entire aesthetic, and it's what I care A LOT about.

Anyway, tho, I am having so much fun drawing in this tablet, and using this program. I definitely need to push myself out of my comfort zone, tho - I know I am the type of person who hust sticks with the first thing that even kinda works - and so even if there's a better and/or more creative approach to accomplishing something, I might not do it if I know how to do it in any other way. There are also so MANY things I can do that I often don't even know where to start! Like, color choices; I am the type of person who has mostly worked in black and white, and has therefore not considered color theory much, nor how to utilize said theory in practice. I tend to stick with just the natural look of things, and, since I haven't spent hella time drawing setting, I don't consider often how one's surroundings affects their look. Whatevs. It's something I'll work on. And like, considering the artists I really like, I feel like my influences are bold enough for me to at least not be super uncreative with choices (like sarah Horrocks uses incredible colors in her stuff, not usually true to life, but certainly wild and engaging, and those comics are my favorites right now, and so I imagine I'll have that on the brain when I actually try to color a comic page). 

So yeah! This shit's super exciting! I finished a new drawing today, which I will hopefully have up for y'all as soon as I can get on some WIFI (and I'll include some process shots, too!)! Again, thanks for sticking around! Hope y'all are doing well. :)