I have decided to share my thoughts on the differences between the digital art scene sweeping the globe and the more traditional academic art scene. If you have been doing art your whole life, but have only meddled in the digital scene then you are missing out on some really sweet stuff (Referencing the Anime & Manga craze sweeping the United States and the internet). Now, I have absolutely nothing against Anime or Manga, because I even dabble in it here and there. Hell, Anime and Manga are what got me interested in art, though I was already drawing stuff beforehand.

When I hit 12 I became serious about developing my drawing skill. Therefore, I began to look at drawing tutorials online and read books in the subject. At one point, I even got stuck in a rut drawing nothing but Anime and Manga stuff (Bad memories indeed). When I hit 15 I realized that I needed to expand my horizon from just Anime and Manga. I took that opportunity to buy some real anatomy books to learn from (The best decision I ever made).

You may ask “what is your point?” Well let me explain, when I turned 18 I started going to a community college after I had moved to Texas. I began by taking Design I. Next I took Drawing I and et cetera. Finally, I got to take the life drawing courses. I am very thankful that I was able to get such good professors in the design and drawing courses. The courses that helped the most were Drawing I, Drawing II, Life Drawing I, Life Drawing II, and Painting I. I will say this and only this, you damn well better take drawing and life drawing if you want to really understand the basic principles behind the following: rendering technique, hatching technique, perspective, light and shade (The most important thing besides perspective), and the human anatomy (Key if you are focusing in the human and character area).

Now, let me explain the differences between academic and digital art scene. In the academic world most of the professors you will encounter are predetermined to make you a fine artist, even if that is not what you are going for. However, if you do take the courses I mentioned you will probably be asked to write papers on various artist in history. In doing so, you will learn a great deal about what it was like during the renaissance and such. Basically, the academic world has very different standards especially the painting academic world. Like my Painting I teacher said, “Art comes from art.” That is why you will probably encounter professors who introduce people you have never heard of in the academic and fine art world, and that goes for people that do nothing but digital art and only look at digital art. I will tell you this: You are missing out on a lot of great artist in the contemporary art scene, photo realist scene, life drawing scene, and other various fine arts, if you look only at digital art, Anime, and Manga. Personally, I do not care for the abstract scene in fine arts, since anyone with a brain can throw paint on a canvas ;P.

In the digital realm of art, most things are more laid back and relaxed. You can get away with a lot crappy art and yet still get people that love it (Note: Deviantart in particular). In the realm of fine arts, you would be ridiculed beyond belief with harsh and honest critiques that note all your mistakes and any corrections you should make to improve. The critiques are what help you improve the most compared to stuff like: “Great”, “Fabulous”, and “Nicely Done”. Take the critiques that you encounter and learn from them and your mistakes to help you improve. If you really want honest critiques for digital art like you would get in traditional art, then I would recommend visiting the following sites: gfxartist.com, epilogue, and sijun forums for speed paints. Many professional artists visit the sijun forums and concept.org forums. If you are into the 3D world then I would recommend going to cgtalk.com

Digital art does have several key advantages over traditional. One, it is cheaper in the long run, because you can buy the software once and it will last you for years. Two, digital art can be produced far quicker than most traditional mediums. Three, digital art is easier to publish online and get noticed. Finally, there are just several advantages over traditional such as undo, redo, saving multiple times in iterations, and easier to produce certain effects that usually would takes years of practice to produce in traditional mediums.

Even though digital is easier to produce, I dare you to try and sell it for thousands of dollars. By thousands I do not mean one thousand to five thousand, but over thirty thousand. If you asked that much for digital art most people would be like, “You’re insane!” Nevertheless, in traditional it is common to receive commissions that can be worth over thirty thousand, especially if you are really good at what you do.

Traditional does have its advantages such as anything that you learn from traditional can also be easily translated into digital form. Even with the digital program such as Painter, you just can’t get the true traditional look of a real painting. Sure, Painter has many brushes that mimic real life stuff, and yes I would say they do it very well, but you just can’t mimic the true traditional brush strokes of oil or acrylic as naturally in digital form. One part that is very hard to do in digital, compared to oil or acrylic, is the glazing effects that you can accomplish with oil or acrylic. You have the overlay feature in programs such as Photoshop and Painter, but it doesn’t even come close to how glazing really works.

In closing, it really is up to the artist on what they want to get from art and how much they want to improve. Even if you only do digital art, I still would recommend you take a look into the traditional art scene, and you may just find some artists that you never knew about but really like.