What is digital painting? My thoughts on the matter..
Photography by Kent Arild Haga
Editing & Painting by me, Nina Arctander
I often find myself in the situation of defending my chosen way of working. Why?
Well, it is a common misunderstanding that digital painting is exactly like traditional painting, only in a virtual space. The canvas is virtual, the brush is virtual and the paint is virtual, yes, that is true, but many digital painters work with more than just virtual paint. There are those who prefer to only use their own custom brush sets and mix their colours from scratch in a virtual palette, because if you don´t you are “cheating”… That is bullshit! Why?
Well, I honestly believe that in the world of art making, as long as you don´t steal another mans work, there is nothing that is called cheating! As an artist and illustrator my goal is to produce artwork for my clients with the best quality possible within the amount of time given, and that means that I have to use every trick in the book to make that happen. Most digital painters work with photography in some way or the other. Some use it as resource material, some use texture stock to make custom brushes, some use it as a base and paint on top of it and some uses bits and pieces of many pictures to create an entire new world! We cut and mix and blend and paint, and we may even extract colours from a photography with a special atmosphere in it and create a colour theme and palette from that. We adjust contrasts and lighting by pressing the right button on our computers, and we work in layers because it makes editing (and regretting things:P) easier. IT IS NOT CHEATING, IT IS A TECHNIQUE!
I think people get confused by the term “Digital Painting” because it suggests that it is all in fact “painted”, but it really is a mix of painting, drawing, editing and photo manipulation. And it should not be compared so harshly to traditional painting because it is two very very very VERY very (very) different things!
Remember, this is my point of views, you may not agree and that is totally up to you. Feel free to let me know what you think about this subject;)
The image on top is my latest commission and is a good example of what a digital painting can be like. The photographer hired me to give his photography some ooomph and I went a little crazy because I enjoyed it so much^^
