8 hours ago
@ArtLoader : Hey man, thank you and welcome back as well. I hope you are all good!
I would say, undoubtedly traditional has hugely improved my understanding and intent of what aesthetic choices I want for a digital painting or drawing, as well as just vastly improving my core technical skills and understanding the importance of mark-making. It has also given me workflows to use and adapt that are very useful. It also helped me understand colour theory much better. You can't just wing it with colour mixing in oils for example and expect to achieve specific results easily, whereas in digi you simply pick a colour/value and can infinitely tweak and overlay and creep up until you get things "right".
Trad is also more fun inherently for me due to the visceral nature of it, and the feedback you get back from the canvas or page. I think digital allows a lot of shortcuts and workflows that you could never really emulate in trad, which means you can shortchange yourself a lot in actual hand eye coordination, judging proportions, while still achieving an acceptable "result". That has probably been the main benefit for me in that going trad and especially working from life has really made me focus on my actual drawing and observational skills. There are no infinite undos and warps, no instant colour picking etc. It has made me more deliberate and intentional I guess, when I need to be.
So, yes I am a huge proponent of doing trad, and it definitely has made my digi work better, though I work on very different things now. I have been considering doing some environments like I used to, just to see how differently I might approach it now! I do think I am able to troubleshoot my digi work better now with my trad experience, though I have just done a fair amount of brush mileage in the last few years, so benefits aren't simply related to the medium, but to consistency of practice. Downside is I haven't really enjoyed doing much digi work in the times I picked it up during last few years, it just felt less enjoyable, but I have a nice new tablet and am enjoying the digi more again now! I just wish I had picked trad up more and done more of it earlier on, but the journey is the journey! I also have moved away from doing concept art gigs and corporate/entertainment related stuff for a while. My last gig was with Weta maybe two or three years ago now, and so I have not felt the need to use digi much, which ofc if you want to work as a corporate artist you would have to maintain that digi upkeep a lot more!
I do think digital allows for results you just can't get in trad without a LOT more effort and if that suits your goals then that's all good.
Also, vine charcoal on paper and a nude figure is one of my main happy places :). Love the expressive way charcoal handles and looks. Very inspired by Henry Yan, learned a lot from slowing down Zimou Tan vids on yt before I even picked up charcoal, and also love Mark Tennant's high contrast figure work.
@Joseph, thanks for the feedback, and yeah I do agree I think I lightened the shadow side a bit more than was the case irl. As a note, the model was very sunburned, which accentuated the pink/green complementary quite a lot!
I would say, undoubtedly traditional has hugely improved my understanding and intent of what aesthetic choices I want for a digital painting or drawing, as well as just vastly improving my core technical skills and understanding the importance of mark-making. It has also given me workflows to use and adapt that are very useful. It also helped me understand colour theory much better. You can't just wing it with colour mixing in oils for example and expect to achieve specific results easily, whereas in digi you simply pick a colour/value and can infinitely tweak and overlay and creep up until you get things "right".
Trad is also more fun inherently for me due to the visceral nature of it, and the feedback you get back from the canvas or page. I think digital allows a lot of shortcuts and workflows that you could never really emulate in trad, which means you can shortchange yourself a lot in actual hand eye coordination, judging proportions, while still achieving an acceptable "result". That has probably been the main benefit for me in that going trad and especially working from life has really made me focus on my actual drawing and observational skills. There are no infinite undos and warps, no instant colour picking etc. It has made me more deliberate and intentional I guess, when I need to be.
So, yes I am a huge proponent of doing trad, and it definitely has made my digi work better, though I work on very different things now. I have been considering doing some environments like I used to, just to see how differently I might approach it now! I do think I am able to troubleshoot my digi work better now with my trad experience, though I have just done a fair amount of brush mileage in the last few years, so benefits aren't simply related to the medium, but to consistency of practice. Downside is I haven't really enjoyed doing much digi work in the times I picked it up during last few years, it just felt less enjoyable, but I have a nice new tablet and am enjoying the digi more again now! I just wish I had picked trad up more and done more of it earlier on, but the journey is the journey! I also have moved away from doing concept art gigs and corporate/entertainment related stuff for a while. My last gig was with Weta maybe two or three years ago now, and so I have not felt the need to use digi much, which ofc if you want to work as a corporate artist you would have to maintain that digi upkeep a lot more!
I do think digital allows for results you just can't get in trad without a LOT more effort and if that suits your goals then that's all good.
Also, vine charcoal on paper and a nude figure is one of my main happy places :). Love the expressive way charcoal handles and looks. Very inspired by Henry Yan, learned a lot from slowing down Zimou Tan vids on yt before I even picked up charcoal, and also love Mark Tennant's high contrast figure work.
@Joseph, thanks for the feedback, and yeah I do agree I think I lightened the shadow side a bit more than was the case irl. As a note, the model was very sunburned, which accentuated the pink/green complementary quite a lot!