Physical drawings V/S Digital drawings

My physical drawings 2 years ago:


My 2nd attempt at drawing digitally on my PC:





Rate my skills \10


NOTE: I didn't draw beyond that part cuz the drawing was only getting more horrible

9/10 first drawing. Left eye of Left character is a bit off, but otherwise A+ I see no issues here. Continue.
Fish/10 second drawing because I can't judge something that is incomplete, so I give you a fish for dinner, and ask of you to continue.
you're doing fine. :3

For digital art. Get Gimp. Its free and pretty much Photoshop (for those who don't want to pay for it because that's stupid.)
Trust me. Having the ability to have layers (pages over transparent pages) to erase, and add, to what you already think is good, without the possibility of messing it up is a godsend. It's a great drawing tool. Paint is fine to start and doodle, but Gimp is easier to level up art skills faster.
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Layer 1 messy sketch. all the sketching.
layer 2 draw over with another color, simplify the sketch. trace where you think it looks good
layer 3 perfect the sketch.
layer 4 add smaller detail sketch
layer 5 draw with more detail
6 perfect the smaller details
7 etc
8 continue
etc etc etc
final draft perfect all your linework.
new layer, bring it UNDER your final linework. and color.
new layer shades
new layer highlights
new layer anything else

save often often often often SAVE always. it sucks losing hours and hours of work because dumb reasons.

If you're not a highly skilled digital artist who can use any software to flex, might I suggest NOT using MS Paint?

SirContro said:

If you're not a highly skilled digital artist who can use any software to flex, might I suggest NOT using MS Paint?

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Didn't have any knowledge on the topic, tried a few softwires and they were all so confusing to use so I just used MS paint.

Avarice_of_the_seven said:

Didn't have any knowledge on the topic, tried a few softwires and they were all so confusing to use so I just used MS paint.

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For what you've done here. Even 10 minutes of experimenting in Krita would probably allow you to make something more refined.

SirContro said:

For what you've done here. Even 10 minutes of experimenting in Krita would probably allow you to make something more refined.

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Tried that too ( and GIMP as well ) but they were too complicated.

Physical and digital drawings are inherently different.
Both require different skillsets. The biggest different would be friction. Those who are good at physical drawings will struggle digitally cuz there is no friction, which is the basis of physical drawings. And digital drawings need a different kind of talent. I don't think my result would've been much different even if I did know how to use Krita.

Avarice_of_the_seven said:

Tried that too ( and GIMP as well ) but they were too complicated.

Physical and digital drawings are inherently different.
Both require different skillsets. The biggest different would be friction. Those who are good at physical drawings will struggle digitally cuz there is no friction, which is the basis of physical drawings. And digital drawings need a different kind of talent. I don't think my result would've been much different even if I did know how to use Krita.

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I'm a physical artist. I draw in notebooks, and on walls.
Picking up digital is not a new skill. it's a new mindset.

Pick up the software and draw. you don't need to learn the buttons or every in and out of every tab. You learn those by exploring after getting comfortable opening it a few times. drawing is drawing.

Avarice_of_the_seven said:

Tried that too ( and GIMP as well ) but they were too complicated.

Physical and digital drawings are inherently different.
Both require different skillsets. The biggest different would be friction. Those who are good at physical drawings will struggle digitally cuz there is no friction, which is the basis of physical drawings. And digital drawings need a different kind of talent. I don't think my result would've been much different even if I did know how to use Krita.

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I sure as hell hope it's not a different skill set. I'm primarily a physical artist and I'm planning on getting more into digital after christmas.

Well....it's not free sadly, but if you want to try something easier that does not make you poor to learn, and is not an abo, but buy it once and be done with it it would be clip studio paint.

It has a simplify mode for beginners, or trad artists getting into digital (honestly I can't think about anything else but Procreate who has that mode other then paint but I might be wrong) and not be overwhelmed with it, and you can slowly stack from there adding whatever funktion you wanna do/explore next.

Also it does help to make fotos of your physical stuff and load it into the digital software to use. (That's what I tend to do.) And then work off those. I know a bunch of people who went from trad to digital who do that.

SirContro said:

I sure as hell hope it's not a different skill set. I'm primarily a physical artist and I'm planning on getting more into digital after christmas.

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I wish you luck on your digital adventure!

Little-Moon said:

Well....it's not free sadly, but if you want to try something easier that does not make you poor to learn, and is not an abo, but buy it once and be done with it it would be clip studio paint.

It has a simplify mode for beginners, or trad artists getting into digital (honestly I can't think about anything else but Procreate who has that mode other then paint but I might be wrong) and not be overwhelmed with it, and you can slowly stack from there adding whatever funktion you wanna do/explore next.

Also it does help to make fotos of your physical stuff and load it into the digital software to use. (That's what I tend to do.) And then work off those. I know a bunch of people who went from trad to digital who do that.

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Yes, taking photos of your irl art or scanning it is essentially doing your linework offline, then refining, and coloring digitally. I used to do that too when I first started.

Avarice_of_the_seven said:

My physical drawings 2 years ago:
View attachment 44051View attachment 44052

My 2nd attempt at drawing digitally on my PC:
View attachment 44053




Rate my skills \10


NOTE: I didn't draw beyond that part cuz the drawing was only getting more horrible

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I saw someone comment about the eyes of your character.

If you are using pen and paper like me, you can "balance" this out by using a lightboard (if you can buy one), or use a mirror to check if your drawing looks good if flipped.

As for scanning, I use 400 dpi resolution in all my artworks, which I reduce to 100 dpi if I want to make a copy for web display. But yeah, I combine Photoshop and traditional pen and paper in my artworks.

I did try to draw digitally before, which I accomplished using blue color for "guidelines" and "structure" and dark color for the actual lineart I used. However, personal experience with a wrong formatting prompted me to go back to traditional pen and paper as I have no backup in case I accidentally wiped my main file storage.

I'd recommend sticking to physical if you don't have a stylus, unless you want to master mouse drawing, which sounds terrible. If you want to pursue the digital route, however, I'd recommend getting Clip Studio Paint. It's the premier drawing software alongside Photoshop, as far as I'm aware, and its PC license can be bought with a one-time purchase, so no subscription BS.

Rating: incomplete.

CinnaSloth said:

Fish/10 second drawing

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What is this antifishism?

if clip studio is too expensive to u and gimp to complicated, then try krita, medibang, paint tool sai. You can use the CSP phone app for free with limited time budget. Just get a stylus, don’t destroy your hands with fingerpainting.

tiaf said:

What is this antifishism?

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It was a test and that incomplete drawing is the current limit of my digital drawing skills. It probably wouldn't improve beyond that point without either serious practice.

This was the limit of my Physical V/S Digital drawings.

Kalliel said:

I'd recommend sticking to physical if you don't have a stylus, unless you want to master mouse drawing, which sounds terrible. If you want to pursue the digital route, however, I'd recommend getting Clip Studio Paint. It's the premier drawing software alongside Photoshop, as far as I'm aware, and its PC license can be bought with a one-time purchase, so no subscription BS.

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the Sub is for more brush texture and stuff, so not exactly mandatory.

The Antifishism was directed at the rating being fish. Fish level isn't that low.

Avarice_of_the_seven said:

It was a test and that incomplete drawing is the current limit of my digital drawing skills. It probably wouldn't improve beyond that point without either serious practice.

This was the limit of my Physical V/S Digital drawings.

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The fact that u used MS paint and not some sort of stylus is the problem here. First time transition from trad to digital art looks always shitty, but not to this level by deliberately setting the difficulty to satan hell level.

Avarice_of_the_seven said:

Didn't have any knowledge on the topic, tried a few softwires and they were all so confusing to use so I just used MS paint.

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Try using Krita. It's a free drawing software.

Honestly I disagree that digital art and physical art require different skill sets. I’m saying this as a former trad artist that simply didn’t have the tools to draw digitally before and got a tablet only some years ago (I mean technically you can draw on a phone with your finger, but that’s an entire diff breed of artists). I’m sure if you know how to draw you will be able to draw anywhere, yes, the tools might differ (stylus + tablet vs paper and pencils), but it’s definitely not a different skill set. I’d even argue that *physical* art requires different skill sets, e. g. handling oil paints and mixing them.

If you are trying to draw digitally without a stylus and a tablet, it will be hard bc you don’t have the tools to draw digitally. And about krita and other apps being too confusing… yeah they may be overwhelming at first, but when you start out you need to know only the paint brush button and the layers. Even now I discover new things that I can do with krita.

Never had a problem with friction tho. In fact, its presence made me even angrier since my paper always wrinkled when I tried erasing the sketch. Maybe there isn’t that much of control over line pressure and angle in digital art, but it makes up with a lot of different brushes and not having to buy the materials.

tiaf said:

What is this antifishism?

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fish/10 - you can't rate a fish until you cook it, cut it, or clean it. You can look at it, sure, but the real quality of a fish is when you can eat it. NOM