Shoutout to the digital art purists who made me reconsider my workflow

I used to think using photo bashing or 3D bases in digital painting was basically cheating. Like you had to draw every single pixel from scratch or it wasn't real art. That was my stance for like 2 years. Then I joined a local art club meetup in Tacoma last spring and this guy showed me his process - he uses phototextures for backgrounds then paints over them. The result was insane, looked like a master oil painting. He said it's just another tool, like using a ruler instead of freehanding a straight line. Got me thinking - where do we draw the line on what counts as "legit" digital art? Is it about the final piece or the method? Some folks in the group were split right down the middle. What convinced you one way or the other?

2 comments

2 Comments

dixon.ryan1mo ago

The 2 years you spent gatekeeping yourself sounds like a waste of time when you could have been learning from people who actually know what they're doing. If you want to call using reference material "cheating" then go ahead and draw every leaf on a tree from imagination while the rest of us make good art.

willow2441mo ago

Wait, so I can trace a photo and call it "traditional" but if I do it on a tablet it's suddenly not legit art? I swear art discourse is just people moving goalposts so they can feel superior about their method. A guy I know spends 10 hours meticulously placing individual pixel dots for texture and acts like he's more authentic than someone who uses a premade brush. Meanwhile my aunt paints realistic portraits by projecting photos onto canvas and nobody bats an eye. Digital or analog, we're all just borrowing from reality and calling it creative genius.