Stumbled on a digital artist's 3-year progression reel on Insta last night

Their early stuff was pretty rough with basic shading, but by year three they had this insane lighting and texture work that looked almost photographic. What's the biggest jump you've seen in your own art over a set period of time?

3 comments

3 Comments

grace_white14d agoTop Commenter

Year 1 to year 2 of me trying to learn digital painting was honestly the biggest nightmare but also the biggest leap. My first attempts at skin tones looked like I'd dropped a peach and a brick in a blender, muddy and gross. Then I forced myself to do one portrait a week for three months and started really paying attention to how light hits the nose and cheekbones from different angles. By the end of that, my highlights actually looked like light instead of just white paint slapped on, which felt like magic. The biggest thing was learning to zoom out often and not get lost in the tiny details too early, that alone cut my ugly-phase time in half lol.

kelly_nelson9514d ago

Honestly that "zooming out often" tip is gold. I've seen people spend hours on an eyelash and the whole face is crooked, @grace_white. Ngl I think most of us hit that ugly phase around month 6 to month 12 and just have to power through it. The portrait-a-week grind is brutal but clearly it paid off for you.

barbaraw4714d ago

Oh man, I actually think there's something else going on too that nobody's talking about. It's not just the ugly phase, it's like your brain has to literally learn to see values instead of just colors. I mean, you can have the perfect skin tone picked out but if your lights and darks are off, it still looks like playdough. That whole zooming out thing works because it forces you to check if the big shapes are reading right before you go in with all the fun little details. Maybe it's just me but I swear half the battle is unlearning what you think a face looks like and actually paying attention to what you're seeing.