Why I stopped oversharpening my digital paintings

I used to spend 45 minutes adding texture brushes on every single piece thinking it made my art look professional. Then a friend at a Discord critique group pointed out that my highlights were actually pulling focus from my composition. Tried a clean, flat style on my latest piece and it got way more engagement on ArtStation than anything I'd done in 6 months. Has anyone else found that doing less actually sells the idea better?

2 comments

2 Comments

kai_park1mo ago

The real trick nobody talks about is that oversharpening actually kills the depth in your brushwork. Those texture layers stack on top of each other and turn your painting into a flat noise soup. When you back off and let your base values and edges do the heavy lifting, your eye knows exactly where to go.

parkerp801mo agoTop Commenter

Yeah @kai_park nailed it, I used to crank up the sharpness slider and wondered why my stuff looked like a mess.