Below is some links to the websites of some of my favorite artists or good tutorial websites for someone who is interested in 2D digital art.
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Digital Art was really started in 1956 started experiments with drawing on the computer (considered by Jesia Reichardt to be the start of Computer Art in The Computer in Art ) Though it took awhile for it to be known for what it is today. Mostly digital art started as a way of animating or creating films (first computer generated film was by Edward E. Zajac in 1963). Mosty digital art was for those who could afford to have a computer that could handle it. In the early days digital art could only really be created by simple paint programs. |
| Today most artists use Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter for their major 2D painting. These programs have both their advantages and disadvantages, so artists often use both. For example, the nice thing about Painter is that in has special “brushes” that can emulate different forms of natural media, like watercolors, acrylics, chalk, crayons, which Photoshop does not do as well. Photoshop is more photography effect orientated, not quite as illustrating oriented as Painter is. Instead of using the mouse, most artists prefer using a tablet. |
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What’s a tablet? It is an alternate input device for the computer that has a pen and writing board type thing that tends to be a bit more precise than a mouse. Programs like Photoshop and Painter can also sense the pressure of the pen and adjust the “ink” flow accordingly. A heavier hand would have darker lines then a lighter hand; similar in the most part for using a pencil on a piece of paper. |
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People who are digital artists can have a variety of jobs in today’s
workplace. Many illustrate for gaming magazines, books, or sell
prints of the work at higher resolution then could be found on
their websites. Digital artists are also used in web design,
marketing, designers, 3D computer graphics and animation (think
Pixar), character game development and so on
Below is some links to the websites of some of my favorite artists or good tutorial websites for someone who is interested in 2D digital art. |
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This is mostly a site for fantasy and sci fi art of all kind, and various medium, including digital art. There are some pretty good tutorials in the Tutorial section. |
| Henning Ludvigsen is one of the big digital art guys out there. His work is amazing, and the tutorials are great, though definitely for the more advanced artist. |
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This Natascha is actually the girlfriend of Henning Ludvigsen and is one of my favorite digital artists, mostly because she is able to make the people look real. She does not make these people from photos, it’s all by hand. She has some neat step-by-steps of her work, though I found some of her tutorials difficult for my limited skill level. |
| The tutorials on this site for Photoshop are great, as well as the Jessica Peffers tutorials from regular drawings. There is a separate link on this page for the art of Jessica, which is good, though more of an anime type style then the other artists above. (Though still goes with the sci-fi / fantasy theme I have going on on this site). |
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Ok, so this isn’t a link to art. Wacom pen tablets are considered one of the best graphic art tools out there. This link shows the Intuos3, which is what I have, but there are many more tablets you can get. They are preferred over the mouse by most graphic designers, artists, and so forth because of the sensitivity of the pen, and the level of detail you can get with it. The softwear package with it includes Adobe Photoshop Elements 4, Coral Painter Essentials 3. |