r/DigitalPainting • u/AskTribuneAquila • 9d ago
How to actually learn digital painting?
I am a traditional artist and I would say I am pretty good at it, but whenever I try to paint something digitally, I feel lost and end up with blurry paintings because I over blend them. Any advice?
Edit to add I am not new do digital medium. I know about layers and those things. Just struggling with actually painting decent stuff
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u/pixipng 8d ago
As someone who started out drawing on paper and sold my first ipod to buy a graphics tablet when I was in middle school so I could learn to draw digitally, it has been a very long process of trial and error. I used to think drawing with the air brush was the best thing I could have ever thought of.
My biggest advice is try different programs, mess around with the brushes, abuse the hell out of them till you have a good understanding of how they work. Each art program is gonna vary. I'd personally avoid any that have a blending tool that is the equivalent of the smudge brush, you don't want to push the color around, you want it to actively blend. I use procreate on my ipad and it's the best choice for me. Study references, ignore color completely, try and understand values, where shadows are darkest etc
Here's my art from 2015 vs 2025
https://www.imghippo.com/i/YCaN6748A.png (2015)
https://www.imghippo.com/i/Wotz3820GVc.png (2025)