next »

[Bree]

First, check out this blog from Sean Gordon Murphy to see what got me thinking about this.

My current thought is this: people care more about the work put into something if they can easily understand how it was made. It's the reason so many people seem to prefer traditional animation over CG, why so many traditional artists claim that digital work lacks "warmth" or "humanity". Computers are incredibly complicated machines, and it's this very obfuscation that makes digital art less appreciated. I've rarely ever heard a digital artist attack traditional art- we try so hard to make our work look hand-made because it IS hand-made.

That's my take at least, what do you all think?

[rivon]

I like both. The arguments that it lacks personality or something are BS... I never ever saw space art (or terraspace), fractals or 3D abstract in traditional art. And they are just beautiful things. Surely traditional art is nice but it definitely isn't any better than digital. And digital isn't better than traditional. They both have their advantages/disadvantages, techniques, feel.

Also, if there wasn't digital art there would be much less artists. Digital art is just easy 'cause you only need to install a program in your computer and create. And if you don't like it. Whatever. Nothing happened. You can undo or delete it and start all over again. With traditional art you need brushes, pencils, sprays, colors. If you screw the piece, you wasted not only your time but also money...

[biomechanic]

All the things Jasmine mentions apply to digital art as well, except for the thickness of paint, simply because there isn't one.

The value of traditional art over digital is that you end up with a unique physical object which you can sell for far more than a print of your digital piece, even if the quality of the latter is much higher.

[Aquanoctis]

I definitely agree that there's something in the tactility of traditional that makes it attractive: the way that the paint looks on the canvas, the feel of thick paint. The brush strokes are art in themselves. Like Jasmine said, part of what makes traditional attractive is the fact you can literally see the artists efforts in the way the strokes are placed.

That said, I think it's got a lot to do with digital art being a relatively new medium. There's just a lot less exposure of digital artists. Everyone knows Rembrandt and his masterful control of light. Yet do as many people know Craig Mullins, with an arguably equal knowledge of light? Mullins and the like do art for games, films etc, which straight away means a lot of people are less likely to stumble across it in the wider art world. A lot of digital artists create art for these kind of things 'behind the scenes' as it were. Sure you buy Fallout/watch the latest blockbuster but do you see all the amazing concept art that's gone into it? It's never really put on public display. It's not as easily accessible. It's time will come though, I hope :D

[biomechanic]

I think that the whole tactility argument is very weak. Even if it comes into play at some point when appreciating a work of art, it wouldn't be the primary focus. Only after the painting grabbed your attention with its composition, subject matter, the idea it expresses and a million other things would you even consider touching it and trying to experience that tactile component. But then you wouldn't be able to, because the work in question would be in a museum, behind a rope line or in a glass box and with a security guard nearby, ready to mace anyone crazy enough to even reach for the painting. And that's only if you could actually be in the presence of the piece of art, the more likely alternative is seeing it online or as a print.

To me it is a bit like the paper fetishists argument against e-books. I can understand that having in one's possession a manuscript, or a first edition of an old book could be valued, for the same reason as having an original painting - its uniqueness and resale potential. But when someone starts talking about how you can't really have a reading experience without feeling the texture of the paper and smelling the ink, can you take them seriously?

[Chromanoid]

I think it is more about culture and roots of humanity.

Imagine one could compose meals with the computer - this can never replace the vibrant act of "real" cooking.

@rivon paper and watercolors or a pencil are much more accessible than a computer. i think there are much much much more non-digital artists. you dont know about them because they don't upload their stuff. making digital art is luxury.

[gimymblert]

Vibrant pixel art vs Brown dirty Shader? yep that's one of those discussion too

I think it's more like an argument of rough vs sleek
Rough tend to give warmer personal vibes, sleek tend to give sophisticate but impersonal vibe.

Whenever you see one of those discussion you mostly see the rough/sleek divide.

[Chromanoid]

Really? I would have thought it is more about getting your hands dirty...

[biomechanic]

You can get both rough and slick in both traditional media and digital art, so it's not really what divides the two.

When it comes to the cost the difference is more of a one time bigger investment vs. sustained drain. I assume that if you want to do digital art you already have a computer, so the cost of entry is 50$ for a cheap wacom and you're set.
If you want to do watercolors you pay 20$ for a set of 10 colors, a few more for the brushes and 8$ for each 12-sheet book of watercolors paper. Let's say that the colors last - after the first 3 books / 36 sheets the cost is roughly the same; if you continue it will only become greater. And you will want to continue, becasue your first 36 paintings will most certainly be shit.

[Chromanoid]

I am not sure about it, but I think in China, India etc. the people draw on paper. In Asia I think there is a strong tradition of conventional drawing. Also people often cant afford a wacom tablet or a computer there. It is like comparing making music with an instrument to making music with computer. I think there are more artists who make music with traditional music instruments or their voice. When it comes to professional artists it might look a bit different.

[biomechanic]

ZhuZhu is a great example of a guy who does digital work that has a rough finish to it, and in whose works you can clearly see the process. Sometimes literally - if you look through his gallery you'll find tens of openCanvas event files (here's a pack of 18, for the free 1.1 version). He's also Chinese, but I'm not arguing that all people in China do digital :}.

But he also does traditional art, like watercolors (some of those are digital so look at descritpions), and you could find tons of pencil studies in his sketchbook threads on conceptart.org and cgsociety.org forums. So I guess good artists make good art, bad artists make bad art, regardless of the medium - and for me that's what counts.

Now I'm argued out.
Hitler was a traditional artist.

[gimymblert]

You can get both rough and slick in both traditional media and digital art, so it's not really what divides the two.

That's my point entirely, once a technique is perceive for it's sleekness (like airbrush was at a time) it's automatically tag impersonal, despite you can actually do more than just that.

But it's because some style take predominance at some time and became assimilate to that technique. For example early cg only use plain saturated color despite the computer being able to do 16M colors on the 10M the eyes can see.

Or look early low poly 3D games against recent lowpoly game (ds vs PSX) We mature in the use of warmer design totally untied to technology. Also now low poly is the warmer design as modern CG tend to reuse the same set of latest effect to keep an edge and be the new sleek and new. Sleek age very badly too.

[Clearness]

I figure the only reason I stick with digital is so I can make usable art for 2D games, with pixel art.  Other than that, I don't really know why I bother with the stuff, people appreciate traditional art more and really don't understand the effort that goes into making sprites/pixel art.

The way I look at it: I love to draw!