Why do I need to learn Digital Painting? And what is it?
I believe that many of you would have this question on your mind, what, why and how. And why need to move from traditional painting to digital?
To me, traditional and digital painting is not mutually exclusive, it actually helps to develop better drawing skills.
Digital Painting let you have an effective way to practice, to try, and to create.
What you just need is Painting Software + Tablet + Passion (or iPad Pro with Apps and apple pencil).
You can know more on gears HERE.
Sounds great? Don't worry if you still don't know where to start. I'll go through with you all.
Here are 3 steps for you to get started:
- Know well on your tools and softwares.
- Create a blank canvas
- START you great art!
1. Know well on your tools and softwares.
For Photoshop, the main tools and functions for beginning are (with shortcut):
- New Canvas (Ctrl/Cmd + N)
- Brushes (B)
- Brushes size (In Brush mode + [ / ])
- Layers
- Eraser (E)
- Zoom (Ctrl/Cmd+ +/-)
- Transform (Ctrl/Cmd + T)
- Move (Hold Space bar and drag)
- Eyedropper (I or In Brush mode + Alt)
2. Create a blank canvas
After you created your canvas, you will see an interface like that:
These 3 panels you will always keep in touch with them.
Tools Bar, Option Bar, and Panels.
You can always make your own set of function panels in "window" list.
Seem so many to learn right? When I started learning on digital painting, I control myself to use as less function as I can. Imagine that it just like traditional painting, you just have colour mixer, brushes, eraser and one canvas. Sometimes, I just use one layer and one brush in my whole painting.
It might better for you to get use to the software and the tablet when you just get into digital world. After you can control and understand the tools of digital painting, you can go deeper to explore more advance functions and methods.
3. Start your great art!
Just try to paint anything you want, get used to the pressure of the tablet, the interaction between tablet and Photoshop, play around with those basic functions. Try here and there, make some mistakes. After all, it will be your basic skill to become a legend.
The next blog I will go though the CORE of digital painting - BRUSHES!!
Leave your comments to let me know what topic you would like to see and I will focus more on those you need.
