Feature: Traditional or Digital?

Jul 16, 20145 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Jul 16, 2014

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Hi guys! Another feature here for you, this time with an actual theme!*

One of my favorite things to see while looking through art is 1) digital art that looks like it was drawn/painted by hand, or 2) hand-drawn art that looks like it was done on the computer! This journal features the latter; maybe sometime I'll do the first, but those seem to be much rarer than traditional artworks that look digital.

One way to accomplish this is, of course, high contrast black and white art. I've found a few of these that I think exemplify this:

Punisher vs Zombie Avengers by Ace-Continuado

Also interesting, and harder to pull off (in my opinion, anyway), are traditional paintings that look digital. It's usually easy to see that something was digitally painted, because the lines are so clean or so blended that it seems obvious that no brush could paint such a thing. Furthermore, the colors seem flatter--there aren't any brushstrokes to be seen. Nonetheless, digital art can look astonishingly beautiful, especially if the artist has control over lighting. It's hard, however, for a traditional artist to get clean enough lines to make it seem as though their art is digital. Color makes it that much harder! Here are a few that caught my eye.

Fresh Cut Chrysanthemum by MelissARTworks

Have you seen any pieces lately that look digital but are actually traditional, or vice versa? I'd love to check them out, so please feel free to leave a thumb in the comments!

Thank you to all of these artists that have contributed to the deviantART community with such amazing work!

_{*unlike the last one where I just featured stuff that looked cool lol}