Traditional Art vs Digital Art

[Raven_C]

I choose digital art because I’ve been drawing digital for 8 years now. It’s what I’m accustomed to and I enjoy it a lot! Having a Cintiq actually has improved my traditional skills, weirdly enough. I feel like when I’m drawing traditionally my control of the lines actually has improved, so I owe a lot to digital drawing

That being said, I want to practice more traditional art even if it’s not my main thing. I admit there’s an enjoyment I get from traditional art that I don’t quite get from digital. Like, I’ve been collecting fountain pens and I love refilling the ink, trying out all sorts of ink, and that feel of the pen when I’m drawing. Haha, idk, i love the tactile feeling.

[Kann]

I like both as a viewer and as an artist. Both have their pros and cons.

I like digital art, because it's more forgiving with the mistakes, there's no limited amount of paper, and there's less problems with storage. I have growing stacks of traditional drawings, which take a lot of space, while digital art can be just stored in a folder and you can easily make backups of it. Colors are unlimited, but that also can be a bad thing, like @DaniBoy said.

But my main problem with digital is that you need to depend on the electronics. Your laptop/tablet/phone or anything else you use to draw gets broken and you cannot draw anymore. Also computers powerful enough, graphic tablets, graphic programs... Those are expensive.

What I like about traditional is that satisfaction of holding a finished piece in your hands. I also like to get my hands a little dirty while drawing and the smell of art supplies is awesome!

[directorador]

I don't have a preference. but i mean, photorealism is something I appreciate more in traditional. For traditional I have a filing cabinet with folders for storage. For my onsite WIP i store the works in a folder by chapter so that the stacks don't grow unwieldy.

Digital can be fun, but I tend to just do cell shading and often times work with one layer. I know there are huge advantages to digital works, but I feel traditional is more fun to work with since that's what I grew up drawing. I did not have a pc until middleschool, and even then it wasn't until long after college I even began digital works.

[punkarsenic]

i really like an amalgamation - i tend to make my digital art look as organic as possible, and my organic art to look as digital as possible haha.

i like how organic / traditional materials can be way more intuitive than digital, relying on your actions in physical space instead of programming. however, digital is super convenient and cheaper in the long run, so i prefer working in digital for longform comics

Does the webcomic being digital or traditional effect your decision to read it/subscribe to it?

not really? although i do think organically drawn things need to be scanned well and cleaned up a little. things that can look really vibrant and clean on paper can suddenly look really scruffy when looked at digitally bc were holding them against the smoothest digital art, where organic art naturally has a grain to it and little flaws, which are part of what makes it so great.

[Rhonder]

I have a moderate preference towards traditional when I'm personally drawing. Marker is my favorite medium Although I'm wanting to break into digital a little more moving forward, because especially in comic making it seems as though there's a lot of time that can be saved drawing that way (remove the erasing and scanning steps, ability to lasso and move things around, ability to easily copy/paste backgrounds that might repeat w/o busting out the light box, etc.)

My current comic I'm lining traditionally and coloring digitally, but I'm going to try all digital for my next project I think.

Digital vs. Traditional doesn't necessarily have bearings on whether or not I like a comic, but it has to be well done either way. Due to the transfer from the physical page to the computer, there are more opportunities to kinda muck it up along the way. Well done/well transferred traditional art often looks very nice though!

[GesuGesu]

Digital.

I've saved on so much paper since I started doing digital. I hate wasting so many trees from all the plain white paper, sketchbooks, and loose pieces I've consumed over the years. I also tend to lose them, get them crumpled, folded, or dirty if I toss them somewhere randomly.

Skill-wise I think I've regressed a bit since digital mediums allow me to take shortcuts I previously could not. I can use custom brushes that instantly give me patters, feathers, sparkles, and even objects like clock gears or zippers that was previously a pain to draw consistently.

It's overall speedier since I can undo quickly instead of using white-out, and the fill bucket has been my best friend for the past 10 years.

I don't hate on traditional, since we all started with it. I really admire those who can still do amazing traditional artworks with inks, watercolours, and markers since I don't have much patience for it myself anymore.

[TheFireDragon]

I'm actually very bad at drawing things digitally, but I can see the appeal since all you have to do it press ctr-z to undo something. It really just depends on how you work. I'm personally a lot more accustomed to making traditional art, since that's all I've ever done in the last ten years, but recently I've been starting to use digital to color and edit my drawing, and I'm finding it a lot more appealing than I did before.
Like everything, there's a good amount of pros and cons for each side, it's just up to you to decide.

[okellymx]

Personally I don't really care about digital or traditional. I simply have no preference with the actual look of it. Good art is good art, so it doesn't matter what it is made with as long as it is high quality. As far as creating goes, I'm a lazy person who I don't want to scan or shop for supplies so digital wins. Yeah for lazy.

[danitasibert]

I'm probably apart of the minority, but traditional all the way, i tried digital and it just simply didn't click for me. I think i spent more time pressing the ctrl +z button more than anything XD
I'm old school i work with my hands and its make me happy to physically draw.

Nothing wrong with drawings digital i say people who can draw digitally are AMAZING its a way of creating that i can't seem to understand. XP

[racarter]

I prefer traditional and do all my drawing / inking traditionally. I color digitally because it's easier for what I want to do. One day I'd like to do a traditional black & white comic with some digital screentones to spruce it up and spare my wrist from all that crosshatching.

I can't draw digitally to save my life tho. lol

[skicoak]

I can't help but wonder if there's some guy working with mashed berry juice and ashes on a caved wall somewhere screaming he's a traditionalist and everyone else is "cheating".

[Luminosophy]

I do digital because it's overall cheaper and efficient. But I really love watercolour comics, that and markers is something I'd like to mess around with when I have more disposable income. I largely agree with okellymx though. Will always appreciate something well rendered no matter the medium.