digital painting?

[Reptile]

Hey everyone me agian, i recently downloaded a trial of painter x and am now thinking wheter i should continue messing around with painter or should further my drawing skills on paper?

[ped454]

It's up to you. You should always continue to elaborate on your paper and pencil skills as it is the foundation to your skills on painter. Essentially you're going to have to play around a lot with painter to become truly skilled at it and same goes for the real pencil on paper....so I suggest both because you will begin developing a process that works....e.g. draw it on paper then scan and colour on painter...or whatever you end up doing.

[dierat]

Yeah, you need to keep drawing on paper. Some things are easier for you to practice on paper, like anatomy and basic drawing, because you're isolating the skill that you're exercising. If you practice anatomy in Painter, your problems could be the color, the wetness, the opacity, the tone, or the anatomy.

Practice anatomy and form on paper and tone and shadows with charcoal. I would also suggest that you learn painting IRL first as well as that makes the Painter tools (for me, anyway) easier to understand. (Even dabbling a bit in acrylics on cardboard or old matboard can help you learn.) When you first start painting, in either Painter or on real canvas/paper, you can start with black and white and work your way into color so at first you just practice the medium without making it all too complicated. And in the beginning, it helps to practice with simple objects, like fruit and cloth, and work your way into ppl and landscapes.

But that's just my opinion; you get to figure out how you learn best for yourself. Good luck! ;D

[codenothing]

you know, ive been fighting and fighting digital tools to draw and paint for 3 years now, and yesterday I said, "screw it. Im done." I set down the cintiq pen, picked up a lump of charcoal, and ripped out the figure I had been trying to draw for 2 days in about one hour.

Now im not knocking digital tools, they open a new kind of freedom and speedpainting "MAGIC" that just cant be met by traditional tools. But I think its that overwealming freedom and ability to do anything with no regards to classical rules of art or workflow that screws me up when it comes to drawing figures.

when it comes to figures, I HAVE to use traditional media. when it goes to landscapes, or quick thumbnail work, Im a digital fanboy all the way.

But I highly recomend learning with traditional media. and then move on to digital tools.

[Reptile]

Thanks alot for the advice but i think im going to take codenothing's advice and continue traditionally untill i get better and then move on to the digital stuff, once again thanks.

[Justin.]

You have chosen wisely :D