Babble Community

c/digital-art-showcase

19

tara_patel•5h ago

Tried free Procreate brushes vs a $15 set for a client portrait last weekend

I was working on a pet portrait for a repeat client and used the default Procreate brushes for the fur texture, but it looked too smooth and flat. Switched to a paid fur brush set I bought months ago and the difference in depth and realism was huge, the client even noticed without me saying anything. Has anyone else seen a big jump from using specialized brush packs over free ones?

13

claire_hart53•2d ago

Just realized how much a simple layer mask shortcut speeds up my workflow

I used to spend 45 minutes manually erasing backgrounds on each character portrait for my webcomic until a friend showed me the cmd+shift+I invert trick in Clip Studio, and now I'm kicking myself for not learning it 3 years ago. Has anyone else found a basic shortcut that totally changed how they do digital art?

24

casey_wood2•17d ago

The difference 6 months of daily gesture sketches made in my art

I started doing 5 minute gesture sketches every morning back in January, just random poses from a free reference site. Now my figure drawings actually look like they have weight and movement instead of stiff mannequins. Has anyone else seen a big jump from a simple daily habit like that?

17

the_miles•19d ago

I was sure AI art filters were just a gimmick until I saw one recreate a blurry photo of my dog as a painting with perfect anatomy

I tried three different filter apps on a photo from 2019 where my dog was mid-sneeze and the last one actually got his ear shape right, has anyone else had a tool surprise them like that?

28

morgan_martinez•22d ago

Hit 500 completed commissions last week and it felt just like another Tuesday

After ten years of doing digital portraits on the side, that 500th piece was a simple cat illustration for a repeat client in Columbus, and I didn't even realize the milestone until I counted back through my payment records, has anyone else had a big number sneak up on them like that?

2

jana_hart18•22d ago

Nearly set my laptop on fire during a 48 hour render session

I had a timelapse piece cooking for 2 days straight and my 2019 gaming laptop was running hot the whole time. Around hour 40 I noticed the fan noise changed, like a grinding sound. I opened it up and the vent was completely clogged with dust. The heat sink was too hot to touch for more than a second. If I had let it go another 8 hours I think something would have melted or caught fire. The render finished fine thankfully. But now I'm wondering how many of you actually crack open your machines and clean them out regular. I've been slacking for like 2 years. Anyone else had a close call with heat damage?

16

carter.casey•22d ago

Art teacher told me to stop blending so much in my digital portraits

She said 'let the hard edges do the work' and I thought she was nuts. Tried it on my latest piece and it actually gave it way more character than my usual airbrush mush.

12

nancycooper•23d ago

Got roasted at a gallery opening in Portland for my resolution settings

I was showing a landscape piece at a small gallery in Portland last month when some random guy pointed at my screen and said my canvas was too small for the pixel density. He was right, my 300 DPI was way off for the size I was printing. Now I'm stuck wondering if I should switch to 600 DPI for all my big pieces or if that's overkill. Anyone here had a similar reality check at a show?

4

lopez.quinn•23d ago

Vent: Dropped $300 on a Procreate alternative and it glitched on my first painting

I was skeptical about leaving Procreate but this new app had all these features I wanted for comic art in Chicago; six hours in it crashed and wiped a whole layer set. Anyone else stick with a tool even when it frustrates you because the switch feels riskier?

20

wendyprice•23d ago

Had to choose between a Cintiq and an iPad Pro for digital painting last month

I spent about two weeks going back and forth on this. My old Wacom Bamboo tablet finally gave out after 6 years of use, so I needed something new. I was torn between the Wacom Cintiq 16 and the iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil. The Cintiq was cheaper at around $650, but it tethers to a computer. The iPad cost me $800 but is portable. I ended up going with the iPad Pro because I do a lot of sketching at coffee shops and on lunch breaks. So far the screen feels great and Procreate is really smooth, but I do miss having a proper desktop setup for detailed work. Has anyone else made this switch and regretted it or felt it was worth it?

10

jake986•23d ago

So tired of people over-editing their art show pieces

I was scrolling through the latest gallery submissions last night and kept seeing pieces where the artist clearly cranked the saturation way too high. It makes the shadows look electric blue and the skin tones turn orange. Why spend hours on a composition just to ruin it with cheap filters? Anyone else notice this trend getting worse lately?

12

taylor.sean•26d ago

Used to obsess over tiny brush strokes for hours on my tablet, now I just do big blocky color shapes first

I'd zoom in to 800% and tweak single pixels, you know? Then I saw this guy on YouTube just scribble in the whole canvas with a chunky brush and fix details later. Saved me like 2 hours on my last character portrait. Anyone else ditch the perfectionist approach for something messier?

15

kim_johnson51•27d ago

Raster vs vector for logos, I was so wrong

Used to swear by raster. Thought vectors looked cheap. Then a client asked me to blow up their logo for a billboard. Pixel city. Had to redraw the whole thing in Illustrator. Took 6 hours. Never again. Anyone else make that switch late?

21

morgan_martinez•27d ago

Spent 4 hours trying to fix a layer shift issue in my print

I was going crazy trying to figure out why my painting kept shifting on every layer. Turns out my tablet pen was glitching and adding random pressure points that the program read as cuts. Has anyone else had weird hardware bugs waste a ton of editing time?

2

the_aaron•1mo ago

Just realized I was using the wrong color profile for my whole portfolio

I was at a digital art meetup last month and a guy looked at my work on his iPad and said it looked way different than mine. I laughed it off at first but then he showed me the same piece side by side and I swear the sky was purple on his screen and blue on mine. Turns out I'd been working in sRGB and posting everything in Adobe RGB without converting. All those showcases I submitted to over the past 2 years probably looked like garbage on other people's monitors. Nobody tells you this stuff when you start out. Has anyone else had a similar oops moment with color settings messing up their exhibitions?

7

hannahsingh•1mo ago

Something I overheard at a coffee shop about AI art portfolios

Was grabbing a coffee near my place in Portland and heard two artists talking at the next table. One said they'd been seeing portfolios where every single piece had that polished AI look, like zero rough sketches or unfinished work. It made me think about how maybe showing some messy process stuff actually makes your art feel more human. Has anyone else noticed portfolios looking too clean lately?

23

pat_fisher24•1mo ago

Appreciation for a color palette critique I got last week

I posted a piece I was pretty proud of in here last Thursday... a fantasy landscape with a big castle. Someone commented that my shadows were all the same shade of purple, which made the whole thing feel flat. I didn't even notice, I was so focused on the details. So I went back and tried using a deeper blue for the darker shadows and a warmer brown for the ground shadows. Man, it made a huge difference. The castle looks like it actually belongs in the scene now instead of sitting on top of it. Has anyone else had a piece totally change just from one color shift?

29

wendy628•1mo ago

My 8 year old nephew called my digital painting 'mid' yesterday

He scrolled through my whole portfolio on my tablet and said every single piece needed more glow effects and that I should ask the 'Fornite kids' for tips, which stung way harder than any art critic review ever has.

25

the_linda•1mo ago

Unpopular opinion: big rendering farms ruined the charm of digital art showcases

I was looking through my old DeviantArt folders from 2008 last night and man, the hand-painted pixel art and low-poly models just hit different compared to the hyperreal stuff people crank out now in 3D renders. Back then you could tell someone spent 40 hours on a single frame in Photoshop or Painter by hand, and the showcase felt like a real labor of love, not a button press. Is anyone else getting tired of seeing the same photorealistic scenes that all look like they came out of the same black box?

15

ray_campbell46•1mo ago

Lost $150 on a digital art portfolio site that promised to get me discovered

Signed up for ArtPortfolioPro back in March. They said they'd promote my work to galleries and collectors. After three months I got zero views from their system. Wasted my money and my time uploading everything. Anyone else get burned by one of these showcase services?

17

phoenixb34•1mo ago

Warning: Don't let your cat "help" with your digital painting

I was working on a landscape piece in Procreate last Tuesday, had the iPad propped up while I grabbed coffee. My cat jumped on the desk, hit the screen with her paw, and somehow activated the smudge tool and dragged a pine tree across the sky. Looked like a weird green tornado for a second. Anyone else ever had a pet mess up a file in a surprisingly creative way?

12

felix_black•1mo ago

Started using a hard round brush for hair highlights instead of foils and it turned into a weird abstract art piece

Last weekend I was doing my sister's highlights and I couldn't find my foils anywhere. So I grabbed this stiff round brush I use for blending paint in Procreate and just painted the bleach on in these sweeping strokes. The result looked like some messy watercolor painting on her head, not gonna lie. It actually blended way softer than foils do and she got like 10 compliments at brunch the next day. I guess sometimes breaking the rules with art tools works out? Anyone else accidentally use a non-hair tool for hair and get a cool effect?

29

the_anthony•1mo ago

That time my tablet pen went dead mid-commission

Honestly, I was 6 hours deep into a 10 hour piece for a client in Austin when my Wacom stylus just stopped responding. No warning, no low battery indicator, nothing. I fumbled around for 20 minutes trying to figure out if it was the driver or the pen itself, turns out the nib had been pushed in too far and shorted something internally. Has anyone else had a pen fail on them at the worst possible moment?

1

drew_reed62•1mo ago

My tablet pen pressure went dead after 2 years and I almost tossed it

I was so ready to blame Wacom for my lines looking garbage lately, turns out the nib was worn down to nothing. I popped a fresh nib in yesterday and my strokes came back like magic, never even thought to check that. Learned my lesson, gonna swap nibs every 6 months now even if they feel fine. Anybody else forget about the little stuff like that?

20

gavinwells•1mo ago

Can we talk about people who upload 10,000x15,000 pixel images to art forums?

I keep seeing these massive file uploads clogging up the showcase boards, especially in the landscape category. A friend of mine tried to load one the other day on his phone and it crashed his browser three times. Why not just resize down to 2000 pixels on the longest side like most sites recommend? Has anyone else had trouble viewing these giant files or is it just my old laptop acting up?