Is digital art "cheating"?
Cost
As an artist, you may find that…art supplies costs quite a substantial amount of money. But is one art media possibly less expensive than the other? Let’s take a look at where an artist who works with each media spends their money:
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Digital artist: electricity bills, computer, tablet, computer monitor, drawing software.
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Traditional artist: different colored paint/Ink/other refills, canvases, brushes, pencils and crayons, charcoal, gauche, pastel (and other tools depending on what you are doing)
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Most people think that being a digital artist demands much more money because digital art supplies are a lot more costly. But in reality, the overall money spent on digital and traditional art supplies are fairly the same. The difference is how the money is spent. It’s safe to say that for a beginner artist, traditional art supplies are definitely the most easiest to get access to. Just go to the nearest store and there you’ll see on the shelves, pencils, colored crayons, paint, all for just a few dollars. But it’s when the artist grows that it starts to get a little more complicated. The artists will start wanting more professional and high quality supplies, which obvious are priced a lot higher. By contrast, for digital artists, you save up a huge amount of money and spend them on very few expensive tools that would be your partner as long as your artistic journey goes… if you take good care of it. Cheap and lower-quality tablets only costs around $70, but a wacom cintiq drawing monitor can cost up to $5000! It might seem like being a digital artist is more expensive but don’t forget that softwares you use also give you the access to unlimited canvases, colors and brushes while traditional artists need to go to the store a lot more often for supplies like marker refills, ink, paint, canvases and many more. With this compelling argument, many artist agreed that digital art is cheaper than traditional art in terms of supplies.
Continue to Part 2: Drawing Experience
Shroud
Artist: Anna Dittmann
Rosso
Artist: tknk
Miyamori
Artist: Kevin Hong: