Velvetta

Hi! This time i want to use my journal to reply to a note which puffkinn has sent to me.. she asked me how I started painting digitally and how she could start learning it. I thought my reply would be useful for someonelse so I wrote it here, adding a small tutorial.
     I'm a person who loves art and doing art, and I'm still learning. I've drawn since I was a child, and this is my advice: draw draw draw, try to understand proportions, light and shadow first only using a pencil. The secret for realism is observing reality, always. Before you start using digital media you should be able to draw  with traditional media; if you are, in this case you are ready to work in digital.
     I started painting in digital almost 2 years ago, and at the beginning I tried to find all kind of tutorials which could help me to understand digital media. At first I start with simple things like anime drawing( i'm not saying "simple= stupid", I like this art but only when it's really welldone), but then I  decided to try something more challenging like realism. Anyway, I 've taken oil painting lessons which have helped me to understand how painting works and the general color theory. Basically painting digitally is like painting traditionally, in fact the consolidation of these two way of painting has helped me a lot.
     Generally i proceed this way: first I create a new level and do the drawing, second I put on a lower level  the basic colours (not too dark, not too light) and then I start working with shadows and light, which aren't just black or white but can be every color, depending on the painting. Another important thing when you paint digitally is to FORGET (at least at the begin)the use of all tools, except the BRUSH, the smudge/blend tool (which you have to use very fairly and carefully because his overuse it can get the painting too blurred and flat) the colourpicker (which allows you to pick the colours from your own painting and to blend this way the colors well) and sometimes the eraser. The best way to blend colors is just to use the brush and the colorpicker ... about this I've done a small tutorial so you can see what I mean. Here it is www.deviantart.com/deviation/4….
     Just another thing: if you are really interested in digital art, you have to forget  to use a mouse! buy a tablet, even a cheap tablet without pen pressure it's good for starting! I've worked for an year with a trust tablet without pen pressure and I think it wouldn't have been the same with a mouse. I've had a wacom for an year and, even it's really small (A6), I've to admit, my way of painting has changed a lot, I've understood many things and I'm also faster, so if you can, buy a Wacom(or a pen-pressured tablet).
  Hope this help someone!( Below You'll find some link to great artist's tutorials from which I learned a lot.)