Do You Need To Know How To Draw For Digital Art?

Some people have a natural ability to take what is in their minds and translate it onto paper, but you have never been one of those people. You see people using their tablets to create digital art and you are wondering if you need to know how to draw to create digital art.

You don’t have to be a world-class artist in order to draw digital art however if you wish to be successful the following skills will help you in your digital endeavors.

  • Basic sketching skills
  • Drawing characters and people
  • Understanding shading, lighting, and colors

To learn more about what skills are needed in order to create digital art continue reading for helpful tips.

Traditional Drawing Methods Vs Digital Drawing

Regardless of whether or not you know how to draw, creating digital drawings is much different than creating a work of art on a traditional medium such as sketch paper or canvas. To create a digital drawing there are a few things you need to understand.

When using a digital surface and stylus pen to draw you need to get used to the following things:

  • The feeling is different than writing on a piece of paper and it can take some time to get used to how everything works. For those who do have prior drawing knowledge and experience getting used to writing on a screen can be the largest adjustment. It just feels weird until you have learned how to hold the stylus and control all of the settings.
  • The way you make your pen strokes and draw lines is different. When sketching on a pad you oftentimes have to go over a line more than one time but with a digital drawing surface, you have the ability to make one crisp clear line the first time.
  • You have to get used to how pressure sensitivity works and how heavy to press. Pressing harder will generally give you a thicker, darker line whereas a lighter touch will give you a lighter, thinner line.

Pressure sensitivity settings can also be adjusted on the device and via an active stylus pen so that you are more accurate and get the line that you expect when you touch the stylus pen to the screen

  • Properly scaling and sizing the image is different than drawing on a fixed surface size. On a piece of paper, you have one space to work with whereas a digital space can be made smaller or larger depending upon what you are trying to do.

Some people argue that you don’t have to have any prior drawing knowledge or art skills to create a digital drawing, they say that digital drawing is like any other skill and can be learned if practiced over time.

This argument does have some truth to it however the following knowledge and skills can give you a big boost in the learning department and help you to create your digital masterpiece in less time.

Things That Are Good To Know For Creating Digital Drawings

The list below discusses skills and items that are helpful to know if you wish to be successful when creating digital drawings.

General Artistic Knowledge

Basic drawing skills such as sketching people, objects, and shapes, and their relation to each other in space are extremely helpful. Understanding concepts such as how to create shading and dimension is an essential drawing skill.

Being able to create a well-composed drawing on paper will help you greatly while you learn to use the new technology that comes along with drawing on a digital surface.

Understanding Animation Skills

Although you may not consider the knowledge of animation to be necessary for drawing it can be quite helpful, especially when creating digital drawings which can oftentimes be rendered into a three-dimensional image.

Understanding how lighting and shading work to make an image stand out and look more realistic is a helpful skill to have.

Text and Typography

Many digital drawings and artwork incorporate text so having general typography knowledge can help you when it comes to choosing the right fonts and placement of text in your image.

Basic Skills Go A Long Way For Digital Drawings

Now you know that if you plan on creating digital art drawings it is necessary to have some basic drawing skills if you want to have any amount of success. The more you practice your drawing techniques on paper the better you will become digitally. Technology is advancing at warp speed and the more skills you have the better prepared you will be for what is to come.