A thin line between love and hate - digital paintings based on 3D figures.

*shrugs* I wouldn't speak to the 'value' of a piece based on its medium at all, actually. I think the classifications on DA...well they aren't serving much purpose if everyone brings their own interpretation of the categories to the table. I think if it's not being used to develop more specific communities and to help people find the art they're searching for, it's just another way to try to establish pecking orders and create exclusive environments. Not really things I go in for, myself.

On a more personal level - I try to follow the rules and put things where they go even if I do think the classifications are pretty meaningless and slightly annoying. As for freehand...I'm having trouble coming up with a definition because to me it seems so common sense, but I can understand how different people have different ideas of what it is. I don't believe a work is freehand even if you can't see the pixels of the thing you traced anymore - it's a totally different technique, a totally different process in my mind. With freehand you have to perceive everything in your reference, whether it be life or a photo or your imagination - proportions, light, shadow, color - and put it on paper. When you have something as a base...well it's exactly that, you have the groundwork already laid down and are using it to spring off of. Maybe with that method you can make something that, in the end, looks better than what you could do freehand, or better meets your goals, and I say more power to you. Just don't, you know...steal. Or lie. Honestly I have so little regard for the classifications as they stand that as long as they credit their base I don't give a care .

There's a class caste, so to speak, within freehand as well when you think about it. Take Kyena and her boyfriend/fellow artist Henning. Both do freehand but I remember when Henning pointed out in his WIP's that he used a grid, another friend of mine said people would poo poo his honesty, maybe even consider him a lesser artist.

I'm sure there are those who consider digital painting not near the same as traditional oils or canvas painting. You can't ctrl/alt z back mistakes on a canvas. Is the tool to blame? Is the ease of your potrait less honorable? I just don't get why people see a necessity for the distinction.

If it's pretty, I could care less how it was done lol.

That about sums up my attitude about art.

My Opinion:

I don't think airbrushed 3d is anymore freehand artwork than an airbrushed fashion photo is freehand. It is what it is --- an airbrush inhanced piece of 3d artwork. It's mixed media, manipulation whatever you want to call if but it is not freehand.

Now reguarding the classification of the procees by which an artist achieve his/her piece is very important. When I look at artwork I want to know what sort of tools were used -- canvas and oils, computer, watercolor, 3d medium. I find that part as facinating as the end result. It's part of what makes the pretty picture interesting. It doesn't make one image less valuable than the other on the contrary in my eyes it makes if more valuable.

What devalues a piece in my eyes is when an artist isn't honnest about their work and tries to bill it as something it is not.

Lunna

I concur with the general mood here. I would class what I do as manipulated 3D renders. I take the render to PS and scribble about till I get something that pleases me.

To me, "traditional" mediums... where you apply something to paper/canvas/plaster ... are "special" because of the immediacy of them. You can only erase so much pencil I love that you can visit a gallery and see a painting that is 20 feet tall. You can't do that on a computer. You can only simulate it.

I think its rather pretentious to suggest that painting digitally is the SAME as painting with traditional means. It IS different. The finished product may look similar but the skills required to produce the image are worlds apart. Doesn't mean that one is better than the other to me, just very different.

When I browse dA, I like to know basically how something is made. Wacom and PS, Poser, Canon Camera and darkroom skills... what I don't like is where someone feels they have to justify their art as if manip is lesser or pixel is lesser than traditional freehand with pastels. Its all art, its just produced differently.

Perhaps the essence is the distinction between digital freehand and traditional..... I LOVE Saraquel's and Sarah's and Kyena's art... its stunning visually and the complexity blows me away, I would take forever to produce something half as lovely. I don't know if they draw it out on a sketch pad first... I would guess maybe Saraquel does because of his comic book background... but really, once you take it to a scan and do it in the computer... its digital art. You can't really compare the two from there. You don't have the luxury of layers and style sets when you use a pencil or oil paint. You just have to know how to mix colour and apply your medium.

So, I guess what I mean is.. I love how there is such variety in the way we make art. I wish folks didn't have to get retarded about it though. It seems very un-something. So long as the artist gets joy and pleasure from their creation and the viewer can take something away from the image.. shouldn't that be all we need?

You see the same thing in the "dolling" or pixel community. There's a huge strife between those that tool shade and those artists that shade pixel by pixel.

I think you're going to see that kind of elitism or debate, no matter what medium.

The ever going debate between those artist that will say that digital or 3D art isn't really art. However, how you produce your artwork is still art. Because you take an idea or concept and visually produce it to an end result that is pleasing or elicits emotion. That is what any kind of art does.

As to how a piece is produced, yeah, classifying it as to how it was done can be nice. I mean, I have seen some stunning pieces that look like oil or acrylic done but they are really done in PS with a graphic tablet.

Art is art. Doesn't matter how it is done.

I agree with everything Lunna said.. thats exactly how i feel.. The only way I could really consider the 3d art I do as something else would be if I were to either completely paint over it or use it as a reference.. ( then it would be manip, but never freehand)

I had no idea DA had awards for some categories and not others.. seems alittle short sited imo.. amazing art can come from all directions..