My Digital Art Skill Evolution

This blog post will go into how my art skills have changed over the years. I will share some EMBARRASSING old art on the way, so buckle up!

Before Digital Art

I’ve been drawing on paper ever since I was very little. Like… “3-years-old little.” I remember scanning my paper drawings a lot before having my own laptop at age 15.

I had a lotta TV show ideas back then that I would work on. The example I share right here is a show idea I had called Cooper the Cat. Which was basically a purple, walking-talking cat (kinda a rip-off of the title character Chowder to be perfectly honest LOL).

Paintbrush for Mac

When I officially got my first laptop at age 15, I discovered an Apple Mac application called “Paintbrush,” which I used A TON!! I actually have a YouTube video of myself making a character using this bare-bones drawing program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRmXKrv98K0

It was so bare-bones that there wasn’t even a LAYER FEATURE present! I made some many drawings using this program it’s not even funny. Then again, a part of me still looks back fondly on this program, since it was all I had for digital drawing at the time. I definitely made the most of it before I moved onto GIMP, a free digital art program that actually had some decent features. Keep in mind that I didn’t even have a drawing tablet at the time. Didn’t get one until I was 17 (big game-changer BTW).

This drawing of the character “Barsha” was made using “Paintbrush.” Looked good to me at the time LOL

GIMP

Eventually, I learned how to use GIMP thanks to one of my artist friends teaching me. The first time I used it, I didn’t realize it would’ve been way easier to use a drawing tablet. I actually made this drawing in GIMP using a trackpad.

For a little while, I would use GIMP to spice up the “Paintbrush” drawings. Yep! I used a combination of GIMP and Paintbrush to make my old digital art. In this link is a video I made of me doing this with one of my drawings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSgVY7Ba5_8&t=4s

Here is an example of me using both Paintbrush and GIMP to make something. I feel like things are starting to look more improved. GIMP allowed me to play around with shadowing and depth, while I used Paintbrush for line art.

High School Art Classes

I began using drawing tablets when I was a sophomore in high school. I eventually got the hang of it enough to do my own drawings on the school computers for fun. The drawing below was my first ever drawing using a tablet. The school I went to used Photoshop Elements at the time. Learned a lot of my Photoshop skills there.

My First Drawing Tablet and Photoshop

I got my first drawing tablet at Christmas when I was 17. It was a Wacom Intuos tablet, which I still have.

I remember this drawing being one of the first GIMP drawings I made using an actual tablet. And yes… that is a floating knife smoking a cigar.

Photoshop

For a little bit, I used Photoshop to make my drawings. In fact, the first ever Space Grind drawing was made using Photoshop.

In my opinion, my best Photoshop drawing.

The first ever drawings of the Space Grind characters. Their placeholder name was In Thrall.

Clip Studio Paint and Wacom Cintiq

Eventually, I bought Clip Studio Paint on a Black Friday deal, which I mainly use now! I even used it to make my comic book, which you can buy on Amazon. Also, when I was either 20 or 21, I bought a used Wacom Cintiq 21 (which I also still use) for $300 on the Facebook Marketplace. Traveled 3 hours to pick it up. SO WORTH IT!

Morticia Addams being used as an example of a Cintiq drawing.

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS BLOG POST

Have a good day 🙂 Also, if you wanna see more my old art, here’s a link to my DeviantArt account where I posted SO MUCH ART: https://www.deviantart.com/esmereldaimagination

Here’s also the GateCity2015 art account, which has less art, but it’s more of the newer stuff: https://www.deviantart.com/gatecity2015