Before I go further, here's a piece I did in Photoshop to become familiar with digital drawing:
I instinctively went for a charcoal look. I did this test piece in the same manner that I would do a tonal study of a subject before I painted it. This begs the question: Why didn't I just use paper and some charcoal? It would certainly have looked better. I've seen other digital pieces where the artist has emulated everything from oils to colored pencil. Digital art is a changeling that we're never quite sure of it's original form.I quickly came to the conclusion, after doing my digital charcoal study, that trying to emulate a physical painting medium is just a waste of time and electricity. If you want an oil painting, go paint in oil. So then what's the use of digital painting? Surely not to save us from breathing in Turpenoid or cleaning brushes (both activities are highly enjoyable for me, btw). Digital painting has it's own 'look' as distict from oils as watercolor is from pastel. Digital paint is bright and slick. It's textures overlapping shapes. It's beautiful chaos made from mathematicaly precise brushes and stock textures. It's a highly-stylized view of life, painted with light.
The real identity of digital art isn't to emulate a physical medium. Some may argue the point, but let them rant. The most basic rule of art is 'know your medium; know your tools'. You want oils? Break out the linseed and canvas. You want watercolor? Go soak your paper and prepare for many washes of color. You want slick, bright, high-tech, textures and lines assaulting your grill? Pick up the Wacom, my friend and jump into the matrix. Now, after I've spent a thousand words on this, here's a picture. Or two. Alright, here are two websites that will show you what digital art is.
http://androidjones.net/
http://artizako.cgsociety.org/gallery/
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