I think people overpolish their digital paintings and it kills the texture

Every time I scroll through this forum I see these pieces with perfectly smooth skin and no brush strokes left behind. It looks like plastic to me. I spent two years painting that way because everyone said clean renders look more professional. Then last summer I did a portrait study where I left my brush marks visible on purpose. That piece got way more engagement than anything I had smoothed out. My professors always told me to keep texture because it shows the artist's hand. Digital art already fights against feeling handmade. Why make it look more like a filter? Has anyone else noticed the shift toward super flat renders?

2 comments

2 Comments

ruby49418d ago

Have you ever considered that the overpolished look might come from artists being scared of criticism? I see it all the time where beginners post something with visible strokes and get told it looks messy or unfinished. So they learn to erase all evidence of their hand to avoid that negative feedback. But smoothing everything out takes the life out of it. Your portrait study proves that leaving some roughness in actually makes people stop and look closer, not run away.

alicem2917d ago

Gotta disagree with you both here. I've been looking at digital art for years and some of my favorite pieces are the smooth realistic ones where you can't see a single brushstroke. It's a different skill set entirely, like hyperrealism in traditional painting where the goal is to hide the artist's hand. Not everything needs to show texture to be good. That portrait study you mentioned might have gotten more attention because the rough style stood out in a sea of clean work, not because clean work is bad.