Traditional vs Digital for Drawing Basics – Help Me Decide!
4d
Styrbjörn Andersson
Hi all,
I’ve just started the Drawing Basics course and find myself at a crucial crossroads: Should I focus on a traditional or digital approach? I’d love to hear your input on what the “right” choice might be. Of course, this depends on my artistic goals—so let’s dive into those.
While my goals aren’t set in stone, here are a few things I know:
1. I’m most interested in figure/character drawing and portraits.
2. I want to avoid the trap of drifting into unrelated digital anime projects and neglecting the course.
3. I really enjoy traditional art. I’d be happy ending up working with pencils, ink, and watercolor for finished pieces.
4. I need a practice method that allows for quick, efficient iteration.
Based on points 1–3, traditional seems like the natural fit. But point 4 gives me pause. I use a non-screen tablet with Clip Studio Paint (screen tablets aren’t super comfortable for me), and there are real workflow benefits—like flipping the canvas instantly or adding layers on the fly during gesture drawing. Plus, since I already own the tablet, it’s more cost-effective than buying lots of sketchbooks and materials (though I do have quite a bit of traditional media on hand).
I don’t want to keep switching back and forth, so I’d love to decide before starting the first course project. Even if I go digital, I might try to mimic the traditional look with textured or toned digital templates.
Any insights, especially from those who’ve faced a similar choice, would be hugely appreciated!
My humble opinion relies heavily on the fact that you should probably use the medium you enjoy the most. I would stay away from whatever takes the fun out of the learning process.
I'll second this. I ended up doing digital because for my normal practice sessions, there is a low bar of effort to start drawing. I also didn't want to have a bunch of loose pages or fill sketchbooks floating around. Much easier to organize stuff digitally. However, I ended up buying a sketchbook anyway, because I found that when I go places, I want to have something with me so I can practice when I'm waiting around for stuff. So ultimately, I'm kind of hybrid, but primarily digital.
The more you draw the better, so choose what you enjoy and choose what is going to be easiest to getting your drawing more. If the computer proves a distraction when you want to be drawing, then maybe physical media is better...
There is wisdom in this!
I am somewhat cursed with over analyzing stuff, and this has held me back many times. My biggest "growth spurt" as an artist was probably when I simply created a lot of art and did it in the way that pleased me most. Since then I've gradually descended into tutorial hell where the pursuit of creating has been pushed to the side by the hunt for just the right course or just the correct method.
I guess creating this thread is yet another symptom of this, but I'll try to find a balance!
I'm in a similar situation with you in that there I'm drawn to the tactile and emotionally connective qualities of traditional, but I want to versatility of digital.
In the end I went primarily traditional, and supplemented the digital later. Actually now I often draw the original sketch in traditional, take a photo and then use the digital tools to enhance it. In terms of learning I think I learn better with traditional, but I occasionally use my tablet to check proportions, etc. If it is iteration for learning, it's actually more efficient for the learning process to redraw the whole thing again from scratch. That way you can really see yourself improve upon the fundamentals. I love redrawing a wonky head. But when you get later into the creative process, you'll want the ability to e.g., fine-tune or completely change the color scheme, when you play with stuff like composition.
In short, I ended up being a type of hybrid. Like bilingualism, it did take more investment in time to familiarise myself with the digital interface later, but yeah - I recommend going traditional first for fundamentals. Especially if you are a tactile person, you will connect so much easier with the material.
You make a very good point regarding iteration. The problem I personally have is that I find it difficult to distinguish between practice time and artwork creation time. This means that I tend to try to polish stuff that is meant for learning only. It's not entirely bad, since I do get some rendering mileage out of it, but if the purpose is to learn basic things like proportions or gesture it is a rather time inneficient approach.
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4d
Everyone has their own opinion, and I’m of the school of thought that learning fundamentals traditionally is the most versatile. Digital tools are based on traditional techniques so by learning at the ‘roots’ you can easily translate to a digital platform without the dependency on the convenience of tools like undo and liquify. In other words you develop better habits working traditionally. Like I said, everyone has a different perspective and things click better for different people so do what you find works best for you after some exploration!
Thank you! I am leaning towards this way of thinking as well. Other than the things you mentioned there is a certain level of tactility to working traditionally that I prefer. I celebrated my decision by completing the first assignment, and hope that I will follow through this time around :)
