Art is a struggle. It’s hard, it’s difficult… Just kidding! Most of the time, digital art is really fun! It’s not better than traditional art, but if you are interested, I really recommend becoming a digital artist (there are not many cons of being a digital artist)! Admittedly, digital art can also be frustrating at times. What challenges do you think digital artists face nowadays? Well, here are seven common digital artist struggles that no one gets around in the long run!
Making digital art is really fun, once you got the hang of it! But when you are just getting started, it can be very challenging at first. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about…
I’ve been into digital art for more than ten years now, and the beginning can be easily described as being ‘rocky’.
But it’s quite similar for traditional artists, too. Just think back to the first time when you were supposed to paint or draw something on a blank canvas. However, with a good foundation, you’ll soon be able to enjoy digital art a lot!
Nevertheless, digital artists still face their challenges, and in this post, we’ll be talking about some of the typical digital artist struggles.
What are the struggles of an artist in general?
Digital art has come a long way since its birth and it can now easily compete with traditional art. While it wasn’t considered to be ‘real art’ at its beginnings, fine art can now also be digital.
Like all media, digital art has its pros and cons. So why should you get started with digital art? Let me just list a few advantages:
- Digital art is faster than traditional art.
- Digital art is cleaner than traditional art.
- Digital art doesn’t need any extra editing for online publishing.
- Digital art is more forgiving than traditional media. If you make a mistake, you can easily undo it.
- Digital art lets you create things that you could never do with traditional art.
To know more about the advantages, check out 12 benefits of learning digital art.
What are the cons of being a digital artist?
Honestly, there are not many cons of being a digital artist, in my opinion. Acquiring some digital art skills, even if it’s just in addition to your main traditional practice, can only be beneficial to your overall artistic skillset.
Digital art is not better or worse than traditional art. They are just two different forms of art.
At the beginning, many people in the art world didn’t consider digital art to be genuine and authentic, because there is no original artwork. No real tangible thing to touch.
A digital artwork can be duplicated easily. That also means that it is a lot easier to ‘steal’ an artwork or claim it as your own.
Because digital art is so forgiving, it also used to be considered as ‘too easy to be real art’. Conservative artists used to argue that digital art didn’t require as much skill as traditional art, because it is so easy to reverse mistakes.
However, in most cases, this is not true. Digital artists need as much skill and talent as traditional artists to create good work. They need inspiration, imagination, and creativity just like any other creative person.
Is digital art better than traditional art?
Why is digital art difficult?
Digital art is difficult because it requires a completely different skillset than traditional art. Many skilled traditional artists come to realize that they are beginners again when they switch to digital art. They have to start over with the basics.
Before you can delve into digital art, you’ll need to get familiar with the tools of the trade. This includes both digital art software and digital art hardware. You’ll need to learn how the technology works and how to handle a drawing tablet.
All of this adds some complexity to the situation and makes digital artist struggles more challenging than traditional art – at least at the beginning.
Wanna know how to become a digital artist?
Nevertheless, digital art is also easier than traditional art in certain respects.
Digital art is easier than traditional art when erasing, undoing, resizing, cropping, coloring, copying, pasting, animating, and publishing your creations.
With traditional art, you are limited to what’s on the canvas in front of you. With digital art, you can make huge changes to your work with just a few clicks.
What challenges do digital artists face nowadays?
Despite the many comforts that come with technology, digital artists still face challenges nowadays.
So here are 7 common digital artist struggles that I myself have experienced and that I know some of my artist friends have run into as well!
Maybe some of the challenges will surprise you, or maybe you already expected that to happen and can share similar stories. Let me know in the comments!
7 Common digital artist struggles
1. Not having the technical skills to get your vision down on the digital canvas.
While you still need creative talent and the basic knowledge of color theory, composition, and lighting & shading, digital art is all about technical skills.
Before you can start making art, you’ll need to get to know the ins and outs of your digital art software. If you are using a feature-rich program like Photoshop, the learning curve can be pretty steep. And even after several weeks of practice, you still won’t know all the functions that you may need to bring your ideas down to the digital canvas.
This is one of the digital artist struggles that are especially annoying for beginners, and it is also the reason why your first creations tend to look a bit 'askew'. The same happened to me when I started out with digital art.
You will quickly come to realize that many of the amazing digital artists you look up to have mastered technical skills you didn’t even know of.
That’s why I recommend getting a strong foundation in the basics of whatever program you choose to work with and then stepping it up from there.
Taking an online class can do wonders in speeding up your learning curve. I suggest checking out the courses on Skillshare, where you will find lots of expert-led classes for all programs.
If you want to delve into Photoshop, I can recommend the classes by Adobe-certified instructor Daniel Scott, who offers both an Essential Training Course for Beginners and an Advanced Training Course on Skillshare.
For recommendations for different software programs and what other skills you need as a digital artist, check out the 7 must-have skills of a digital artist and where to get them!
2. Not being able to afford the digital art tools you want.
Digital art costs money, just like about everything in life. But this doesn’t mean that digital art is more expensive than traditional art. In the long run, digital art is even significantly cheaper than traditional art!
Your digital art supplies don’t run out, that means once you have them, you can keep using them for a very loooong period of time. And the initial costs may not even be as high as you think.
What do you need to make digital art? You probably already have a computer or a laptop. So the only two things that you’ll need to get are digital art software and a drawing tablet.
If you want to work with Photoshop, then the cheapest option is the Photography Plan for US$9.99 per month – which is pretty affordable (you can start a free 14-day trial here). You can also start with Photoshop Elements, a slightly stripped-down version of Photoshop that is available at a one-time payment.
A more affordable alternative to Photoshop is Affinity Photo, which is almost as powerful but much cheaper. But there is even completely free software, for example Krita and Gimp.
The second thing you need is a drawing tablet. Can you not work with a mouse and your trackpad? NO! Please don’t even try. I did when I made my first creations and I almost knotted my fingers!
This is one of the digital artist struggles that you can easily avoid. Your artist life will be so much easier once you have a drawing tablet.
Apart from the increased comfort of working, a drawing tablet will also let you access the pressure- and tilt-sensitivity features of your software, which are not accessible via mouse or trackpad. (To learn more about drawing tablets, read my Ultimate Guide To The Best Wacom Drawing Tablet For Beginners.)
Just like the software, a tablet doesn’t have to be expensive. You can buy a basic quality tablet for less than 100 dollars. Two good options are the Wacom Intuos and the One by Wacom.
However, where it can get really, really expensive is when you want a high-class drawing tablet with screen. The most affordable option is probably the Wacom One. But for more advanced tablets like the Cintiq 22 or MobileStudio Pro, you’ll definitely need to dig deeper into your pocket!
3. Spending more time on looking for stock photos than creating art.
Regardless of what type of digital art you are creating, you will most likely have to be on the lookout for stock photos or reference pictures.
If you are a photo manipulator like myself, you need stock images. But even if you create digital paintings or drawings, or 3D models, you probably need reference images that you base your creations on.
Finding the right images can be hard at times. Especially when you have a clear vision of what you want to create in your mind. Most of the time, I know exactly what I want a piece to look like, so it’s even harder to find the stock photos that match my vision.
Sometimes, I spend hours and hours scrolling through stock photos in order to find the exact thing I'm looking for. That's a really time-consuming digital artist struggle...
If you are familiar with my photo manipulations, you know that I always use my own face for the ladies I create, sometimes also my arms or hands. This saves me the hassle of finding a stock photo with the exact expression or pose I’m looking for.
I also believe that it makes my works much more personal. If you want to learn more about my creative process, feel free to check out some of my Making Ofs, where I also speak about the meaning behind my surreal art.
Over time, I’ve also come to create my own stock photos, because I’m not always able to find what I need. An example are the glass jars that I created for my Glasshouse series and that I am now making available to other artists on my website.
4. Not finding the right tutorial to create what you have in mind.
This is similar to not yet having the technical skills to realize your vision. Even when you have joined courses for beginners and advanced relating to the digital art software you are using, you might still find yourself looking for tutorials to create specific things.
Sometimes, it is a real challenge to find the tutorial that provides you the information you need. Some tutorials are confusing, some are difficult to understand, and some just don’t deliver what their title promises!
Especially when I started out, I often found myself in the situation of needing the help of tutorials to make progress and create the things that I had in mind. I spent hours over hours on the internet sifting and sorting through tutorials on YouTube and different websites in the hope of finding what I was looking for.
In fact, finding good tutorials is one of the huge digital artist struggles. It takes time and can be frustrating if you don't find what you need.
In the meantime, I’ve created lots of Photoshop tutorials about the stuff that most artists want to know. I have tutorials about almost everything from layer styles, to opacity, to blending modes, to photo grids, to vignette filters, and so on.
So if you need help with something, feel free to hop over to my Photoshop tutorials section and see if there’s a tutorial for what you are looking for! If not, you can ask me and I’ll see if I can create a tutorial!
5. Finishing a piece and then noticing lots of imperfections later on.
I assume that this happens to digital artists and traditional artists alike. But for digital artists it’s easier to get tempted to make lots and lots of changes even after you’ve finished a piece.
Since everything is nicely available on layers, layer masks, adjustment layers, and so on, it’s enticing to open up the file again and change what you feel doesn’t look ‘perfect’ – even though the changes you make would objectively be only minor and not make a huge difference.
Traditional art cannot be changed as easily as digital art. That's why digital artists are comparably more prone to struggle with their inner perfectionist.
I’m a little perfectionist myself. Every time I look back at my past creations, I would find a thousand things that I could make better.
However, I’ve made a deal with myself that once a piece is finished, it is finished. I don’t touch it anymore. Because if I were to make changes every time I notice something that isn’t perfect, I would just drive myself crazy and don’t come to create new art.
Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. Just like with ‘Pastime‘ that I showed you at the beginning of this post, where I found that the head of the lady was too big. So I just couldn’t help myself but just had to make the head a bit smaller afterwards…
6. Thinking you’ll never be a good enough digital artist.
This is about your creative confidence as an artist. Comparing ourself to other artists, being trapped in the social media game and determining the worth of your work by the number of Likes it gets, not having a huge following, not being published in an art magazine, not winning that online Photoshop competition, …
All these things may contribute to us thinking that we are just not good enough digital artists. It’s important to realize that none of these factors can determine the worth of our art.
Every artist is on their own journey. Some are at the beginning and still work on improving their skills, others have already gathered a lot of experience and developed their unique art style.
No one is born a master. Skill comes with practice, and even the greatest artists have once started as beginners. Art is a journey, and you should always value the stage you are at.
Another thing digital artists struggle with is negative feedback. Negative and derogatory comments have the potential to pull us down emotionally.
We cannot please everyone with our art, and even the best artists are not exempt from criticism. However, we should never let the fear of being judged stop us from being creative.
If you feel that unhealthy comparison and negative feedback still hold you back from creating the art you truly want to create, then check out my posts on how to build creative courage and how to express yourself through your art.
7. Running out of RAM, storage space or losing your files.
Last but not least, running out of RAM, storage space or losing your files is one of the typical digital artist struggles.
While the worst thing that can happen to a traditional artist is not having enough room in their studio to store all the artworks, virtual files may be lost or damaged much more easily.
Has it ever happened to you that you were working on a large file in Photoshop and when you tried to make some complex operation, a little message popped up saying: ‘your scratch disks are full’? Well, it definitely happened to me and it’s pretty annoying, because you’ll need to free up some space before you can execute the operation or even save the file. Could never happen to a traditional artist…
Another challenge only digital artists have to deal with is losing your files altogether. Fortunately, it happened to me only once that I lost an entire file of hours and hours of work. But because I absolutely wanted to have my ‘Pastime‘, I created everything all over again.
It really costs a lot of time and nerves recovering a lost file.
To not let that happen to you, I recommend backing up all your files on an external disk and also saving them somewhere online, for example on your Google Drive or in your Dropbox.
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So am I right? Are these the typical digital artist struggles? Let me know of your thoughts and experiences in the comments below or reach out to me directly. I’d love to hear from you!
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