Digital painting 101

The number of publications about digital painting is surprisingly small. Even experts like Craig Mullins are not mentioned in a simple Google search. So it is time to bring the development a bit forward and provide some introductory tutorials. One misconception about digital painting is to compare it with digital art. In both cases a computer is used, but digital painting has the aim to replace traditional painting technique like oil painting. Let us start from fresh.

The first what we need is gimp. It is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The version shown in the screenshot is outdated (version 2.8.22), newer versions of GIMP have more colors and better brushes. But as starting point the software is well suited. It has more features, then even expert painters ever need. So what can we do with gimp? In a classical sense, the software is recognized as a photo-editing tool for improving pictures taken by a digital camera. That is only one feature and will be ignored in the following tutorial. The more interesting scenario is to use GIMP as a painting tool for creating art which is not already there in reality. We are starting with some basic trials to bring colors on the screen.

What we see in the next image is a special tool, called “Smudge tool”, it helps to soften the transitions between two areas. It is known from normal art and allows to create special effects.

This tool can used more and results into a fast drawn picture. It looks similar to an abstract painting which was created offline but this time it needs less time. The above picture was created in under 5 minutes. It has a high-resolution and can be printed by a inkjet printer to any size. That means, a single artist can produce on one day not simple one image, he can generate hundreds of them. The most important function in the gimp tool is perhaps the CTRL+Z key. It allows to take back the last step like in a word processor. Such a simple function allows an amateur to get the same quality like a professional. That means, it is not necessary to be able to paint, it is enough to want to learn it.

But something is missing. Apart from abstract painting sometimes it would to have also realistic paintings, for example we like to have a SUV car. No problem, we are painting one from scratch, adjusting the colors and insert it into our artwork:

Sure, such a piece of art can be also created with the well known offline workflow. It is similar to what artists were doing all night long. But, digital painting has the advantage that is a lot of faster and can be handled by non-experts. That means, a super-realistic painting is not something which is done by professionals who have 20 years experience, it is something which the students are able to do after a two week training course. A pipeline around digital painting is comparable to a mixture of speed painting and concept art. And like a scientific document which was created with LaTeX it can be printed out and reach a much better quality then a normal artwork.

At the end some improvements were made on the picture and the result is:

Printing on poster format

Perhaps the most interesting question is how to print out the JPEG file on real paper. So called copyshops have a service called poster-printing and fine art printing. The idea is to use large format inkjet printers to print on 120 cm x 80 cm. Such a print produces costs of around 50 US$. The resolution should be at least 150 dpi which is around 12000 pixel x 8000 pixel (round about, the example is 255 dpi because 12k/47inch=255). The feature of poster printing has a longer tradition. It was used in the past to print out photographs and reproduce artwork which was created in the past, for example by Van Gogh. But, future artists are able to create the pdf file by it's own. And this pdf file can be copied on usb stick and printed out.

Like in the old style to paint, the quality of the paper and of the ink is important. And were are not talking about simulated colors, but about real ones. The new thing is, that the workflow is separated. Creating an image with gimp can be done without real sheet of paper, while printing it out is something which is different from it. I would guess, that in the future we will see lots of artists, who are working with an all digital pipeline. That means, in the art exhibition the original painting was printed out on an inkjet printer. It is not a copy of another drawing, but it is the original. That means, if the art exhibition doesn't want to show a printed copy of a picture, it is not possible that the painting of the artist can be shown. He has no other master copy somewhere in the basement, he has only the JPEG file stored on his laptop.