With the digital landscape taking the world by storm, artists aren’t about to be left behind. Whether you are a renowned digital artist or are wanting to hire a freelance artist for your next project, cutting-edge technology helps simplify things.
Digital artwork is becoming more popular, with more people open to using technology in place of conventional art tools. As the term implies, you can make digital art using computer software or other electronic devices.
Forget searching around for canvas or paper to bring your artwork to life; digital is the future. And after ascertaining digital art cost, your next question will probably be, what are the different forms of digital art? These are essential things to consider if you want to become a freelance digital artist or are looking to hire one.
The continued evolution of digital art falls under several styles, themes, and categories. But for the sake of clarity, we’ll explore the idea further by classifying popular methods as computer-generated art or other types of digital art.
Computer-Generated Digital Art
Computer-generated art means a computer is involved in creating the artwork. But, we’ll quickly point out that the computer isn’t responsible for “generating” the images per se. Instead, the artist instructs the computer on creating the image by using a set of computer languages and algorithms. The following types of digital artwork fall under the computer-generated category:
- Algorithmic Art: You can create this type of art using a set of computer algorithms. If you venture into this type of art, you’ll be known as an algorist. You may need to be a mathematician of note since you’re responsible for creating the algorithms in the first place. The algorithms can be composed of computer codes, functions, or mathematical forms.
- Fractal Art: Fractal art is algorithmic art created by calculating fractal objects, which are geometric shapes that you can split into different segments. The result is artwork comprising still images or animations. The good news is you have countless fractal-generating software to use to bring your vision to life.
- Still Imagery: Still Imagery is a popular form of computer-generated artwork that speaks volumes. Depending on your preferences, you can create 2D or 3D images. Popular software to create 2D artwork includes Adobe Illustrator and Flash. 3D images are a hit if computer animation and gaming video graphics are your end goal.
- Data-moshing: Data-moshing is arguably among the more popular forms of digital artwork. Have you ever seen animated GIFs or artwork with glitchy effects? Then you’ve witnessed data-moshing in all its glory. Apart from GIFs, data-moshing is popular with videos.
Other Types of Digital Art
We’ll include the rest of the most popular types of digital artwork under this category. It’s not to say these forms of digital art don’t require computer usage. They do. However, the dependence on computing isn’t as strong.
- Digital Photography: Digital photography remains one of the most popular types of digital artwork, and with good reason. You don’t need much skill to create good pictures, as a top-notch digital camera will do the heavy lifting. However, capturing images that communicate ideas and move hearts takes talent and practice.
- Photo Painting: If you love painting and photographs, photo painting combines the best of both worlds. You’ll need a picture to start, and then you can create a painting on the photo. Photo painting is the way to go if you want to bring canvas realism to life through digital software.
- Pixel Art: Most video games, computer games, and mobile games use this type of artwork. As the name implies, this type of art includes pixels. You’ll need to use software such as Pixen to produce your masterpiece.
- Raster Painting: Also known as grid painting, raster painting is one of the closest alternatives to canvas painting. You’re able to create your artwork digitally in a stroke-by-stroke fashion to resemble a canvas painting.
- Vector Painting: Vector painting is a somewhat easier type of digital art to master, needing only a few clicks to change color, shadow, etc. It’s easy to enlarge these paintings without compromising the sharpness of the image.
Final Thoughts
In the past, digital art was shunned by traditional artists, citing a lack of creativity and originality. Now, more artists are receptive to techniques that allow you to channel your creative flair using technology. The numerous methods you have to explore, computer-generated or not, make the art world even more compelling.
