Digital painting

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An artist drawing on a graphics tablet in 2014

"Alice in Wonderland", a 2010 digital painting by David Revoy, depicting some elements and characters from the 1865 novel.

Digital painting is an established art medium that typically combines a computer, a graphics tablet, and software of choice.^[1] The artist uses painting and drawing with the stylus that comes with the graphics tablet to create 2D paintings within a digital art software. Digital artists utilize multiple techniques and tools, the main one being digital brushes.^[2] These come standard with all digital art programs, but users can create their own by altering their shape, texture, size, and transfer.^[3] Many of these brushes are created to represent traditional styles like oils, acrylics, pastels, charcoal, and airbrushing, but not all.^[4] Other effective tools include layers, lasso tools, shapes, and masks. Digital painting has evolved to not just mimic traditional art styles but fully become its technique.

Digital painting is used by amateur and professional artists alike. Its use is particularly prevalent in commercial production studios that create games, television, and film.^[5] There are multiple reasons for this which applies to amateur artists as well. Digital painting enables artists to experiment with different techniques and colors easily as its use of layers, the undo function, and save files make it a non-destructive work process.^[6] Artists can always return to an earlier state within the art piece, so nothing is ever truly lost. This saves time and materials while giving the artist more freedom to create.