5 Online Sources For Digital Art Tutorials

5 Online Sources For Digital Art Tutorials:
Every so often, I believe that everyone has some sort of creative urge. Whether it turns into a beautiful painting on canvas or simple bathroom graffiti, it’s all driven by the same fire. Fortunately, with all the technology that surrounds us, we have an easy outlet to carry forth our desires to create, and that comes in the form of digital art.
What is digital art? It could be a painting, a model, a graphic design, or even a photo composition. Granted, all of these can be done in real life, but the catch is that with digital art, it’s all done with a computer. If you’re interested in enhancing your skills as a digital artist, the web has several tutorials out there to help you to boost your talents.

DeviantART

DeviantART is already a fairly well-known resource for artists to share their work and gain critique, but it also offers many user-generated tutorials. On DeviantART, you’ll find an omnibus of tutorials full of different styles of art. From creative cartoons to masterful paintings, DeviantART has it all.
Even though it is already very popular, I included this site due to its nature of primarily being described as a community for artists. Often, we forget that those artists seek to share their own knowledge, and you can have access to it right here.

PSHero

Another kind of digital artwork is a photo illustration, and PSHero has a collection of Photoshop-oriented tutorials that will help you optimize your own work. These photo compositions make use of artistic elements, enhancement techniques, and other methods to add to what your camera has already captured.
Besides photo creations, PSHero also offers tutorials for colorful projects involving only Photoshop itself. You can add to your creative repertoire of graphic design and editing tricks by spending just a little time on this site.

Tutorial9

Tutorial9 is all about one word – creation. Using tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator, Tutorial9 takes you on a magic journey through the land of Creativity. By taking on these small, easy projects, you effectively will learn how to add the techniques to your own bigger ones. With Tutorial9, you will learn how to make simple images, add effects to text, and even make nifty patterns.
This is relatively standard material, but think of each tutorial as a building block for you to use on your more complex structures. In addition to these tutorials, Tutorial9 also has a collection of web development articles that are worth taking a look at.

3DM3

For those of you that are into 3D design (something I stay far away from), I present to you 3DM3. It has what I believe to be some useful tutorials that range all the way from concept art to full 3D models. Despite there being a portion of the site that could be deemed NSFW (the CG Girls section), the information on the rest of 3DM3 is very valid and useful for all you modelers and animators out there.
With tutorials in at least sixteen different 3D-related apps and programs including 3DS Max, Maya, Cinema4D, and Z-Brush, you’ll find yourself never short on view-worthy content that can easily be put into practice.

2DTuts

2DTuts is a division of 2DArts, a marketplace for digital art (and that actually includes 3D art, too). On 2DTuts, you’ll find detailed walkthroughs on digital painting, something that could work well with a Bamboo pad and stylus. Using Photoshop, you can mimic the already-created artwork in order to develop your own, and seeing how easy these articles are to read, it shouldn’t be too much of a chore.
On top of that, the site also offers the occasional freebies (like Photoshop brushes) and challenges (such as Speedpainting competitions).

Conclusion

The one thing to keep in mind when you are looking at these tutorials is that you don’t necessarily need the programs they use in order to follow along. Something like the GIMP or Pixelmator should definitely do the trick. However, either way, these sites should help you in some form or fashion.
What kinds of digital art are you interested in making? Have these tutorials helped you at all?
Image Credit: alvimann