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@Background Pony #371B
Forgot to login before posting this :s

@Fair Use (Optimisitc Neighsayer)
Your last works are around 3000x2000, no real need to go higher, 300 DPI is usually enough…

Most camera apps allow setting the photos resolution in the Hamburger Menu (along with white balance etc), but since you’re already using a scanner, there’s no need to bother with a smartphone camera, the result will almost always be inferior imo

@catachromatic
Hmm. I do have a scanner, and I typically set the resolution to 300 dpi. Should I go higher? (Also how do you set the resolution on a smartphone camera?)

I think a lot of the issue with a lot of the traditional art on here (and in general) is that it’s very poorly photographed. Making sure it’s well lit, high resolution, at the correct angle, actually cropped, not on notebook paper, etc. Having a decent camera and the knowledge of how to use an editing program to touch up your work is key here. I suggest Snapseed if you’re taking the picture with your phone. Make sure the contrast is decent and that the colors are properly saturated. This guide is pretty decent, they use Photoshop, but any decent editing program should work. There’s also this one which is more about the photography than the editing, but useful if you don’t have a scanner.

I’m tempted to say, people like clean and easily readable pictures, colors also being a huge bonus ; digital art usually looks cleaner, especially for art viewed on a screen.

But some of the most-admired artists are doing traditional, see Ecmajor, Longinius, or Baron-engel ; they know the strengths of traditional media (the stroke control you’re mentioning, and the ability for very fine details), and use it to achieve some of the greatest art pieces that can be seen on the fanart.

Their audience might be smaller compared to digital, but might include lots of classical art lovers.

Both approachs (traditional and digital) have their strenghts and weakness, most important is to choose the one you’re the happiest with. Trying both might be a good idea, too, though digital without tablet is kind of a awkward experience

I mostly work in traditional media. To me, working in traditional is a good break from the screen, especially since I’ll spend eight hours a day in front of one for work, and I feel I have more control over exactly where my strokes go. (I don’t have a tablet, yet even still there is something more relaxing doing art the old-fashioned way.)

Admittedly my technique is not very good. Still I enjoy drawing pony and sharing them with others.

That said, do you feel that there is a bias against traditional art in the fandom? Digital art seems to be easier to manipulate for most people, and often just comes out cleaner and more polished. (It may be the case that better artists in general just prefer to use digital now.)

If you take a look at the first three pages for images on Derpi tagged “digital art” and “traditional art” respectively,
digital art images seem to get more upvotes on average overall. Of course there’s probably some bias here. Traditional art pieces are usually labelled as such, while not every digital art piece is (which may itself betray the idea that digital is “normal”), so those digital art pieces that are high quality enough to get more upvotes will also often get a “digital art” tag.

This thing just eats me sometimes so much I feel pressured to learn digital when I don’t feel it’s healthful.