Talked to a kid at a cafe about why my art has all these layers and now I'm second guessing my whole process

Was working on a digital piece at a local coffee shop in Austin last week. This high school kid comes up and asks what software I use. Told him Procreate. He said 'cool, but why does it take you so long?' I said I do like 40 layers for shading. He just goes 'why not just use one layer and get good at brush control?' And he was not being rude, just genuinely curious. I've been doing digital art for maybe 5 years now and I never thought about it that way. Layers felt like safety. Like if I mess up I can just delete one. But maybe I'm hiding behind them. Has anyone else had a younger artist totally call out a habit you thought was normal?

3 comments

3 Comments

jessica9217d ago

My nephew is 16 and works at a car wash. He told me the other day that people who hand wash their cars are wasting time when drive through washes exist. It made me think about how every generation finds a faster way to do things and then acts like the old way is silly. Same with your layers thing. Older artists learned to be careful with every brush stroke to save materials, so they naturally flatten their work. It's just a different mindset, not a wrong one. That kid might be good with brush control but he has never had to fix a big mistake by carefully erasing on one layer.

charles8367d ago

I read somewhere that old-school animators at Disney used to work on like 12 layers max for a whole scene because that's all the cels they could afford. So hearing that kid say use one layer isn't totally crazy, it's just a different way of thinking back from when materials cost real money. But here's the thing, digital art lets us experiment without the fear of messing up, and that freedom can actually help you grow faster than being super careful all the time. I've seen guys at my day job who only use one wrench for everything, and sure they're fast, but they also strip bolts way more than the guy who takes thirty seconds to grab the right socket. Your layers aren't a crutch, they're a safety net that lets you take bigger risks with shading and texture that a single layer guy might never try. That kid might have good brush control now, but wait until he has to undo a giant smudge he made ten minutes ago on his one layer, he'll understand why we stack them up.

jessica9217d ago

Remembered this one time at a gym where some younger guy tried to tell me free weights were outdated because machines isolate everything better, and @charles836's wrench comparison popped into my head because it's the same deal - having options isn't a weakness, it's just working smarter for what you actually need.