Learning digital art opens up an artist’s career to new opportunities in game design, web design, graphic design, fashion design, product design, concept art, comic art, illustrative art, architecture, 3D modelling, and so much more. Since you are considering a career path in digital art, it would be safe to assume that you already have good control over your art in some form or the other.

However, talent and knowledge alone does not guarantee success in any artistic field, whether it’s on a digital platform or not. Creative professionals must also ensure productivity that is in line with the requirements of their respective jobs. As per established and successful digital artists from a myriad of fields, the following hold the most importance in ensuring that boosted productivity.

Get a Comprehensive, Digital Artist’s Laptop or Tablet PC

When you are only starting out, you may want to restrict your hardware expenses to a minimum. At the same time, that cannot come at the cost of performance, as that would pretty much defeat the whole purpose of boosting productivity as a professional. Therefore, the best solution would be to get a single 2-in-1 laptop or a tablet PC that comes with:

• A high-resolution touchscreen with support for pressure-sensitive inputs.
• A digital pen with support for 2,048 – 4,096 points of pressure sensitivity.
• A powerful graphics processor capable of rendering highly detailed sketches, drawings, and animations in QHD and UHD resolutions.

For example, the all Yoga 9i 2-in-1 laptops come with Lenovo Intel Arc Graphics, and the Precision Pen 2 digitizer, and you can choose a bright OLED panel in 4K resolution. A laptop like that makes it unnecessary for the digital artist to buy external, touchscreen monitors or a digital artist’s pen. You may need more later on, but until the time that you do, a comprehensive laptop/tablet PC is the best way to save money and boost productivity.

Get a Degree and Learn the Process

Getting a degree in any particular art form may not always be a strict requirement for digital artists, provided that they are good at getting the job done. However, certification is indeed an essential requirement if you wish to work in technical fields such as architecture, medical illustration, fashion designing, etc. These are jobs that need more than artistic talent and just a basic understanding of what must be done.

For example, the job of a medical illustrator is not as much about learning how to draw on a digital platform as it is about knowing the human anatomical design in all its intricate details. Similarly, an artist with a civil engineering degree would be a natural architect on both platforms. It’s more important to learn the process behind your desired field of work than it is to learn digital art.

Get a Degree in Digital Art

This is a secondary requirement, but for traditional artists, it can make a big difference. If you are a decent comics character artist on pen and paper, then you already have what it takes. You don’t need to go through the long process of learning how to draw stylized characters, add expressions to them, draw different poses for their movement from one frame to another, etc.

However, it will still take you some time to learn how to do all that on a digital canvas, using a digital pen. There is also the need to maximize your productivity by learning how to use the various software tools to their full extent. Complete a small online course in digital art and animation to make that learning curve no longer seem as steep.