My Favorite Artists0

There are some great digital artists out there.  All you have to do is join a few of the art forums, watch the gallery posts and you can start your own list of favorite artists.  These artists inspire us, teach us and piss us the hell off by how good they are.  But we love them just the same.  My favorites include (in no particular order): Matt Dixon, Michael Kutsche, Linda Bergkvist, Cynthia Sheppard, Bao Pham, Anne Pogoda, Nykolai Aleksander, Dmitry Grebenkov, Cyril Van Der Hagen, Marta Dahlig, Kerem Beyit, Serge Birault, Tiziano Baracchi, Joerg Warda, Jacek Kaczynski, CrisdeLara, Michael Hideux, Michael Oswald and Tariq Raheem.  These are just s few.  You can google these names and find portfolios for any of them – you will see how completely outstanding their works are.

You have to find great forums to find great artists.  Here is a short list of some of my favorite forums and digital art meeting grounds:

• ImagineFX
• GFXArtists.com
• CGSociety
• It’s Art
• Deviantart
• Renderosity

All these sites have free membership – some are more free than others.  You can join up, upload your work and sit back as people either love or hate your work.  You will receive some constructive criticism – and some not so constructive.  Bet hey – they I figure it – if you can’t take a little criticism (or a lot), then you have no place in the art world.  Just my opinion…

Another great place to see other digital artists works are in the forums of actual software companies.  3 that come to mind are TwistedBrush, ArtRage and Corel Painter.  TwistedBrush is a paint program made by Pixarra.  Very economically priced and an absolute joy to use.  It’s a small company, but they have a good following – and there loyal customers upload and share their work right on the Pixarra website.

ArtRage is old and new.  It’s been around for a while but they just released a brand new version; ArtRage 3 Studio and Studio Pro.  The pro only costs $80.  I have the program sitting on my hard drive just waiting for me to start a new project.  And I will soon.