Digital art has been defined as, “an artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process” (Wiki). For example, digital art can be CG art, 3D Models, Fractals, Pixel art, Digital Photography, etc. As technology marches on, many exciting avenues are being explored in ways that allow for people like you and me to be creative in productive ways. This has been extending all around the globe and, of course, many different cultures. There are differences and similarities that we can glean from how digital art is created in parts of the world.

Photoshop is a household name that most of us know about. It’s a tool used by many artists in the art industry. From painting to digital image manipulation, it has a heavy workload. Photoshop is the industry standard, and it has reached many workplaces where it is standard to share .psd (Photoshop document file) to transfer work in progress artworks among teams. This is one similarity in how we make art from all across the globe. Even though other similar programs are available worldwide, this program is the defacto king of all programs in widespread usage.

However, the type of artwork that you make can decide which program you use. This is another difference in how you make art in a different cultural setting. Mant illustrators in the east use Clip Studio Paint in their workflow over Photoshop as it is more in tune with their workload.

It can be argued that since CSP offers a workload that is different from Photoshop that it’s the reason why there is a difference in the number of users. The difference in what the artist draws is one cultural difference that we can see in their products.

The websites they upload can tell us more about the type of work they make and produce. Artstation is used widely as a professional art platform where industry leaders and many artists can upload their artwork. It contains many more paintings, CG artwork than websites like Pixiv, which is mainly for illustrations and anime art. We can see the differences in how Pixiv artworks are more of illustrations than paintings and reverse for Artstation. However, it is not exclusive which type of artwork ends up on which side. There are more Asian artists making illustrations/comics than in the west can be formed by comparing both sites. I partly disagree, however.

I believe that the type of site you visit can affect what kind of artwork you view for the most part. You can still find anime/comic art in Artstation and professional CG art in Pixiv. I believe that there is a difference in what artists draw across the globe, but the line between Western and Eastern art is blurred enough to just appreciate it as art, no matter what program they used to form it.