Digital art takes a multitude of forms, providing artists with the creative liberty to experiment with an inexhaustible amount of expression on a digital canvas. However, no matter how experienced you are, it can be intimidating to jump into a new style without the necessary tools to guide you.

Today, we’ll be diving into four unique digital art styles, with each offering distinct avenues for artistic exploration. Along the way, we’ll also highlight great resources that can help you jump into these genres with confidence!

1. Anime

Defined by its exaggerated features, unique color palettes, and imaginative graphics, this Japanese animation style is well-known and used by artists as a platform for expressive and iconic storytelling and character creation. The following resources will help you master the art of imbuing your digital characters and story with life through background creation within the world of anime:

Anime Background Illustration Tutorial

In this tutorial, you’ll be guided through the process of imagining and building an emotive environment fit for your most dynamic characters. Utilizing a diverse kit, the artist walks you through how to create a vibrant background using both 3D and 2D tools, including Photoshop, to help bring your anime scenes to life.

Anime Background Brush Set

This versatile brush set helps empower digital artists along their anime journey by providing all of the tools needed to create and enhance their backgrounds. Whether you’re an anime newbie or a seasoned artist, this asset bundle will help bring depth and texture to your digital anime creations.

The brush set includes:

• Photoshop brushes
• Tool presets
• Custom shapes
• Color palettes
• A PDF tutorial

2. Pixel Art

With its charmingly nostalgic and classic video game aesthetic, pixel art remains one of the most beloved digital art styles. In this genre, every carefully placed pixel is assembled to create incredibly detailed and compelling retro visualizations. While pixel art may seem like a tedious and time-consuming feat, these two tools are must-haves if you want to dip your digital brush into the world of pixel art:

Pixel Art Character Tutorial

This comprehensive tutorial will help you unpack the process of creating pixel art from start to finish. It provides you with an in-depth guide that includes expert tips and tricks for creating pixel-perfect characters in Photoshop, including a 2.5-hour 1080p walkthrough with English commentary.

Pixel Art Brushes, Patterns & Perfect Pixel Style

This specialized tool kit is ideal for beginners looking to experiment in a new style, helping you create pixel art with accessible software such as Photoshop. With this bundle, there’s no need to worry about perfecting every pixel by hand. Instead, you can streamline your pixel art process, address common issues and tedious tasks, and elevate your digital creations with ease.

This set comes with:

• 30+ pixelated brushes
• 30+ pixel grids
• 8-pixel scanlines
• 20+ pixel dots
• 16-pixel patterns and more!

3. Realism

With a focus on precisely and accurately replicating the natural world through the digital, this artistic style involves an orientation to detail, including texture, light, and color. While attempting to copy the real through the digital can be a daunting challenge, the following two resources help introduce beginners to techniques and tools required to master the art of digital realism:

Sculpting the Face & Digital Realism

Whether you’re just beginning or already have your foot in the digital door, this comprehensive workshop will help you step onto the path to creating expert-level digital realism while avoiding common pitfalls. These tutorials include 8 modules covering everything you’ll need to sculpt a realistic digital face, including the foundation, facial features, and geometry.

By the end of the course, you’ll know how to:

• Approach facial structuring
• Work with various levels of facial structures
• Sculpt hair, pores, and wrinkles

Note: Registration for this workshop ends on Friday, January 19

61 Skin Brushes for High Realism

Skin poses a unique challenge for digital artists, and it’s as varied as all the faces on Earth—plus the ones from other planets! This bundle includes stabilized brushes which are based on real skin as well as an additional video tutorial to help you create ultra-realistic looks.

It includes:

• 61 hyperrealistic brushes
• An accompanying tutorial with information regarding the brushes and their use

4. Sci-Fi

This futuristic and often dystopian form of expression offers a captivating artistic style with which to bring your visions of the future to life. Through imagining unknown technological advancements and otherworldly environments, sci-fi provides opportunities to transcend the ordinary and reimagine your own world through your digital artistry. These next two tools will help you do just that:

Armor Design: Sci-Fi 

This 4-part tutorial series provides beginner artists with a detailed guide to the art of armor design within the realm of sci-fi digital art styles. In Part 1, you’ll learn how to select references that will help ground your work and prevent over-abstraction. Part 2 will walk you through creating a strong concept using the materials you’ve gathered. In Part 3, you’ll begin to sketch and test your concepts and commit to the most promising ideas. Part 4 lets you bring it all home, adding details and touch-ups to help refine your skills within digital sci-fi artistry.

Zbrush IMM Sci-fi Brush Set

With this brush set, you’ll be able to elevate your initial sci-fi creations using powerful 3D textures. Each variation is modeled so it can be subdivided easily at various levels.

This set includes:

• 10 sci-fi tubes and wire variations
• ZBrush IMM brushes
• Singular tube meshes that can be imported as an OBJ/FBX into other modeling programs like Blender, Maya, and 3DS Max

Master Any Style with Cubebrush

In the vibrant world of digital art, these four styles offer only a glimpse of the ever-expanding potential for creative expression. So, whether you’re drawn to the vibrant illustrations within anime, the vividness of realism, the abstraction of pixel art, or the futuristic imaginings of sci-fi, there’s always a place for growth and exploration when it comes to digital storytelling. 

Regardless of the digital art styles you embrace, you can rest assured knowing you can rely on Cubebrush for whatever you may need along your journey to finding your own artistic voice!