Digital painting applies to digital media that is rendered with complex lighting and shading using painting techniques, usually including a mix of hard shading and soft shading. While many digital paintings are intended to look realistic, digital painting can cover any kind of digital image with a "painted look", regardless of the art style, or how realistic the rendering is, a digital painting may have the appearance of being painted with a knife or with a textured brush for example. The example images above show a range of different approaches to digital painting.
Notes
Digital paintings may mimic the look of traditional painting media, such as acrylic paint or watercolor paint, in the latter case, the post should be tagged as digital watercolor (artwork) to distinguish digital paintings with the appearance of watercolor paint from actual traditionally created watercolor paintings. This tag should not be applied to images that are cel shaded or only feature some airbrushed soft shading/highlights. Media types: