Which Art Medium Should You Use in 2025? | DrawlikeaSir

I try basically every conventional art medium most people know and use and the question is which ones are great, which ones are not so great and which ones are easy to use and pick up. So today I'll rank them for you and I'll also give you a quick little guide on which one you should use to color your art in this next segment coming up. Hi guys, my name is Mar- No, it's not. Whatever that is. Don't search up. Don't tell me what to do. Alright, I didn't want monetization anyway. How should I color my drawing? I get that a lot and to be honest, there is one simple answer that I always respond with in that case. Whatever looks good to you. If you like the look of a medium, you should definitely pick it. Like for example, I've always hated watercolor as a kid. I couldn't stand painting with them, but I always liked how they looked so I bit the bullet, taught myself how to paint with them and now it's actually my favorite medium. But yeah, obviously some people can't afford some mediums financially. That's why this tier list will have a couple of rules or criteria on how I rank them. So obviously price will be a factor. I'll also rank these mediums by versatility, meaning how easy you can vary in styles and looks with each medium. There's obviously handling, meaning how much of a pain it is to learn and use this medium and also results, because obviously you can get results with digital art that you can't exactly get with chalk or whatever. Also speaking of, I only rank mediums that I have used before and thus have experience with. Alright then, let's rank some mediums like a sir. First up is acrylic. Pretty sure everyone knows that. You've probably used it as a kid at some point. School projects, crafts, maybe even painted on weird stuff like cardboard or rocks. The cool thing about acrylics is it sticks to almost everything. Like some years ago, Amazon commissioned me to paint a computer case and I figured acrylics could work out and I was a bit shocked about how hassle-free all of this went. I've even customized Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh or other trading cards with it. Baseline, it works and sticks to everything. Handling is super straightforward. You open a tube, you grab a brush and start painting. So it's very easy to get into. It's not like with watercolors where controls are harder than a FromSoftware game. Acrylics work just the way you want them to. But, and this is where it gets interesting, it's hard to master. Acrylics dry up really fast. Like, really, really fast. Compared to oil paints where you can just keep blending and tweaking forever, acrylic forces you to be a bit more... decisive. This fast drying also makes blending a bit more of a pain sometimes. If you want smooth gradients or layered color work, you might invest in something like a wet palette. It keeps your paint workable for way longer. And I'm not sponsored here, by the way. It's just a genuine lifesaver because wet palettes are soaked with water. So that means while working, your color stays wet and doesn't dry out. I've got a whole art supply list with all of that kind of stuff I use. My wet palette's also linked in there in case you're curious about where to get one. But once you figure out the workflow, once you really get a feel on how acrylic behaves, you can do pretty much anything with it. For real, I follow artists that do some mind-blowing stuff with acrylics. So it's not like this medium is just for, you know, painting rocks. Now, about the price, it's tricky. I started out using cheap acrylics and worked out fine. But when I started doing bigger projects, especially for bigger clients like Amazon or Sony, I actually did notice a difference. Good quality acrylics just hit different. They are way more vibrant, have smoother application, better coverage and opacity. So yeah, it can be budget-friendly. But if you want really good results, you'll feel the price jump. So overall, it's not the perfect medium, but it comes pretty goddamn close. Solid, versatile, accessible. That's why acrylics land in A-tier for me. Alcohol markers are super popular in the anime, manga, and comic fandom. I used them for like five years straight and collected way too many of them. The big downside here is the well-known brands like Copics are stupid expensive. But even if you buy cheaper ones, you still have to buy a lot of them because you need to buy all of these color by color. So you want to have something that's a slightly brighter green? Well, you gotta buy it separately. And at this point, if it's just about the price, I don't get why you just won't use watercolors because you can easily achieve the same look with just a friction of the price. Especially because you obviously have to buy these colors one by one, so you can't mix them to your liking like you do with other mediums. The only real advantage of markers is coloring in flat areas. That's the main selling point. But watercolor and other mediums can do that just as easily without the big price tag. Markers are super limited. Compare them to other mediums. Sure, you can do blending with markers, but there's a reason why there are dozens of tutorials just about how you can get a smooth fading with markers. You know how to get a smooth gradient with watercolors? Like this. You know how to get a smooth gradient with digital art? Like that. With alcohol markers, this is kind of a science in itself. That's why there are so many tutorials on just this one topic. Honestly, when I think of marker art, I don't think of incredibly big rendered art. I think of stuff like this. I mean, there are artists who actually make the medium look great. One of the only names that I can think of is Obata, but I think every other medium on this tier list, at least when it comes to results, is way superior. And most of the artists that I do know that use markers actually use them only as a base and as other mediums, like colored pencils, on top of that. That's what I did for some time, and the part that looks great here are not the markers. TLDR, the only real plus here is it's easy to fill in an area smoothly. And that's something other mediums can do just as well. So, yeah. DTM. Looks nice, but not worth it. If you're unfamiliar, gouache is kind of like a mix between acrylic and watercolor. I personally like to use it for effects or finishing touches in my pieces. And you probably know this medium already from social media because without gouache, all of these Ghibli-inspired landscape artists would probably be unemployed. I've tried painting only with gouache a few times, but honestly, I just can't do it. The handling here is a huge issue for me. After the paint dries, the color looks totally different sometimes. Sometimes darker, sometimes lighter, depending on a case-by-case basis. I just... I just can't handle that. And then sometimes you can't even layer properly because the paint isn't always that opaque. Like, sometimes it is, but other times it isn't. I just hate the way this handles. That said, objectively, it's a very solid medium. You get a lot of colors for a decent price if you pick budget ones. You can also change styles. Like, you can get a watercolor look by using more water or a flat 2D style with using less water. Everything mixes together really well, and the final results can look beautiful. I painted some artworks with gouache that I really like. But I still hate it every minute of painting it. Yeah, for me personally, the handling just ruins it. I just can't get into the flow with it. But still, I see the potential, and when people know how to use it, the results are stunning. So even if I personally struggle with it, I'm putting it in E tier. Okay, so this is actually my favorite medium. This is why it goes straight into S tier. Okay, no, but for real, I not only love the look of it, but it's also insanely affordable. I've been painting with this same set for like five years, and pretty much all of my watercolor artwork was done with this very set of colors. And I know looks are subjective, but come on, watercolor is just beautiful. Like, even if you just throw around a couple of splashes, it still looks good. If you already use watercolors, you know what I mean by that. For all of you that do actually use watercolors, maybe you wanna check out my sketchbook. It's really fancy, and the paper can also deal with water-based mediums like watercolor. So if you use some good brushes, this is basically the perfect sketchbook for watercolor artists. It's basically my dream sketchbook. I designed and made it myself, and if you wanna check it out, you can find it in my online shop at drawlikeasot.com slash shop. But yeah, my point was, watercolor is just inherently beautiful. It's basically the opposite of digital art. With digital art, you have to deliberately make things look nice. You have to pick some good-looking brushes, adjust some settings, throw on a filter, add some flair, make the image softer, all of that to give it a nice good look. With watercolor, I don't know, man, it just inherently looks nice. You don't even have to do something for that. Working with this medium is also super efficient as well. If you were to check out some tutorials on YouTube about watercolor, they are almost all really short. That's because it doesn't take very long to make something look good with watercolor. Like I just said, this medium is inherently beautiful. And yeah, you can make amazing art just with watercolor, without needing anything else to add to the mix. But, let's be real, I think on its own, this medium is very much limited. I personally always have to add a bit of gouache or colored pencils for highlights and shadows to make it look exactly the way I want it to. And also, the handling can also be very frustrating if you've never worked with water-based mediums before. Like, I hated watercolors as a kid because it felt so hard to control. Plus, it's also really weird working with a medium that's not super opaque. This can limit you big time if you want to paint something that's really complicated. But again, it's cheap and easy to try out. So go ahead and grab some basic set and some decent paper. I do have some affordable options on my art supply list. I think getting everything you need is just gonna cost you like 25 bucks or so. And if you want to get started, I actually did make a crash course for beginners with everything you need to know. It even comes with a free little template to download so you can try painting something very easy. So yeah, watercolors. I love them personally, but objectively, I think it's more of a B tier. Great look, fun to use, but not the most flexible medium out there and the handling can sometimes be a problem. Oil painting. The most fancy medium out there, they call it the medium of the masters. If you've never painted with oil before, just imagine acrylic but way smoother and way more satisfying to work with. Like actually satisfying. The blending is insane. You see it all the time in Bob Ross' videos. He just brushes over an area a few times and instantly gets a soft, smooth transition. And that's because the paint barely dries while you're working. Which means you never have to rush a blend or panic that something is drying too fast like it does with acrylics. But here's the thing, the downsides hit hard. At least to an average consumer they do. First of all, it's insanely expensive. Way more than any other medium so far. You also can't just use regular or thick paper. You'll actually need a canvas or something similar. It also takes forever to dry, which sounds cool at first because you can blend it so well until it becomes a problem. And layering brings the same issues as it does with gouache. If you don't know what you're doing, things get messy very fast. And also it stinks like hell because you can't use water with it. You have to use turpentine in order to clean it. And I know there's water-based color, but for me these didn't work out as well as the real deal. So I actually think when it just comes to painting, this is an amazing medium. Probably the best traditional one out there. I even like the handling way more than I did with gouache. But with all of those downsides, it's just not worth it for me. Too expensive, too impractical, too smelly. This will probably be the most hot take that I've made on the internet yet. But for an average consumer, I would put oil down in C tier. Okay, maybe my second most hot take if you count my manga tier list. I like colored pencils. Some of my favorite pieces that I've ever made were done with them. The handling's perfect. Everyone knows how to hold a pencil. So no learning curve, no fuss, no barrier to entry. Everyone's used a pencil in their life before. But the money side of it is kind of like it is with markers. You have to buy every single tone separately, which adds up fast. And then there's the main problem of filling in big areas, which takes forever. Like seriously, working with these is a grind. I always use another medium first for the base. Like back in the day, I used markers. Now I actually go with watercolor. Like imagine trying to do one of these big pieces that I paint just with colored pencils. Like, I'd still be working on that. As an addition though, I think it's amazing. With most of my artworks, like the Attack on Titan pieces I did, colored pencils completely elevated the artworks to a new level. The texture and the control you get with colored pencils is super powerful. As a standalone medium though, yeah, it works. But it's very slow and very tedious. Sure, you can do quicker and simpler stuff, like I showed in my beginner's tutorial about colored pencils. But let's be honest, most people want to use the medium in the long run for bigger and more polished projects later on. The results can look amazing, but the time factor really brings it down, since it takes so long to work with. And also the costs add up as well. So with all the individual colors you need to buy, that's also a lot of money you can sink into that. That's why for me, all of this drops it down to B tier. Okay, you guys know me. I don't use digital art that much. I mostly use it for really complex pieces where there's a lot going on, like the big Pokemon artwork, where there have been a lot of pieces that needed to fit into place. That's mainly what I personally use digital art for. I will always prefer traditional stuff. 90% of my work is still done with watercolors or in a sketchbook. But objectively, digital art is really good. You buy a tablet once and it usually lasts forever. No more running out of paint, no stress about wasting expensive materials. But the price range can be tricky. Like if you go for a screenless tablet, you can get one for like 50 bucks. And there is free software out there to get you started. So yeah, it's super efficient and cost effective, especially long term, since there are no reoccurring material costs. But honestly, that's not even the biggest advantage. For me, the best part are the endless possibilities. You have every color ever available. Millions of brushes, tons of them for free. And the best part, you can just try stuff out. No fear of messing up or wasting art supplies. That's super important for learning or doing studies. Honestly, 90% of what I know about color, I've learned from digital painting, because I was able to just try stuff out without having to worry about wasting paper. There are also some nice quality of life features, like you could use automatic rulers, 3D models, perspective grids, and so on. But it always depends on if you need or want that kind of stuff. Like, I personally think it's pretty neat. And all of that stuff comes for free, at least with the app that I use. If you want to have a look at what software or what tablet I use, you know about my art supply list already. Just give it a shot. I linked everything I use there. Okay, now, but the biggest downside for me, I've mentioned it before, but it's about getting things to look good. To me, lots of digital art can feel too smooth or too stiff. So I think it takes a lot of time to get rid of that artificial look that digital art oftentimes has. And yeah, things like watercolor brushes do exist in order to make your artwork look more natural, but they never look quite as good as the real deal. Still, if you get comfortable with a tablet, it's an extremely solid and sustainable choice. That's why for me, digital deserves S tier. Not perfect, but the potential is off the charts. Now, if you want to get into digital art, I did make a tutorial about everything you need to know and also how to paint a very easy digital artwork. It's right on screen. You just gotta click it. Now, if I did miss a medium, just let me know. And other than that, I'll see you guys next time.