querulousartisan replied to your post
Honestly, when I was going to school for graphic design and illustration, all of my teachers that worked in the industry have stated that this is a very encouraged technique just because of how fast you need to make a piece and make deadlines. It has a bad rep because of the people that abuse it, but it is a valid thing to use.
No joke! The concept art world is VERY similar. The professional world for commercial arts (that is, graphic design, illustration, concept art, anything that’s not “fine art,” basically, and “fine art” honestly rips stuff off in much worse ways) is built around producing high volumes of work around tight deadlines. Anything that saves you time is a valuable tool in your belt.
Like, those beautiful concepts of environments that you see are often photos that have been warped around, blended together, and painted over. Of course you have to have a good grasp of perspective and lighting and a solid painting technique to pull it off, but it’s still a lot faster than painting stuff from scratch. Especially when it’s 8am and your art director needs to see 3 concepts for this environment for the meeting after lunch. Look up “matte painting” sometime, it don’t mean the same thing as it did in the 70s:
