Serious question, is the "less is more" advice for digital art actually true?

I got into a debate with a guy in a digital art discord last week. He said my pieces were way too busy and I needed to cut back on layers and effects. I told him he was wrong, that more detail always looks better. So I spent like 4 hours adding even more textures and lighting to this fantasy landscape I was working on. When I posted it, nobody even commented on it... just total crickets. Then I stripped it all down to maybe 6 layers and a simple color palette, and people actually started asking me about my process. It felt weird to do less work and get more attention. Has anyone else had that happen where the opposite of what you think is right ends up being the way to go?

2 comments

2 Comments

loganburns23d ago

That 6 layer piece probably forced people to actually look at your focal point.

tyler17623d ago

...and that's exactly what happened with my buddy Mike at his art show last month. He had this big painting with like 8 different overlays and nobody could figure out what they were supposed to look at until he toned it down to 4 layers. Then people actually stopped and talked about the main subject instead of just walking past. I swear artists overthink this stuff sometimes. A clean focal point beats busy composition every time.