Photorealistic Portraits By Irakli Nadar

You could say that Irakli Nadar’s amazing skill is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, his breathtaking artworks have brought him worldwide fame and legions of adoring fans on various social networks, but his success and enviable skill have also made him the target of criticism from both rival artists and the average internet trolls. Luckily, he has learned to live with both, and says that tough as it sometimes is, he just ignores the haters and focuses on the positive.
To be fair, the Tbilisi-based artist admits that some aspects of his technique are generally frowned upon in the digital art world. For example, he bases many of his artworks on reference photos he finds online, and sometimes does manipulate them in image editors like Adobe Photoshop, “to get a better idea for the composition” and see what his digital painting will look like. Once he’s happy with the result, he starts working on a blank canvas, replicating the composition from scratch.
Despite his popularity, or, maybe because of it, Irakli Nadar is often accused of “photobashing”, a process where filters are applied to a digital photograph to make it look like it has been painted. Looking at the incredibly detailed artworks he is able to create, it’s not hard to understand why some people don’t believe they were made from scratch. That’s why Irakli often posts beginning-to-end videos of his painting process and sometimes even livestreams painting sessions.