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Art Programs!

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Well it's a sticky, so it doesn't really need bumping haha.
 
I'm surprised no ones said any thing about clip studio paint. It's one of the better art programs that I've used. Its main focus is for comic books but it works really well with illustrations as well. There are also tons of free downloadable brushes.

It does cost around 50$ though, I think its worth it but there are free programs that can do a lot of the stuff CSP can do.
 
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I'm surprised no ones said any thing about clip studio paint. It's one of the better art programs that I've used. Its main focus is for comic books but it works really well with illustrations as well. There are also tons of free downloadable brushes.

It does cost around 50$ though, I think its worth it but there are free programs that can do a lot of the stuff CSP can do.

actually CSP goes on sale every few months and it becomes like a great 20~25$usd or something!

i used sai before csp and its basically like a sai and PS had a baby. its great because it gives you more features similar to photoshop that can enhance your art while not being overly technical and over whelming. so if youre already a sai user i highly recommend saving up for it because it can do things like color correction and has a diverse set of options for brushes etc that i personally LOVE...

honestly i felt so limited from what SAI had to offer? like 500px max brush size hello? moving to CSP was probs the best thing ive ever paid for

i promise i wasn't paid to boast about clip but its just so perfect for me that i cant help it
 
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Gonna get into digital drawing and I've tried a fair few programs; none of them were for me.
Gonna have to download FireAlpaca. It seems really cute.
 
If any of you are ipad inclined, here's a few apps you might try:

Procreate - Literally the best ipad drawing app on the market. Really supportive of artists, you buy it once and you've got it forever. No subscription, and their forums have a crap ton of free brushes and other resources. I've used it for drawing mayors, and writing/illustrating a children's book. It's the best of the best.

SketchClub - Decent set of tools, and has a unique "club" aspect where you can live stream work and also share work with a community. Decent for the price.

Adobe Sketch - Has some really neat watercolor brushes that actually behave somewhat like water with pooling and such. Worth experimenting with.

Assembly - Not exactly a "drawing app" but more of a vector app where you can make stickers by layering shapes. However, I have a good friend in real life that was able to make a really cute chibi of my mayor with this app, so if he could do it, you could make some pretty unique things too.

A few other apps that might be worth trying, but aren't notable enough (to me) to warrent a paragraph: Inspire Pro, Paper, Sketches Pro, MyBrushes Pro, Brushes Redux.
 
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I'm also gonna reccomend Clip Studio Paint, the cheapest version is $50, but it goes on sale sometimes.

You can import 3d models from their shop so it's nice to train human anatomy or to draw different poses, and it can also do animation.

It runs on Mac and PC.

There's also Asesprite, it's a pixel-art program. It can do animations, has a cute and simple interface, a lot of tutorials on the internet and has palettes for different old-school systems, if that's your thing. You can also add your own palettes, like if you want to work on Animal Crossing patterns.

The trial is the full program (but you're unable to save) and you can get the full version for free from some Linux distros, or if you compile it yourself (the code is on github). Otherwise, it's like only $16, and is avaliable on Steam, with no DRM.

It is avaliable on Windows, Linux and OSX. I don't know if the compatibility is good on OSX through, but it's worth a look.
 
I'm a PS user who spent yesterday trying out Krita, Sai and Clip Studio and I thought you'd like my notes.

I did a simple test for all three by importing a frame I'd been working on and doing, in order: layer manipulation (increase opacity of sketch, make a new painting layer between the linework and the base color); eyedrop the shade color in sketch; make a rectangular selection to paint into; paint in another selection trying to make the two sides symmetrical; freehand paint the rest of the details. This somehow took all day because I kept getting desperately tired/ eye strained from the UI differences. It probably says something that by far I farthest I got in one sitting was with Clip.

Importing: All three were able to import properly...once I reconverted my general pdfs to PSD. Weird. Krita takes longer because it wants to default lower the resolution and I have to manually type the original l, w and res.

Layers: Sai, Clip tell you layer opacity at a glance, which I didn't even know I wanted (I use opacity in nearly every document but can lose those layers). I don't like Sai's "linework layer" nonsense and how the tools are restricted to different layer types but I didn't have much time to play with it.

Selection: is more comfortable to use in all three, most comfortable in Clip where the selection is moved on drag by default (rather than artwork). It has a nifty UI directly under the selection for easy deselecting (!), crop, deletion, copying, and deleting the rest of the layer, but inexplicably moving the selection is only in main sidebar.

Shortcuts:
None of them have PS' Shift (make straight 180 degree or 90 degree lines)!! Clip and Krita can achieve it with the line tool, but Sai's line tool is stupid and prohibitive so far. Google didn't help.
I have to manually make 'Z' the zoom tool, but that's fine

Layout:
Sai's is the most sensible. For the dropdowns, I like how straightforward the categories are and how the shortcut is given. I like the layer transform options under 'L' and easy canvas flipping under 'C' (in the sense that the options aren't buried in further menus).

On the other hand, CLIP IS THE ONLY ONE WITH A HISTORY WINDOW! History windows are much faster than ctrl+Z for undoing drawing when used to having them. Clip is the highest fidelity to the PS layout almost to a fault, because combined with its additional features its dropdown menus are difficult to parse and not awfully useful yet save for selection.
Oh, I really like that Clip's gradient UI takes after Illustrator rather than PS (but improved over both). A lot more flexible.

I really, really like Krita's middle of the road between ease of use and familiarity, but I don't have any clue what color I'm using most of the time. It wasn't at all clear that the tiny swatches in the top are gradients rather than my functioning color.

I don't need to switch right away so I'm going to pick up Clipstudio when it goes on sale (when does it tend to?). I'll also keep around Krita and try its vectors. : )
 
So I really like this thread, it's a great resource but I wonder if anyone knows about any good mobile art applications? The two that interested me (firealpaca and gimp) don't seem to be available on the play store. I'm considering just buying the full version of Colors for my tablet (it's only $5) but if there's a free program that I can use then that would be even better!

Edit: so I ended up getting the app Medibang for my tablet. It's totally free and it's been really fun to use so far. It's definitely a step up from Colors 3D. There are still only a few varieties of brushes available but for now I'm content with the resources it gives me.
 
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Ibis Paint X is a great art program. Nowadays i just use it to make some funny art so my friends can laugh, but it is VERY good. It’s also free, there isn’t any ads that you have to watch (unless you want to unlock more brushes, but it isn’t that bad), and I could not recommend it enough.
 
CSP is amazing, they do go on sale occasionally 50% off too (plus lots of nice community brushes) . I used to use Medibang and I think it's really easy to get used to
 
Very Helpful! I actually use GIMP in a digital art class at my school lol. But we use it more for editing pictures. For vectors we use a program called inkscape which has vectors, pretty cool but not as many visual effects/filters as in gimp.
 
Hi all!

You may have noticed that the opening post in this thread is no longer being maintained and many of the images are broken. If anyone knowledgeable on art programs is interested in making a new thread to replace this one please let us know. :)


EDIT: we've given someone the okay to make the new thread. :)
 
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