Dear Drawfags. I have aquired a Wacom tablet (not a Cintiq). What drawing program would you recommend to someone who is reasonable with pencil and pen on paper but a complete noob at digital?
I mean, I did a fair bit of CAD a few years, but I assume full photoshop isn't something you can just pick up and use. I don't think i want to spend that much to start with either. Adobe bends us over and pounds us hard in Aus, fuck that.
Frankly, any program is SHIT AND CLUNKY at the beginning and "second nature, an extention of yourself" once you start getting a hang of it.
One tip: learn hotkeys.
An artist who never reaches the mouse but only uses tablet+keyboard to change tools is a happy artist.
I use GIMP.
It's free and hopefully it will keep getting updated in the future.
It has dredful compatibility issues with MY Wacom tablets (both of them) that makes it impossible to have pressure-sensitivity.
But I don't give a shit and use it anyway.
That's the secret. Pick one, and stick with it.
Learn its flaws and play around them.
It won't feel clunky after a long time.
If you want to see what I mean try downloading Inkscape (which is for ILLUSTRATION AND NOT DRAWING) and try to draw a fucking smiley face.
It will take you 15 minutes.
But at the end of the day even that one program is fine.
MSPaint
I think Gimp is pretty limited in what you can do with it.
It also depends on your style really. I use lining but the coloring can go different ways; you can have hard edges, overlaps or brush textures.
I use Photoshop myself and use it for various different things but what I like is how many different ways you can go; I have setups to make watercoloring, markers, rough brushes to make it look like some wild colored stuff.
I always felt Illustrator is more for vector like stuff, photoshop is really for retouching and effects. You can enhance things using curves etc. Sure it is a lot to take in but it is worth knowing.
I always found drawing with a tablet annoying though, I use a Wacom Companion so I can see what my hand is doing and it has been very satisfying, better than just a tablet. A cintiq is prob cheaper than a companion, plenty sell them second hand though (that's how I got my work tablet).
Brush sensitivity is a thing once you want overlaping coloring.
Also if you want to use it as a hobby why not pirate or find CS6? I don't know if CC is hard to crack cause I have it through my work but I always kept CS6 on my home station.
I like Krita.
>complete noob at digital
Go visit Ctrlpaint.com and take a look at the Video Library.
There you will find Digital Painting 101, which has some tutorials and exercises for getting used to a tablet.
It's heavily photoshop oriented, but you'll have to experiment to find out what works with your program of choice.
Use Krita if you want a free program, to paint is more advanced and have more serious developmental than gimp, other than that, photoshop
Paint tool SAI for sketching/painting
Clip Studio for sketching/comics
Photoshop for illustrations
Other programs aren't really worth it for drawing.
Also a question: did you get Wacom Small? It's way too small, you'd be better off throwing it away and getting a budget tablet from some other company.
...well guess I'll be recommending Painttool SAI.
It's shareware but you'll get a decent torrent of it anywhere, it's smooth and lightweight as hell, bit iffy to get accustomed to but a lot of fun customization options for brushes and the like.
Clip Studio. AKA Manga Studio because gotta corner that weeb market. But it's a really solid program.
Ta. I'll give Inkscape a go. It's an Intuos 4, if that's what you had issues with GIMP for?
Yeah, I think it will take a fair bit of practice to get used to the feel of the pen on the tablet, let alone the software.
I have an unnatural fascination with watching some artists draw on youtube, and it used to surprise me that they all seemed to use photoshop rather than illustrator. I guess because illustrator is less... sketchy? Like the stuff I've done in CAD and even Corel Draw. Plotting points, working with vectors; doesn't really feel like "drawing". I assumed illustrator was more like that, but I could be way off. I've never touched it.
Cheers. Tutorials instead of drawing videos as some sort of performance art is probably a good idea.
I don't think I've pirated anything since I was a 10-year-old C64 gamer. But Adobe and their Aussie price gouging tempt me. Maybe I'll buy a student some booze to bribe them into getting me an educational-license version.
>and it used to surprise me that they all seemed to use photoshop rather than illustrator.
That's just how Adobe works.
>we made a photo editing program but everyone uses it for drawing and painting
>we made an art program but people just use it for graphic design
Ah, I didn't realise this is what the Doodle Doods use. Worth a look.
And nah, it's not a small tablet. It's like 6x10 inches. My mum bought it. She's been nagging me to get back into drawing for a few years now. I probably should. Bad ju-ju to ignore your mum for too long.
I've used Photoshop for years but recently I tried out Sai. I feel like the basic brushes are nicer, but photoshop has so many features that I use constantly that I could never "downgrade" to Sai.
Sai is capable of doing really nice lines and coloring once you get the hang of it.
If you are just starting out, you won't miss any of the features I'm used to.
Tried gimp for a while. It felt like a cheap imitation of Photoshop.
heres a DL for Sai.
Its only 2 megs. If nothing else, you can warm up your tablet with it.
dropbox.com
What tablet did you get and would you suggest it to others?
I almost bought Manga Studio a while ago, but it turned out they had removed the download option from their website. Like, the only option was for them to ship it to you in a box. It killed my shopping boner.
Thanks mang. Downloaded.
>I assumed illustrator was more like that, but I could be way off.
Yes Illustrator is more vector working. Photoshop can do the same shit Coral does and is a lot less wonky about it, I found that Coral can get really heavy on your system.
I was about to add the same link.
fritchie.deviantart.com
Are other brushes I occasionally use.
However if you are new then stick to the base brushes from ctrlpaint, I have done entire works using just their 3 base brushes and simply making a pallet layer on top for the colors and playing with the flow.
The nice part with Photoshop is the use of masks which can also be used on effects that can enhance just small sections but that really bring out tiny bits. If for example my shadow section needs just a little more darkness in one area I simply use curves, invert the mask and start coloring where I need it used with white in the mask layer itself. Same with layerstyles.
Mine is an "Intuos" fullstop, not an Intuos 4. You have a more recent model.
Inkscape is for a VERY, VERY specific kind of art, it's very good for it, but it isn't versatile like other programs.
I just suggested you to try it to grasp a few concepts: how different some tools are, how difficult they are to use without specific knowledge.
In Inkscape's case: Bezier curves were the hardest concept for me to grasp.
If you didn't have a specific education in Art (I didn't) maybe you're good with the pencil, but don't use brushes irl. Or you never used charcoal to draw, or watercolor.
Well it is unbelievable how different it is to think and draw in terms of different tools.
Going from pencil to digital, I was absolutely stunned at the different WAYS there were to paint.
Smudging and coloring with low opacity is SO different from painting contours first with a thick black line.
Try it now, I recommend it: blank canvas (bigger resolution than your screen if you can), large brush size (as big as your fingertip), black color, and 20% opacity.
It's like painting, rather than drawing.
Then you try Bezier Curves on Inkscape? ANOTHER different world altogether.
Krita, suggested by another guy in this thread, is an alternative to Gimp that you might prefer.
After a while, you'll notice Photoshop can do things that your program can't and you'll start to feel the absolute need to have it.
This hasn't happened to me yet. I did see some convenient tools, but I came to the conclusion that I can still do without them.
I also suggest Istebrak on Youtube and Twitch, who teaches at a level that I'll never reach but she taught me many things. Uses Photoshop, has cute voice.
>Bezier curves were the hardest concept for me to grasp.
Yeah, I used to do some logo design and signage stuff before I finished uni and entered the super boring world of corporate IT. Corel Draw and the bezier tool were the main thing I used.
But my mum wants to see my cartoons. I've told her a bit too much of the story I've had in my head for the last 10 years, and she wants to see it.
Krita hits a good sweet spot between Sai and Gimp imo, and it's free
Thanks for the advice all. Even though it was probably the wrong board, you've given me plenty of stuff to try.
I'm sure I'll be polluting draw threads before you know it. Off to bed.
Anything's fine, the tools don't matter as much as the artist's skills. I hear a lot of people recommending GIMP because it's free, but I personally dislike its interface too much.
There's a sort-of-but-not-quite-free version of Photoshop available on Adobe website. Some years ago Adobe disabled the activation servers for CS2, which meant that people who had bought their software wouldn't be able to install it anymore. So Adobe put CS2 available for free on their website. You're supposed to actually own a legal copy of CS2 and the downloads are meant to be a workaround to get your purchased copy working, but a lot of people have downloaded CS2 from there without having a legal copy of it. The site can't check whether you have one. Adobe seem content enough putting up a disclaimer about this stuff, but that's all they appear to be doing; I don't think they care about who downloads CS2 and whether they should be allowed to or not.
It's an older version of Photoshop though, and in my experience that version functions a bit oddly on more recent operating systems.
Where's the drawthread? Can someone make a new one?
It's hard to find because the OP image was deleted and the subject name wasn't set up properly, but it's at