Art Tools

[Vela Nanashi]

I thought it would be cool if we could also discuss what tools our artists here use, I have ambition to become able to make some art from time to time, but I am really not that good.

Of course we have the traditional pen and paper, that probably will remain unbeaten for a long time for artists.

Canvas for oil and other types of paint.

Clay for sculpting.

Wood for carving.

I even count carpentry as a kind of artistic expression. Though maybe not ikea furniture, but you know those gorgeous ancient things where they are both practical yet actually gorgeous and inspiring to look at.

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Then we have drawing tablets and drawing screens that enable digital tools to sort of take a few steps toward paper and pen's perfection, but they are really not the same.

Then we have various open source programs that allow us to make art:

Inkscape for vector graphics (svg).

Gimp that can probably do most that photoshop can do, but not in the same way.

Krita with various advanced brushes, some can act like real oil pain mixing on a canvas and other types of brushes, sadly it is really bad at colour channels and transparency, as those advanced brushes are made to use a background color and existing colours on the canvas.

Blender is not only a 3d sculpting and model making tool, but it has grease pencil that 2d artists use, and it has fairly recently (a few years) upgraded its colour handling during rendering, it has more faithful true renderer and also fast rendering that is not quite as correct but works for a lot of stuff.

I am not quite so good about various commercial art tools and don't know if I missed any good open source or otherwise free tools, and I am not an artist, at least not yet, so I am curious what all of our artists use, hopefully you can all enlighten us on those things.

Also maybe we can share knowledge and discuss how to improve our art skills.

Also I am aware I am not super good at commenting on art, so I am curious what kind of input you all would enjoy for your art.

Oh and yes I am aware that AI can generate some art, sometimes that can be fun, but it does have a few ethical issues and also rarely really makes what I want, but I could see it as possible to create a kind of blending between blender and AI there you could make a 3d scene and teach the AI about your characters and make them more consistent. Also maybe help people draw with textures instead of with paints/colours, but yeah I would first like to see attribution and profit sharing be made parts of AI, so that artists get paid at least something each time their image was a part of generated art, and also give links to artists pages as well so they benefit from AI rather than it stealing from them. Anyway I guess this AI bit is a bit off topic, but someone will mention AI tools and I personally would be interested in that too, but my main interest is our real artists who actually create amazing things with their own minds and hands.

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As a writer art is a huge inspiration, and I can only hope that I sometimes maybe can inspire an artist with my writing too.

[AdmiralPiet]

Alright, lets see...

As a child I started with paper and pencil on my art journey. I remember that I searched for cool images in a PC games magazine to then copy.
I think I still have them somewhere, but they might have faded over time.

The first colorations of scaned pencil sketches I did in Paint.net. Without a tablet, just the mouse and it was quite clunky.

Later I switched over to Gimp. It was freeware like paint.net and much more suited for a digital artist. However: I don't know the situation today, but back then it had an UI that was very odd/unique.
During that time I also bought my first tablet (a Wacom Bamboo)
The first picture I uploaded to HF in 2012 was made with Gimp.

Problems with Gimp brought me to buying a software. I was contemplating Photoshop and Corel.
In the end I landed with Corel Painter. Never used PS once.
Used that for several years, until I gave Clip Studio Paint pro a look.

Even though it was much much cheaper than Corel that one had everything needed and it just felt better overall. After a few days I switched over and did not look back. A few small things I missed from Corel, but today I don't even remember what.
Just recently I updated to CSP Version 4. For those who know how to use it PS and Corel will surely be the mightier tools, but for the hobby artist: I think CSP can work for most people.

So that is my Setup today: CSP and small/medium sized Wacom Intuos.

If people are interested I could dig for some pictures from each stage of that art journey.

[Vela Nanashi]

It is good you found a set of tools that work for you, I think that is half the battle. Then lots of practice. I think seeing how your art progressed might make new people feel happier maybe about how their own art is going when they start out, at least maybe (unless your early art is way too impressive)

[AdmiralPiet]

(unless your early art is way too impressive)

Ha!
Have no fear, you will see that it was not. I will pic some to show tomorrow or on the weekend.