Art Programs

[Nattles]

YES Manga Studio 5 people!

The interface is much better in Manga Studio 5. I think the tools could use more tweaking for coloring. There is something a bit off with them.

Then again I can make some pretty weird brushes in Painter and Sai.

I agree. I use Frenden brushes for a lot of painting in Manga Studio 5. They're great! The only default tools I really like are the pens and one of the watercolor brushes.

[FishNChips]

YES Manga Studio 5 people!

I agree. I use Frenden brushes for a lot of painting in Manga Studio 5. They're great! The only default tools I really like are the pens and one of the watercolor brushes.

Even though I have Frenden's brushes, I never actually used them.

I just use my own edits of the out-of-the-box brushes.

But then again I only sketch and don't paint or do any ink work at this point.

But gosh do I love MS5. And I'm saying that after trying Gimp, Sai, Sketchbook Pro, and Photoshop CS6.

[QT Melon]

YES Manga Studio 5 people!



I agree. I use Frenden brushes for a lot of painting in Manga Studio 5. They're great! The only default tools I really like are the pens and one of the watercolor brushes.

As much as the brush sharer I am, I'd like to learn to make my own brushes that fit more to my style of workflow. Not that I don't have a set of his brushes, but I want to experiment and figure why I'm having trouble with certain brushes.

[cab0rod]

I've checked it out before posting it, but I'dlike to suggest another program that I'm starting to use and it's very promising but very complex until you get the hang of it: Krita.

Here is the download page along with other details about it: http://krita.org/download

I do recommend it, since it's going to have an updated version exclusive for Steam Software (it's still in Greenlight process) with cloud save, Workshop and those cool extras that I value about Steam.

[QT Melon]

Verve is an interesting painting program where its main draw is trying to do oil painting simulation.

http://www.taron.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6

It's limited but free and works on Windows. It's only 261k so pretty impressive for a little program

[spacerogue]

its Manga studio 5 under a different name but still thought I'd mention

http://www.clipstudio.net/en/

[avan]

Oh hey! Another krita user!

Krita. A thousand times this. I have to say of the free programs I've given a go, Krita was one of the few that just... *worked* without any weird side effects (such as transparency or incorrect adding issues) ruining what I was trying to make.* (aside from a weird glitch initially where using my tablet's pen would cause it to zoom in as far as it could go, but it turned out to be a windows glitch that could be solved by unplugging & replugging in the tablet after booting up). Not only does it just *work* for us, the UI provides a lot of neat options that help streamline our workflow

Shame its not too well known (at least thats how it seems to me) as up until the latest version (2.8), there were no windows-compatible versions. On the other hand, its free and open source, and is out for windows now! As someone using linux and windows, this makes me very happy, since previously GIMP was the only one I had that worked on both platforms.

[athdaraxen]

The version of SAI that is linked in the OP is full of malware and danger. It just blew up my computer, glad I was able to stop the install. I would not download that SAI.

[Moogle]

^ I'm reformatting my laptop tomorrow and am just waiting for the rest of my music to transfer over to my pc atm. I'll try the dl out after to see if anything happens and update this post with the results if my laptop hasn't crapped out from it by then.

Edit: I could already tell by the first popup that it was fishy, though I went with it anyway. Got some random programs dling while it was installing and it went crazy opening websites. My anti virus didn't detect anything, but I wouldn't dl this version of Sai. Maybe it'd be best if a mod removed it so others won't mistakenly get it?

[QT Melon]

It's best to get the software from the official site, not a fan site.

http://systemax.jp/en/sai/

Also, it looks like the developer is making Sai 2 which will be 64 bit.
(Japanese only at the moment)

http://systemax.jp/ja/sai/devdept.html