Thursday, April 12, 2012

Rasta Love

My ArtRage painting "A Bad Day'
ArtRage painting

How to Become a Comic Strip, Comic Book and Graphic Novel Artist


DIGITAL TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Software

RASTER-BASED IMAGE APPLICATIONS

Adobe Photoshop

  • The industry leader. It is used for drawing, coloring and painting. Not good to use for lettering.
  • Available for Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista/7.
  • Download at http://www.adobe.com/


ArtRage

  • This is a powerful and easy to use drawing and painting program. You can currently get ArtRage Studio Pro for $59.90 and ArtRage Studio for $29.90.
  • Available for Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista/7
  • Download ArtRage


ArtWeaver

  • An alternative to Corel Painter. Artweaver is available in two versions: The Artweaver Free version at no cost and Artweaver Plus version at 29 Euros with more features than the free version.
  • Available for Windows XP/Vista/7.
  • Download at http://www.artweaver.de/


Corel Painter

  • Very popular leading digital art software.
  • Available for Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista/7.
  • Download at http://www.corel.com/


GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)

  • A powerful open source image editor application 
  • Available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista/7
  • Download for free at http://www.gimp.org/


GIMP tutorials
http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/10-websites-to-help-you-master-gimp/
GIMP video tutorials
http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/gimp_video_tutorials/

Paint.NET

SketchBook Designer
  • A hybrid paint and vector application
  • Available for Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista/7.
  • Download at http://usa.autodesk.com/
SketchBook Pro
  • Offers sketching software capabilities.
  • Available for Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista/7.
  • Download at http://usa.autodesk.com/
  • SketchBook Express is a free version available on the Mac App Store.


A word about software choices. Photoshop was created to to be used by photographers for retouching photos. It was the creativity of artists that started using it for drawing and painting. So don't feel badly if you can't afford an expensive application. Use the free or low cost tools available. Your creativity can make the tool sing and come to life to fit your needs and style of art. Much like the early creative visionaries did with Photoshop by taking a tool that wasn't intended to create art and bending it to their will.

After all, people have made professional looking movies on iPhones! There's nothing to stop you from creating a professional looking comic strip, comic book or graphic novel with whatever tool you choose right now. Start today! Just create something!

Next… page layout programs.


to be continued....

read next - Wow, What a Spread!

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Remember… Just Create!

If you are interested in further expanding your knowledge, then I recommend these books.

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copyright 2012 H. Simpson

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