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This month contest is:
Invent and draw your superhero!
by Vincenzo
Free drawing software are available for everyone nowadays to use and enjoy.
Artweaver is a free drawing software for Windows developed by Boris Eyrich, mainly oriented to artists familiar with commercial programs like Adobe Photoshop and especially Corel Painter.
Like the latter, Artweaver is capable of simulating a wide range of classical effects such as oil paints, acrylics, pastels, pencils, airbrushes, etc to create natural-looking artistic images.
This might not make any sense to you if have never used Corel Painter but it is incredible how ArtWeaver feels similar to Corel Painter from the interface to the features and the customizability of the painting/drawing brushes.
I am not going into detail here about Corel Painter but that is one of the most complete and powerful (and expensive) piece of software on the market available for digital artists; and Artweaver feels very much the same!
ArtWeaver also offers effect filters like sharpen, blur, emboss, and mosaic, as well as transparency and layer support in its own proprietary format. The program also has standard image editing tools like gradient, crop, fill and selection tools, and pen tablet support for a realistic feeling.
Artweaver can also be run in Linux and other Unix-like operating systems using Wine. The sheer amount of customization options can, like in Gimp, set a novice a bit off and when you start using Artweaver you feel you definitely need a little bit of tweaking to get the most benefit from the basic brushes.
Overall ArtWeaver is a great package and is free! Definitely worth downloading and trying particularly if you are the experimentator type and if you are ready to invest a bit of time studying the software and exploring the possibilities offered by the customization options.
Inkscape is an open-source vector graphic editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. Now, if you do not know what vector graphic is this software might not be intuitive like the others and you might want to research about vector graphic and its advantages before going on.
If you know it and you already know what softwares like illustrators and freehand are capable of then you have a pretty good idea of what inkscape can do for you. InkScape can basically substitute the principal functions of these more expensive softwares for free!
For what concerns drawing we have found that inkscape has an amazing digital inking tool. Similarly to what you can do with Illustrator, you can import a pencil drawing into Inkspace and use its inking tool to trace your drawing and digitally ink it.
The inking is vectorial inking so the lines you draw will be smoothed by the software but we have found that the quality of the smoothing is excellent and the line art you can produce is very sleek. Moreover you have complete control over the inking brush and can customize it to suite your inking needs.
Acrylic painting techniquesDifferent acrylic painting techniques can be utilized on different surfaces..
Painting techniques: How to start with acrylicsA new installement of the painting techniqes series!
Ten painting tips for novice artistsWith "ten painting tips for novice artists" I wanted to focus on you who are approaching the art of painting for the first time. |
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