Digital art on a small budget, part 1 software

If you're following a couple of artist on social media you probably noticed there are a lot of artists who use iPads in combination with procreate or Adobe Photoshop when they work with Windows. And if you're an professional artist that's a good choice. But in case you're not a professional (yet ) or don't want to spend a fortune on software and or hardware then it's good to know that there are alternatives.

Somewhere around 2005 I was wondering if I could add some colours to some old comics I've made. Because I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a software license I searched for alternatives. And after some while I found Inkscape a free open source vector graphic software. And for the purpose this was a great piece of software. There's an easy to adjust option to fill an area with a colour bucket which I used the most to add colour to a scanned drawing. Back then I didn't use the computer very much and I also hardly made any drawings until around 2016 when I slowly picked up drawing again. At that time I wanted a little bit more functions and found Gimp to do this. And at this moment I still work with those two programs to create art.

So now you probably want to know a bit more about those programs, and I also want to tell about another program Krita. Starting with that all these programs are open source and free to use. What means anyone can contribute to the program and their creators find it more important to empower people / artist with good software rather than to make money ( but feel free to donate to any open source project ). Another benefit is that the programs can be used on multiple operating systems so if you use Windows, Mac Os or Linux you can use it.

So in short what are the differences ?

Inkscape: this program is aimed at vector graphics, so if you're designing logos use a lot of basic shapes make flow charts that sort of stuff this would be the best choice. But it also can do a lot of editing on drawings. At the moment I use Inkscape to trace a scanned drawing so the resolution can be increased ( from png to svg and back to an png ). The controls / user interface are easy to control and after a while you can do most things with it.

Gimp: is a great piece of software that probably has the most possibilities. At least almost everything I wanted to do can be done with Gimp. It's aimed on image manipulation , Gimp is short for GNU Image Manipulation Program. The program has a bit of steap learning curve but once you master this program you'll love it.

Krita: this is a relatively new software and build for digital painting. It has a lot of different brushes and a intuitive interface. Although I never really give it a good test because I was already familiar with Gimp, if I had to choose a program to start with it would be this.

I could go very deep into details about all 3 programs but I think it's best if you just give it a try. For all these programs there are manuals, tutorials on YouTube, different Forums, Facebook groups and so on. So in case when you're stuck support is nearby.

And remember, it's just like art: an expensive brush doesn't make you a better artist or necessarily makes a better painting. So it's the same thing with commercial software doesn't make better art, nor does it means that free software is badly built or hard to use.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading, next time I want to explain a bit about operating systems and how to save money on that.

Until next time


Greetings Andres