1st Painting in ArtRage 2

Was surfing and downloaded a little program called ArtRAGE and it was so much fun I bought it, only $20.00.

It is available for both PC and MAC. It is lacking in some elements, such as reordering layers but has many of the abilities of such programs as Painter without such a big price tag.

This was started from a photograph. The program is available here, should anyone want to download it.

It has support for Wacom and other tablets. And some excellent examples of what can be done both on the site as well as an associated forum of as you might imagine, avid users.

This just took a couple of hours and half of that was learning how to use the program, so it is really quite fast. Also is capable of doing metallic like sprays, so it is a full program for less than the cost of most plugins and is also can output to .psd with layers intact.

http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html

Sally - a couple of hours or so with this program, and I'm hooked - and thats using the free version.

Its simple and very straight forward, it worked 'straight out of the box' first time, and the UI is very good.

It has a wonderful feel to the line, the responsiveness with my graphire tablet is remarkable - about as perfect as it gets -and no fiddly adjustments to make.
This is the first time I have ever been happy doing this sort of thing digitally - this is going to be one must-have program if only for sketching.
Thank you so much for sharing this, I really have been looking for a program like this for quite a while.
I see you have got to grips with the painting side, very nice. I so admire you guys who can paint such detail - takes me all my time just to get my backgrounds right :o :)

The painting was after a tutorial that is available at the link I posted. And though it is taken from a photograph, it cannot help but be as individual as there are artists and artisans who attempt it. It's like if you were in a drawing class, often everyone in the class draws the same thing, not two drawings will be identical. Many programs clutter the interface and it makes it hard to find much of anything if you are just starting out. Like Xara, it is as sophisticated as the artist who uses it.

Like training your ear if you are going to play music, you also train your eye as well to notice color, lighting. So any one can always improve.

When you look at what is popular now: grunge, you don't have to draw perfectly to make it acceptible. There is more to art than just playing I'm a camera.

If you enjoy it, that is the main thing.

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Originally Posted by sallybode

Many programs clutter the interface and it makes it hard to find much of anything if you are just starting out. Like Xara, it is as sophisticated as the artist who uses it.


If you enjoy it, that is the main thing.

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Indeed.
This program is so straightforward, yet good, that I think it would be an excellent choice for beginners of all ages.
No need to worry about tracking, variants,workspaces et al.
Just do it- everything you need to get you started is already there in front of you, laid out in a really intuitive way.
So you can play around and get the basics without unnecessary complication.
Great.

nice work, Sally. I have not done that tute, but I will look at it and maybe post a version too.

I have had ArtRage for a while (recommended by the folks over at wetcanvas) and have enjoyed playing with it. It really is a very straightforward tool.

So many good tools out there, many for little or no cost. I just got a copy of Painter IX (from someone who upgraded to X) and am up to my rhetorical elbows in it. Also, TwistedBrush which has amazing features for little (relatively) dough.

hope we can get more dPaint stuff going on this forum. It is the direction in which I am headed.

geo.

Hi all, I just had to insert my 2 cents here.....I'm a big ArtRage fan! I discovered it a while back. I love the fact that it's straight-forward and uncomplicated. (Also like the price...:D ) Vector drawing is what I do most of the time and using ArtRage is a treat and a relaxing change of pace. The ArtRage forum is full of helpful, friendly people, including the developers of the program. Here's a painting I did of my cat using ArtRage.

Very nice brush work girls... you are showing once again, that it is the artist behind the tools that creates the art worx :)

Love the blue in those eyes :)

The absence of a smudge like brush, was pretty much what has kept me from playing more with this otherwise very fun little app... :eek:

Yeah, Mary, the program is way cool. The forum as you say, looks quite helpful and even if there isn't a smudge tool that does all that others do, there is the beloved workaround, right. You just find a way to make do with what you are given.

Lovely drawing. My dog has blue eyes, he's a Husky. Not too fond of cats it seems but he wasn't raised around cats. Love cats, but I am allergic to them. Pity. They'd be a great stress reducer otherwise.

Thumbs up, Sally and Mary. :cool: Excellent artworks.
You two are going to wear down the tips of your pens very fast if you keep this up. And end up with a badly worn down tablet surface, too. :D But hey, use it or lose it, I say.....;)

Thank you everyone for your nice comments.

Sally, I forgot to mention how much I love the watercolor-like 'splotchy' background you gave your roses. Very effective.

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Originally Posted by gidgit

The absence of a smudge like brush, was pretty much what has kept me from playing more with this otherwise very fun little app...

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There's a few ways to push the paint around in ArtRage. My personal favorite is to use the palette knife just as you would in real life. Apply the paint with the brush and push/smudge with the knife. You can also use the paintbrush to smudge/blend the paint....just change the brush settings so that you're using an EMPTY brush...no paint.

Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

Thanks for the tip, if painting in oils for real, would be the logical way to blend.

Sally,
A beautiful rose, well done!
I had Artrage downloaded in my old computer.... b.c. (before crash). It is a neat little program. Hadn't thought about it until I saw this post.
Might go and download it again now :)

gloria

P.S. Mary,
What a fantastic job you did with the cat painting!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sallybode

...It is lacking in some elements, such as reordering layers...

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If you mean changing the layer stack around, so that a bottom layer becomes a top layer, that is easy to do. Simply open the layers (click on 1), add and remove layers, and click and drag layers up and down the stack.

You can even import pngs you create in Xara as a background image, and then convert them to a proper paint layer, so you can also paint all over them if you like, and make interesting vector/bitmap drawings. (You can only do this with one image at a time, as you can only have one background image at a time.) Very powerful for such a small price.

Thanks so much, David, how intuitive, after using all these programs which have been so complicated, it is so simple I missed it.

Employed that technique here on "Go for a Walk". Can get some really fun impastos with this, the brush turns like a brush would turn when you are painting with it.

I love it! What a wonderful electronic painting, Sally! I wish I had your talent, but the stuff I've created has been drivel. Maybe if I spent more time learning, but other things beckon me. Someday...

Best wishes,
David