How do i be a better artist

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 5:15 am

I don't know about recommending MS Paint, actually. Sure, it's easy to use, but personally I don't find it worth the headache of not being able to properly define palettes, colors, etc... That, and you don't really have any sort of control over how the images are saved, how the colormap is arranged, and so on. Might be better to go ahead and learn one of the pixel-specific programs that the others have suggested here like GrafX2 or SAI. Sure, it'll be a bit harder than using MS Paint, but the extra control will be more than worth it.

tarl · Post by **tarl** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 5:10 am

Well, the Gimp wasn't exactly designed with the usability habits of windows users in mind.
On (earlier) unix, one would mostly look in vein for a 'maximize' button, and most complex software fired up most parts in different windows, to be arranged by the user at his convenience. Given that the window under the mouse is automatically focused, it worked quite well. All this translates very poor into a MS Windows environment.

This said, the gimp is quite suited for pixel art, and as of today much better integrated even with windows, just enable the menupoint [Window] -> [Single Window Mode] (or something like that, my gimp is in german), holding [CTRL] while scrolling the mouse wheel zooms you freely in or out up to a magnification of 25600 % [sic!], and the pencil tool draws single pixels.

Most other basic tools are simple to use too, like rectangular selection and the like.

Photoshop can be used for the job too, but IMHO has the same kind of learning cue as the gimp, and later versions (after 7, to be more specific) shovel in some abstraction which makes photo manipulation and the like a breeze, but I felt I had lost too much control on the pixel level (thats subjective feeling here, though).

GrafX is a good idea, too.

I have no fond memories about MS Paint, so I keep my mouth shut here.

Regards,
tarl

Nathan Karr · Post by **Nathan Karr** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 5:48 am

Anything where antialiasing is the default gets a thumbs down for my general tastes in working digital art or digitally coloring pen and paper art.

It gets a huge NO, JUST NO on pixel art.

The easier it is to turn off antialiasing, the better.

GIMP has a bad userface for reasons other than its windows. Paint.net likewise has that problem with being a bunch of separate windows (BAD!) among its many other issues; new versions of the latter are much worse than the older ones.

I don't know why rectangular select on all these non-MSPaint programs has to default dragging to "drag the selection area itself around" instead of "drag the thing you just selected around" and requires you to click another tool to do the intuitive thing.

MSPaint may be horrible at palettes, but aside from the Win7 and Win8 versions it runs fairly smoothly with minimal glitches, its tools are intuitive, and so on. I say it's worth it to draw things in the ugly MSPaint 16 and just change the palette after importing.

Or just draw things in the engine's built-in graphics editor. That works even better for some things.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 5:48 am

Also helps if you have a second monitor. And not just for pixel art, but for any sort of artsy stuff. You have your canvas maximized in one monitor, and all of your tools and a zoomed-out overview of your canvas on your other monitor. Works wonders.

Nathan Karr · Post by **Nathan Karr** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 6:36 am

BMR wrote:Also helps if you have a second monitor. And not just for pixel art, but for any sort of artsy stuff. You your canvas maximized in one monitor, and all of your tools and a zoomed-out overview of your canvas on your other monitor. Works wonders.

Sounds expensive, both for money and for space. If I had a second monitor I'd be using it to look up reference images and see them in a size other than "tiny thumbnail in the corner as I draw"

kylekrack · Post by **kylekrack** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 7:05 am

Monitors alone aren't that expensive, because all you need it to do is light up, so you don't have to get anything high end. It may be inaccurate to say that, but I figure all you need to do is pick something used from a local shop.

I have a Mac, so dual monitors is more expensive for me, because Apple likes to siphon as much money as they can out of you. I do however, have an old Mac desktop which is a little bit too old to run smoothly anymore but we still have it hangin around. I discovered that it is possible to hook up iMacs together, but it requires a cord that you can buy from an Apple store. It has a pretty significant price so I didn't look into it further, but now I'm curious to see if it'd be worth it. Would you recommend it?

tarl · Post by **tarl** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 8:04 am

Well,
when using paletted graphics there is no anti-aliasing in gimp.
For dragging you have the good old CTRL-C/X and CTRL-V, plus you can use Layers.
And then you can snap your selection / pasted graphics content to guidelines or a handy 20x20px grid.

A second monitor might be overkill, but having your tools and your music player side by side without getting into the way of your drawing is a big plus ;D

@kylekrak: Maybe an external (usb) graphics card/adapter and a cheep 30$ monitor from the second hand store might do the trick?

kylekrack · Post by **kylekrack** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 8:13 am

I didn't know those existed. Thank you, I will look into it.

BMR · Post by **BMR** » Mon Jun 29, 2015 8:17 am

You can get a decent monitor for around 20-40 USD or so. Prolly less if you get it second hand. It might be a bit of an investment, but the benefits you get are really worth it, and not only for artsy stuff. Also great for actual work, where you can for example have your word processor open on one monitor and your browser or spreadsheet or whatever open in the other.

Also, you don't need to go really high end. A 16" or 18" is good enough as a secondary.