Art Freebs

[Ka Lai]

It's not really the same... but I'm a real beginner, so a lot of the time the names of tools are super important to me. I struggle a lot. :c

[Oby]

I think it's simple I can fiddle around firealpaca and try to make some tips or something, but what are you particularly looking for when it comes to drawing?
Just normal inking and coloring or painting?

[Ka Lai]

It depends. For the most part I do inking and colouring. I do a little paining but I'm kinda lousy at it, and don't have that kinda patience, anyway.

The stuff I search up varies depending on what I'm trying to do at the time. When I first starte dusing it, I was looking stuff up all the time. I can't think of anything I specifically want to do at the moment though. xD;

[Oby]

Oh, then in tutorials what are you looking for?

[Ka Lai]

Well, at the time, I wanted to figure out how to have a "colour selection". Like, I had a picture with basically a colourful background and an almost solid black silhouette (sp?) and I wanted to get the outline of the silhouette. I was hoping there would be a smart select so that it would just select the black section, but I couldn't find a tutorial on how to do that. I ended up playing a LOT with the brightness/contrast/etc but I have a feeling there was a MUCH easier way of doing it. .___.

[Ka Lai]

Errr, I think I explained that poorly. So for instance...
I wanted to know how to get from this:
http://www.thecord.ca/wp-content/upload ... s-Lena.jpg

to this:
http://imgur.com/DW8D3mo

[Oby]

Okay so I tried messing around with it and no luck.
This seems like more of a job that photoshop can pull off so uh;;;

I tried looking through other paint programs I have and uh seems like krita and clip studio
were the other ones that could pull of that kind of function.
If you have those you can copy paste it across programs.

Not sure if krita has a mac version though? but if it does it's free.
Clip studio kind of like manga studio, and almost similar to sai tbh. but have to be bought

[Ka Lai]

Haha, it's okay~~ I managed to get it to that second picture in the end. After several hours. With great difficulty. Actually it makes me feel better that you struggled, since it wasn't just me. Heh.

But thank you so much for looking into other programs for me~ I'll definitely look into Krita. It looks like there's an experimental version out right now. So huzzah~ what other things can you do in Krita? owo

[Oby]

I already have these programs so not much of a problem.

Krita can draw n stuff, and it's kind of like photoshop but free?
Also lots of great preset brushes like aye

[Ka Lai]

Oooh, I like having lots of brushes. I kind of forgot photoshop had brushes. I shall set aside some time for experimentation later.

I always wonder how these free programs make money. owo;;

[Oby]

donations or advertisement, maybe also the creators just want to give something free?

[Ka Lai]

That's true! I mean, I know linux is totally free. Come to think of it, so many things are free these days. I just wonder how people manage to create things and sustain free things, though. I guess when customers really believe in a product, though, they donate and support it. owo

[Oby]

Maybe they felt that people will need it, and just gave it? I mean doing stuff for free,
or just doing programs in general could get you a job or something if you put it on a
resume or something? Probably?

Also the fact that most paint programs are really expensive and most just do digital art
as a hobby, so there will always be potential supporters.

[Ka Lai]

That's true. I just remember my friend was making an app to help people learn chinese but it wasn't taking off at all and he had few supporters, and eventually became so disheartened.

And yeah, I genuinely got really excited when I found out that Fire Alpaca had pressure sensitivity since all other programs I used (read; Gimp) didn't seem to have it on Mac and it made me think my super cheap/dodgy tablet was useless. xD

[Oby]

Hm I guess or maybe there are a lot of apps already for it?
That or they didn't find it as useful.
Then add the fact that Chinese is hard to learn. Like I'm Chinese and I'm horrid at speaking it.

You just have to look around a lot if you want good programs
Like most of the programs I use are from a lot of closing and opening of tabs. :'D
Totes worth it tho