#from gimp to procreate

[eobe]

Today it's not a Star Wars artwork 😱 It's my desktop! And my cat Luigi peaking, obviously lurking to paw my pencil! 🐱

For me it's another step from clinging to templates back to free hand drawing like in old times, before my life was shaken with the aim to force me into growth 😌✨ (poetic and pathetic, too few coffee, too much green tea today maybe 🦉☕️)

Maybe you think this looks familiar – it's a remake of my old Tumblr profile banner picture. A sign for new beginnings and improvement 🚀 💫

This piece is a relic from times long before I knew I could be a self employed graphic designer or even an artist. I drew it on paper, scanned it and made the color finish with mouse and Gimp 🙈 I forgot the year, but I guess it's now about 10-15 years old 😄

My personal ALT text mission: today also one of my personal improvement steps out of clinging to templates – the first Star Wars clone face I drew without any template and it's not even a reg's one: Wrecker jumping onto poor cantina shinies! 💥

(1 additional ALT-Text for a previous artwork with each new art posting!)

Taglist (only some of you defined if you want to see more than Star Wars stuff, so now get Luigi‘d 🐱): @eclec-tech @lonewolflupe @bixlasagna @returnofthepineapple @sunshinesdaydream @covert1ntrovert @general-ida-raven @vrycurious @dystopicjumpsuit

[zzazztrainer]

nostalgic faerie hissi

[venomgaia]

ngl i genuinely wholeheartedly think i paint best in paint tool sai 1.0 theres just smthn so distinct about the rendering thats unique in sai pieces vs stuff i do in csp or procreate. i can get CLOSE but its not the same

[mylittleponyoh]

Coming Soon : Splash Trash - 43 Dirty Pool Items - RELEASED 23/05/25

Download Here

About the Pack This custom content pack was created as a subgoal gift for the Kapands Twitch community, and more specifically for the amazing Pêches 🍑 — the loyal and creative subscribers who helped shape its theme: Grimy Poolside.

Most of the objects were directly inspired by suggestions from the community. Of course, I couldn’t resist adding a few extra items and quirky touches here and there — it wouldn’t be me otherwise! Every texture was lovingly handrawn using Procreate, GIMP, and sometimes Canva, depending on the vibe I wanted to achieve. While working on the pack, I couldn’t help but picture a group of teens hanging out in this run-down pool — skateboards, spray paint… and before I knew it, I had a whole story in my head. Just goes to show that creativity really has no limits !

I teamed up with @emany-sims, who is currently building the perfect lot to showcase the pack. You’ll be able to find it in Kapands’ Fresh Start save — so keep an eye out!

Hope you have as much fun using this pack as we did dreaming it up 💦💖 And with that, i'll let you read a short story about these teens I've pictured !

The Hideout

Charly, Armin, and Inès quickly found one thing in common: skateboarding. In Oasis Springs, there’s not much to do — so when something actually makes your heart race, you hold on to it. For them, it was their boards. That kind of obsession that makes you forget you’re stuck in a dusty nowhere-town where even dreams seem to dry up in the heat.

O.S. Highschool was no exception — dull, faded, full of students with no spark and teachers stuck on autopilot. But somehow, the three of them clicked. No long conversations needed. Just a glance after class, a failed trick, a laugh, and that was it.

It didn’t take long before they started wandering the town together after school, boards under their arms, old speaker blasting music, looking for spots to skate and escape the boredom. Oasis Springs had no shortage of forgotten corners — rusted warehouses, cracked parking lots, dead-end streets. But their real find came one spring evening, when they followed a half-ripped sign: Public Pool – Closed Until Further Notice.

The place was perfect. Empty, wrecked, abandoned by time. The drained pool made the perfect natural bowl, the crumbling locker rooms became little shelters. It didn’t take long before they claimed it as their hideout.

There, they’d practice new tricks, spray paint the walls, sneak a smoke, and laugh about everything and nothing. It was filthy, falling apart, smelled weird most days — but it was theirs.

Far from adults, far from rules, far from the blank stares at school. Out there, with the sound of wheels echoing on broken concrete and their voices bouncing off the cracked tiles, they actually felt alive.

I always use @franzillasims fonts every time I need simlish fonts !!!

[ozzgin]

Ozz! I'm trying to get into drawing, but I'm absolutely horrid at it and have no idea where to begin. Do you have any tips for beginners? Also, what program do you use? I've heard Krita is good, have you heard of it?

Also, also, remember to hydrate properly and get a good amount of sleep and do lots of self-care! <33 we love you and your content; you make the world a brighter place ^^

~ 🐇

If you want to start from the very bottom, there's a website where the first lesson is drawing a line, quite literally. It builds your confidence with basic shapes, then moves on to more complex topics like textures, shapes in space, construction of real life objects and so on.

I've had it in my bookmarks for...gosh, years now. I should definitely pick it up again, haha.

I also follow Alphonso Dunn on YouTube, he has hundreds of art tutorials and exercises.

As for software, I briefly used Krita years ago and it was nice! It had a very easy interface and the brushes worked well if you wanted to reproduce traditional art. The only reason I didn't stick to it was because I already had PaintTool SAI and Photoshop at the time. When I got my first graphic tablet, I started with Paint.NET, though it was very simplistic.

The general consensus online seems to be Krita for painting or MediBang if you're into drawing anime. In terms of paid software, I think Clip Studio Paint is very popular and has a lot of resources, from brushes to 3D models. Photoshop is classic, but it can be overwhelming if you're new to digital art.

I personally use Procreate because it came with my iPad and it has a very simple menu. Some professional illustrators say it lacks the advanced options you'd find in other programs, and I do agree it may not be enough if you want to go beyond merely drawing. To add text and make small edits, I'll put the doodle through Photoshop, for example.

Free software: Krita, MediBang, Gimp, KRESKA.art (no installation required)

Paid software: PaintTool SAI, Adobe Photoshop, Procreate, Clip Studio Paint

If anyone has more suggestions or tips, feel free to drop them in the comments!

[verkomy]

How does one start digital art with a very low budget?

when I was starting to create art digitally I used gimp and my computer mouse! it was a bit wonky but it worked quite well for some time and as I was starting to enjoy drawing more I bought a cheapest wacom tablet I could find and just went with it.

there're many free drawing programs you can start with like krita or gimp and with time you can upgrade to a paid ones (I personally really like clip studio paint and procreate and what’s great about them is that you can pay one time and have it for the rest of your life).

and there are many pretty good cheap tablets from wacom or huion, and you don't really have to start with the screen ones (although it is more comfortable when you work on them) but still you can start with a something simple, and if you'd still want to pursue in art you can then change to something else that will suit your skills better!

[melissa-titanium]

i think your art is very beautiful //. !!!!!!!!!!!!!uhm what app slash program do you use or recommend ..

EV E Y BOD Y SAY. THAAAAAAAAANK UOU <33333 HELL O U SWEE TBEAUTIFUL THANG. IIIIIIII!!!!!!O K OK.

iam severely biased because i use csp and i Fucking Love CSP but. i have used lots of different art programs & can just share my experiences. my choice from top being first to bottom being absolute last

CSP ; i mean, like, legally speaking -- it costs money. but. like. you know. arr mateys and all that. smirk. VERY good program, super extensive & i believe its industry standard? one downside for most people ive seen is that it is. like. incredibly complicated & visually overwhelming. like this is my personal setup

BUT ALSO GOING INTO THIS MORE.,.. the interface is like. 100% customizable. you could completely get rid of every single thing on here except for the brush and colorpicker if you wanted. like it is completely customizable just do whatever the fuck u want forever ALSO ANIMATION FRIENDLY BLESS i do all my animations here!!! . i really like it because there is an entire asset store with people making dedicated brushes and models and textures etc etc & also its just. it has a nice feel to it :)) its hard for me to describe well but i love csp. my babygirl

MEDIBANG PAINT: i have not used this in . quite some fucking time so forgive me if some of this is outdated. its not like. NEARLY as customizable as something like csp or photoshop (ewww) but it works like. pretty fucking well honestly. the brushes all have a very nice feel to them and it's a very far far reach from csp in terms of like. Set up BUT its free and has a lot of pre-made brushes to pick from :) ... unfortunately theres no way to import stuff unlike csp and ps so ur stuck with things made within the app or downloaded from the cloud i think otherwise tho i think it has a very nice interface :)) NOT animation friendly tho. sigh

FIREALPACA: FREE... also you can animate in it but its fucking insane. better selection of brushes than medibang but im not a big fan of how it feels + it was super laggy for me when i used it....

KRITA: same as above p much but a smaller brush selection ... IBISPAINT: free! big fan of the brushes (+ theres a LOT of them) & even if the interface is a little confusing for me its pretty simple & would be good for sum people i think :) PROCREATE: $5 last time i checked? fuck procreate honestly. one of my least favorite programs & i used it for 2 years so i would know. it gets a LOT of popularity because its aesthetically pleasing and. YES the feel of the brushes is nice i will not lie but the shit hiding behind such a simple interface is the fact that there is literally. so few options/so little customization. very laggy, brushes are EXCLUSIVE to procreate & even if there's a wide selection if you want to move to a different program its gonna b a nightmare having to use totally different brushes. animation feature is fucking terrible, there's a seperate app made by the same people i think? and i havent tried that one but ive heard its good :)) regardless. procreate isnt BAD but it has an incredibly simple interface, ipad/iphone exclusive, only really works well with an apple pencil (which is already pretty fucking expensive on top of an ipad if you dont already have one LOL !?!?!?!?!?!?)

PHOTOSHOP: fuck adobe! expensive as hell + ia m generally just not a big fan of it or its interface... its not bad per se but i wouldnt reccomend it to anyone who hasnt Already Used It

THERES . PROBABLY MORE IM FORGETTING like i could say sony sketch & gimp and shit but i dont have enough experience with them 2 really say. regardless i hope IHOP;E ANY OF THIS MADE; SENS;E[ ;34TEORTUDOIG

[cuprohastes]

GIMP

Ironically the most replies I ever had on Imgur.

OK look here's the skinny on why I don't like GIMP: A long discussion with screenshots

To start with, there's two classes of users:

A: People who never use art apps, don't make art, and maybe tweak a couple of photos for colour balance every couple of years: They love GIMP. They hardly use it or never use it but it's FREE and OPEN SOURCE and they heard Adobe was BAD SOMEHOW because they CHARGE MONEY. They love GIMP. They will die on that hill. GIMP is the best. One day they may even use it.

B: People who are enthusiasts and professionals who actually want to make something and have graphics tablets, strong opinions on CMYK and whether Kyle Webster is over-rated or not. And they don't use GIMP because they tried it and it doesn't do the job.

To go for a comic analogy It's like bystanders telling EMTs their technique is wrong because they saw this Spongebob episode where he used bandaid.

Anyway: Who the hell amI? I feel like I should establish some Bona Fides: not just some random shouty dude. I started out with MS Paint in 1989, then Deluxe Paint Enhanced for PC. I started doing Desktop Publishing with CorelDraw and some non WYSIWYG layout engines. Spent a miserable few years with Quark, moved on to Photoshop... 3 I think. Jettisoned that after it got too bloated (It has a 3D print system inside it!!) In amongst I've tried GIMP, Krita, Clip Studio (Now and back when it was Manga Studio and really didn't want you to use colour), ProCreate, Adobe Fresco, ArtRage, Kai's powertools, 3D Studio (Back before it was Max), Maya, Blender, Inkscape, Serif Studios, Art Studio Pro... I was a graphic designer for several companies, self employed, and worked for Anthrocon doing colour on their badges for around 15 years, as well as creating designs for thier printed work and occasionally keycards, and t-shirts, and designs for badges when they didn't have any art from a GoH. To put it simply I'm not an Adobe Fanboy screeching about people using non-Adobe software. I've seen people who wanted to move to digital give up after buying hundreds of dollars of hardware because they got told GIMP was TEH GOODEST. Anyway...

But every time someone wants to get into art to paint the picture they have inside them, or do some fanart or mess with graphics design, group A crawl out from their bog of incompetence and demand that people use GIMP. Not just suggest it, but actively shout down group B, the people who have experience.

Because Group A would rather push their dogma that paid software is always the wrong solution, than accept that GIMP's frankly shit.

It's just hit version 3.0 after only 30 years. Go team.

Points to note: If you need support for GIMP, the answer is always "Runs OK for me LOL" or "I don't use it but all your problems are because you used Photoshop once." or the good old "Switch to Linux."

In the interest of fairness I'm going to install this new amazing version of GIMP and see if it's any better.

Infamously, the software is so awful that almost all images on Google that you find are pictures of people re-creating the GIMP Logo in GIMP to prove that it is on a par with MS Paint. And it's not a good logo.

First boot:

OK so it opens up a giant panel that tells me I installed GIMP. Presumably a warning. You can't access the actual app unless you've first navigated the splash screen. The app assumes your'e still on an 800x600 monitor. Nice. I suspect the splash screen was supposed to laod over the top of GIMP because... uh... ANYWAY.

Select create Select Make a new image Select a size... hit OK and voila.

Just as a note: Other apps do this in a single panel, or just open the app and let you hit File > new > Select size and bit depth & colour space... which GIMP also skipped.

OK so I'm using a mouse. so let's do a test line then find and turn on the stroke smoothing. Wow!

... This is worthless! Looks like the smoothing amount doens't do anyting, you have to tweak the other option on a scale of 0 to 1000.

For those of you playing at home: That makes no sense, because everything else is 0-100.

Also brave choice to make sure that when you pull up the settings they replace the brush palette... on the opposite side of the screen, and give you no way to switch back.

The setting which are incidentally locked, making them... double worthless.

Fun trivia! If you mis click at the bottom of the brush palette, on the left, it just deletes your tool preset! Genius. Sticking a button for a process you'd almost never do, next to the Undo/redo icons. Chef's kiss. Perfect UI design.

I hear they're making a car. The 'explode fuel tank' button is next to the switch that turns the headlights on. You may ask why they have an 'explode fuel tank' button. Yes. You may ask.

Now having created a text label, I somehow am not allowed to draw outside the text label. This is not normal.

There is no Unselect option at all in the selection menu. Escape does't do it. Hitting option/alt pops up a messages saying there's no selection to remove:

... despite there being a selection to remove.

GIMP's infamously mazelike right click menu that copies the taskbar menu is still around:

Why have one set of menus when you can have two of every menu?

Not pictured: The giant tooltip that pops up and covers the thing you're trying to click on. Seriously, I couldn't get a screenshot of it.

Back to drawing...

Apparently the solution is to create a new layer. One text object is still text, the other randomly rasterised itself and locked the selections to it's own boundary box. That is sub-optional or "entirely stupid, who wrote this garbage?" if you're being formal.

These guys. That's who.

Still got a maze of options including 'Y not use PYTHON to make a pic‽"

At this point I notice that the vibrant red I pick in the colour picker is showing as desaturated orange in the screenshots. Which is weird because it's supposed to be 8 bit sRGB, aka the basics. But somehow this has been fucked up - GIMP: "Colour accuracy? But Why?"

Let's try an export. a mere four or five clicks later...

... where the hell is it? Let me try that again...

OK. Uh. Great. A third visibly different shade of red to the one I drew with.

At this point, I'm done. I could learn to use the tools easily. I could dig through the manual and look for whatever ass backward UI decision lets you resolve it's inherent flaws like rasterising text at random...

... but if I tell it to use 100% red and it insists on using some buggy kludged system that outputs it to a different shade, then why bother? Nothing you do will come out looking the way you intended.

Meanwhile Clip Studio's over here doing 100% of everything you need for amateur or enthusiast or even pro level art (I created one of Anthrocon's T-shirts in Clip Studio), and it'll run on a tablet and let you draw on $400 of hardware or a desktop and a graphics tablet.

And if by some goddamn chance you got all the way through this, send me a boop in the notes!

[surflessonscomics]

Ok, it’s not about surfing, but it is about living in the most expensive place in the country where people struggle to live while billionaires own enormous vacation houses that they occupy a few months a year.

Anyway, I discovered I can export my Gimp files as photoshop documents and work with them in Procreate! Amazing! Pretty sure this file is a lot of MB.

Also, I have to let you know that I’m going to take a break from posting new comics for a couple of weeks while I draw more ideas and get used to my workflow. I will still post sketches and stuff I’m working on at least twice a week, but I need time to cook up more comics.

Thanks so much for following and reblogging my shtuff, you’re awesome!

[misschristineart]

DTIYS for Karoline Pietrowski's challenge #ChristmaswithKaroline2024 on IG.

Hey, guys! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas. I had a good Christmas this year - not perfect, but good. ^w^

On my post from IG, three last pics were photos of drawing process (edited with noise filter and watermarked from Procreate).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Christine Driscoll (@christine.driscoll.art)

The finished/scanned drawing (as seen on the first slide on IG) was edited on GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP).

For traditional art - done with drawing pencils, art markers, color pencils, and Posca markers.

Hope you're having a wonderful Christmas season. Also, Happy New Year!

[greenhorn-art]

Castles in the Sky by Shadaras @shadaras

Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar

Rating: General Audiences

Category: Gen

Relationships: Chu Yunxiu/Ye Xiu

Words: 36 613

Here are two truths and a lie: Chu Yunxiu is Misty Rain’s captain. Chu Yunxiu is dating Ye Qiu. Chu Yunxiu is happy to have the Shu twins on her team. Of course, a lie can become true if you believe in it enough… (A Chu Yunxiu character study.)

About the book:

FONTS: Alegreya [Google Fonts], Raleway [Google Fonts], Catchy Mager [purchased from MyFonts], Segoe UI Emoji

IMAGES: Clouds from Rawpixel (ID: 9581058); Misty Rain logo from The King's Avatar Wiki (stretched slightly horizontally and traced)

MATERIALS: Domtar Earthchoice multipurpose copy paper, cream, 11"x17" cut in half to form short-grained letter size paper; Recollections' Gilded Ink paper pad; Cialux bookcloth, black; heat transfer foil, gold; 2mm binder board; waxed linen thread, 30/3 size; wheat paste (this time I used 1:4 flour to water ratio, and heated until conditioner-like consistency. An improvement over last attempt.)

PROGRAMS USED: typeset in LibreOffice Writer; title page mocked-up in Procreate then designed in GIMP; imposed with Renegade's Community Imposer.

I spied this fic towards the top of the kudos and kept it in the back of my mind while trawling for more HanYe fics. Thought, well it's gotta be there for a reason so should be good! ooh look aroace queerplatonic relationship 👀👀 Definitely bumping up to top of Read Next!

The amazing thing I've found about The King's Avatar is that the CP possibilities are endless! The characters are both friends and rivals, there's respect and history and it all mixes and clashes creating more possibilities and chemistries than I've ever seen in a fandom before. The fact that AllYe is so popular (and not just in an NSFW way) is testament to it, and also, in part, what drew me to this fic. Asexual representation is scant, aromantic even more so — especially in fandom (in my experience of it at least).

If I were to add a tag to describe Castles in the Sky it would be 'heartwarming'. Shadaras' writing and characterization is wonderful, and I really enjoyed the both the story and the aroace representation. They took a character with relatively little content (in comparison to others in fandom. I have not read the source material) and gave her a voice, dreams, and made me really care about her. I was touched, and after finishing it I jumped to my laptop and set about turning it into a physical book.

So, onto the details.

The thing that stuck out and stayed with me the most about the story was the aroace aspect (Shadaras fed my smol aroace heart so well), so that's what I focused on design-wise.

The title page features a large black ring, referencing the black ring worn usually on the middle finger of the right hand as a symbol of asexuality. The colours of the asexual pride flag are also represented: the text is purple; the clouds colour the page in shades of white and grey; and the ring is black. For the endpapers/cover backing I chose paper that mixes green, purple, and blue: green for the aromantic pride flag; purple for the ace. I also found the green-blue mix of colours to be rather fitting, inspired by the description of Misty Rain's HQ with the "cool blues and greens of Misty Rain's walls" (chapter 5: Transformations). While I personally find CYX's relationship with YX significant, her relationship with her team is just as important.

When choosing which cover each endpaper goes on, I thought about how the story begins with CYX and YX's relationship, and about how after it's established we see her team and it's future at the forefront of her mind. Following that line of thought I put the paper with more purple on the front cover (purple for aroace CYX), and the more green-blue paper on the back (Misty Rain's colours).

The process of foiling the cover took me 3 hours (the length of the movie RRR — good movie actually, would recommend. Which is surprising because I usually find Oscar movies rather boring). The foiling was done with a heat pen. Three hours is not the norm: first, I had the foil backwards and foiled my template instead of the cover; then, my power banks kept dying, so I had to take charging breaks, and I also went over everything again just to make sure that I didn't miss a spot; and of course I was also watching a movie while working, so that ate up some time too.

I had initially planned to bind it as a casebound book, but I didn't have enough time to do it (I was about to go on vacation and wanted to read the book in my downtime). Instead, I did a Coptic binding. The covers were pulled from the press and foiled leaving me 5 hours of sleep to spare.

I went simple on the outer covers to contrast the fun paper on the inside of the covers. I used black Cialux bookcloth instead of my green-blue 'petrol' Iris bookcloth for the contrast, and because it picks up the black from the title page. The text foiled onto the cover is a simple sans serif (Raleway, the same as used inside), and the image is Misty Rain's logo from the donghua. (Image came from The King's Avatar Wiki. It was stretched slightly horizontally because it seemed a bit squished compared to other versions seen on Google, and then traced). Using the colourful paper inside was a practical choice: I couldn't get two covers out of one sheet of paper, but one sheet would do the inner covers with some material leftover.

The sewing and construction of the book was done while camping — I'd packed up what I needed and brought it with me: the signatures (folded and punched); the finished covers; thread; a needle; and an awl. As for the actual sewing, it's supposed to be Coptic but don't look too closely. This was the second time I've tried Coptic stitching and I didn't have any instructions with me. (My first Coptic binding was a thin 2-signature notebook I did a few weeks ago. It was for taking notes at the event I was at, Pennsic War 50).

Book is primarily set in Alegreya. It's currently my favourite body font, and has a matching sans serif family. The fonts used in the title page are Raleway and Catchy Mager. Raleway is also used for titles, headings, etc. Segoe UI Emoji was used for any emojis that cropped up throughout the text (Pretty sure they're the same emojis as seen while reading on my phone and laptop). Catchy Mager was purchased from MyFont. (The first and only font I have ever bought, but I saw it used in a fic's title art and fell in love.)

Lastly, onto The Comedy of Errors, or: When-You-Finally-See-All-the-Typos-and-Mistakes-Once-You're-Done-and-Can-Only-Laugh-While-You-Cry-Inside.

Appendix's footer says 'Epilogue', so I must have missed something with the paragraph style for the Appendix heading.

Forgot about using Segoe UI Emoji font and did not include it in the About the Book.

Missed fixing the archive info for gnomen in the Author's Notes — the copy/paste of metadata into Notebook to remove formatting also removed the commas and spaces between tags.

Because I hadn't planned cover materials/design before printing, there isn't a section for that in the About the Book. Also the reason why the artwork on the cover is not credited in it, as I had not planned to use it.

[muffin-snakes-art]

Hey I love ur art I wanna know which program u use for ur art cuz I wanna draw a lot better then on paper ?

Hiya tysm!! I currently use a number of programs depending on what method I wanna work with or what I wanna make. I'll list and explain the ones I use or used for my illustration work.

Clip Studio Paint EX - Main choice for illustration and hand-drawn animation. I enjoy painting and sketching in Clip Studio more than Photoshop personally. The animation feature is pretty neat and I like using it mainly for the clean up process.

Adobe Photoshop - Illustration and hand-drawn animation. There are a few features Photoshop has that Clip Studio doesn't have that I personally need to make exporting multiple images faster and ready for animating. It can also make importing stuff from it faster and easier into After Effects.

Adobe Illustrator - Vector Illustration and 2D rig asset creation. If I wanna make quick clean art or I know I'll need multiple sizes of the same art, I use Illustrator. Creating vector art is a bit of a learning curve for beginner digital artists, so I wouldn't jump into it until you have an understanding on non-vector art programs.

Procreate - I don't turn on my iPad as much anymore, but it's an amazing and affordable art app. If you can afford an iPad and an Apple Pencil, definitely give it a try.

Gimp - I used to use Gimp back in high school since I had no way of purchasing any art program at the time, but I wanted something similar to Photoshop after learning how to use it in school. It's a decent free and open-source art program that served it's purpose for me.

MS Paint - Literally started out digital art and animation with Windows 7 MS Paint and a wireless mouse back when I was around 10yo. But the upcoming latest MS Paint update includes layer and transparency support for the Windows 11 version. Honestly I'd give that a try if you use a PC and have 11 on it!

Hope this helps! Also here's a graphic made by XdanielArt on Twitter listing a bunch of program alternatives to the Adobe ones. There's a good number of neat art programs to research and try out!

[kjng-x0]

Digital art programs

me: I hate that it's called "Gimp" like that's a sex thing. I can never not think of the sex thing. Who called it that?

my husband, deadeyed: I use Procreate..

With the kind of art that spawns from this hellsite, I'm not surprised what fiends are naming these programs.

[eddeha-art]

My cousin works for apple, so she A) refused to let me keep my android when I moved in and B) helped me get an Ipad + Procreate from the goodness of her heart. And now my art's already like 75% better than when I just had a wacom pad and GIMP And then Tyler reposted that stream and I got inspireeeed I want to do Benjamin justice in my next fan game, I already have plans for how he'll be involved in the first case. I'll mostly be posting art like this on my Ko-fi (which should be FREE to look at) but I can't not post this one here, I'm just too hyped Happy WKM anniversary ^_^

[messydiabolical]

🎀 What style do you not currently do that you love and want to try?

🎠What is a typical 'workflow' for a piece from idea to finished?

🍤Shout out a handful of your favourite artists who have blogs you can @ and tell us why we should check them out

Three big questions, thank you so much for asking!

🎀 What style do you not currently do that you love and want to try? Pixel art! I love it so much. I have some brief past experience with it but not for years. I made stardew valley mods way back in the day (clothes and wallpapers). I made them in MS paint by mouse and then downloaded gimp just to add transparency to upload them (I think the newest paint might have layers and PNG's now? wild times). But I never like, studied pixel art or tried anything outside of specifically wanting to make some clothes for stardew. I had a goal, I did the thing and that was that. The things pixel artists come up with are absolutely mind blowingly beautiful. Check out 6vcr for examples. stunning. Procreate doesn't seem to be well geared for it unfortunately (it's not the best for zooming in massively and doing small scale stuff in my experience) maybe I will have to whip out the MS paint out again! 🎠What is a typical 'workflow' for a piece from idea to finished? This turns out to be a HUGE question, so i'm actually going to give it it's own post. In the mean time, here is an example of how i storyboard comic ideas. Behold my beautifully rendered shitpost:

🍤Shout out a handful of your favourite artists who have blogs you can @ and tell us why we should check them out I could literally name hundreds and I know i'm going to kick myself for missing people off. I'll limit this answer to some of the very first art blogs I followed, the ones that personally happened to come onto my radar and inspired me to pick up a pen and get drawing myself : @angstyastro @nimueth @bargu @reiline @thedandiestoflions @autodiscothings

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Hello, have you talker about your art process anywhere? I am very interested in how you got into glitch art/photomanipulation/however you’d call this, and i want to learn more. Do you have programs you use, plugins, do you use any physical media or scanography/scanner manipulation? I really want to hear about anything you wanna talk about regarding the creation process for your art. Thank you for sharing your work.

Yes! Unfortunately, I tried answering this question in a ton of detail but tumblr didn’t save it as a draft automatically - which was a frustrating experience to say the least - so this is my second attempt at answering this ask — you’ve asked a lot of really valuable questions here, I’ll do my best to be concise in my answers!

When I first began playing around with editing software, I was 16 and simply wanted to make memes and silly edits. This was around 2015-2016, whenever vaporwave was a fresh concept and Resonance was trending on Vine — which is a sentence that makes me feel fucking ancient. I was really entranced by vaporwave, which had this off-white nostalgia for post-consumerist 80s and 90s cultural trends. I later became interested in how many of those cultural trends persisted and evolved into Y2K culture and beyond.

these are some of the images I was working on during that period of time, which were loosely inspired by indie horror and jazz cups and soundcloud rap. I was so proud of learning how to make my own scanlines using GIMP :)

Late 2016 I began my freshman year at a hoighty-toighty art school that I was too poor to attend, and quickly entered a mental health downward spiral — but I learned many valuable things, most of that info was painfully basic; my education prior to that was not anything special. I would not consider myself someone with exceptional aptitude for art — I just have a chronic compulsion to break things.

So, where to begin? My recommendation to anyone who’s newly interested in this style of artwork and editing:

Glitchet is a repository of info regarding many different styles and methods of distortion - from sonification to slipscans, there’s a ton of good info to comb through. Most of the techniques and tools covered are free to use, but there is some paid stuff out there too - but if you know your way around, virtually everything is free. More on that shortly :)

As for my process, programs, plugins, etc - there is a lot, and I don’t think I can cover everything. Primarily: Photoshop, After Effects, GIMP, ArtStudio Pro for iOS, Procreate, DestroyPix, and a number of other pieces of software that perform smaller, specific functions - such as BigJpg for AI-upscaling. I also employ analogue/physical distortion techniques like circuit-bending, slipscan, and more. These require additional hardware and knowledge; such as access to a copier/scanner, old CRT screens, and the ability to solder + work with low voltage electronics without accidentally shorting them out. Best part is that you can ✨layer✨ anything and everything, collage style — which is my favorite aspect, very playful and exploratory.

Now, if you’re like me and can’t afford fuck-all, but wholeheartedly believe that money should not be a limiting factor for creativity, I recommend installing the Adobe Creative Suite from downloadpirate(dot)com - which is also where I’ve gotten many of my plugins, although I do also pay for the plugins that I come to really appreciate, as they’re typically done by independent developers who could actually use the scratch. Same risks as any pirate cove: intrusive ads, popups, and redirect chains - use Ublock Origin to kill these annoyances. I recommend performing a scan with Malwarebytes after using any sketchy-looking-download site, but I was raised to be a bit paranoid so that’s purely preferential.

As for plugins:

Filenames in this image may correspond with the developer of the plugin — you can just search the filename + ‘after effects plugin’ and you’ll almost certainly find your way.

Most commonly, I use Pixelsorter, Pixdither, Displacer Pro, Pixel Stretch, and Hacksaw — although some of the plugs that I use aren’t listed above, like Datamosher, which is a script-based solution that helps remove i-frames from a clip in After Effects, all without having to use VLC and any handwritten scripts (the ol’ fashioned way).

These are all from the last year or so, to show the relative growth I’ve experienced since my time spent as a creature of 16 years. Naturally, I’m also like, more of a person now - so the art is partly better because I’ve simply suffered more :p

When I started, I didn’t know any of the jargon or how to describe a specific effect I was trying to achieve - so I taught myself how to do stuff by googling around, and if I couldn’t find an answer (which was 90% of the time) I’d just try to figure shit out. Which rarely ever resulted in outright success, but was always a significant learning experience. That’s why I’m so quick to drop the link to Glitchet! Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what I’d be doing now if I had known there was an online library for info on how to produce different types of distortions - definitely would’ve spent less time trial-and-erroring my way through aesthetics.

In conclusion: there’s so much to try and you should try absolutely everything that interests you. It’s free if you’re cool enough to steal it; though some things (like hardware) are gonna cost. You don’t need talent or an exceptional education, though both of those things would certainly help — and you’ll never run out of things to learn because there are infinite ways to break shit. More so than anything else, you need a willingness to explore, experiment, and fail often. You’ll fail miserably at times, so a proclivity for humiliation is also a big plus. Eventually your failures will start looking like successes; but you’ll have forgotten the difference by then and will be free to make whatever the fuck you want :)

I’m glad that you enjoy the work! tumblr has always been the best place for me to share my lil jpegs and actually find a real sense of connection with others who are similarly jazzed. My life completely bottomed-out a few years ago and I was in a really bad place whenever I logged into my blog for the first time in half-a-decade and started posting again. My personal growth from then to now has been a strange and incredible experience, and I’m so glad that I had the art and the funny little gays on this website to help me through the toughest points and teach me valuable things about myself; so if I can give back a little knowledge, I’ll gladly take that opportunity! I hope these findings serve you as well as they’ve served me.