Free Drawing Softwares?

[VeloursRose]

GIMP is pretty good but I haven't used it myself in ages. I hear firealpaca is like a mix between SAI and PS. There's also Krita, it's interface is similar to PS.

[hierogriff]

The only time I use Gimp nowadays is when cropping a comic page to a 300*300px icon, you can set Gimp's selection tool to always be a square. Very useful.

[kazumaoboro]

Well besides from GIMP, FireAlpaca, and Krita, there is also Paint.NET(altought i have never used Paint NET), and i think with all that options, you can pretty much do anything

[ametueraspirant]

sketchbook is a pretty good (if limited) alternative, and there are also online based editors such as pixlr and psychopaint that work pretty well for being web apps.

[mayhugs]

I believe you can get Photoshop CS2 for free from Adobe, so it's legit. You might have to create an account first?? Not sure.
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3466

[jessiepolfliet]

Try Painttool Sai it works really smooth with lines.

[RaMiaH]

Uhm....I use pirate SAI > v >);;

[miesmud]

I use yarrrharr'd Sai too... And I'm ashamed. But I'm not making any profit with it... So I think as long as you use it for personal use only it's okay-ish?

But, I bought Manga studio 5 not that long ago, for only €37 (I thinks it's 45 dollars or something) And it's really good. They often sell it for pretty cheap so you could also look into that. Because most of the time free software isn't really great.

[hierogriff]

Yes, I'd definitely reccomend Manga studio 5 (Also known as Clip Studio Paint for some reason) if you can find it in a sale somewhere.

Really streamlines the speech bubble/panelling process, which can be a huge time sucker.

[kazumaoboro]

Manga studio it is how they do marketing to the physical release; with disc and everything, and Clip Studio Paint to the Digital Release.

@meepGTV i would recommend you to try most of these, even the paid ones, most of them como with a free trial so try with and decide which one fits your style.

[talissacosta1]

FireAlpaca!!! It is for free and is available for both MAC and Windows. And it is really good (mostly since it is a free software). It is more for art, so it has that brush stabilizer thing (I love that), and the paint actually blend, I think that's really nice =33 (but the text tool is horrible)

I use it for sketches and paint bucket, it might sound "Really, paint bucket? That's stupid.", but they have THE BEST paint bucket o-ó No kidding, it fills so perfectly (with 1 in the expand box, but way better than Clip Studio and Photoshop for that purpose)

There is also Krita, for free. I didn't use this one really much, since FireAlpaca and Clip Studio Paint are working just fine for me. But it is worth trying.

Clip Studio Paint, it is not a free software, but on sale it is almost a free software (I paid 15USD on the Pro version), and an AWESOME one. No kidding, their brushes/pen/pencil are amazing, the ones that feels most real to me, and they have this perspective rules that are heaven, seriously, Manga Studio / Clip Studio Paint is the most beautiful thing for perpective drawing. They have a trial version, TRY IT! o-ó (fangirl)

My inker always told me to use Manga Studio, and I was like "but I don't wanna learn... And I hate cracking things", but then I tried Clip Studio Paint and omg she was right, she was so freaking right, I heart Clip Stduio.

[miesmud]

WOW, I just realized microsoft Word 2010 (probably 2013 too) supports pen pressure!? And you can actually make some really nice linearts with it, because it has some kind of stabilizer.

Hahaha, sorry for putting it in this thread, but it's just so weird that it is possible to draw in word...
But it is kind of free a free 'drawing' software... because I'm sure most people have word...

Ok no, I'm just amazed by my discovery and wanted to tell everyone about it!
K BYE

//goes back to Word OTL

[MylCreates]

GIMP's probably the best one. If you're looking for a vector based program like Illustrator then Inkscape is probably the best free choice aswell.

[ametueraspirant]

ha! inkscape...
I've heard good things about it but I can't figure out how to do anything on it, since it's not clear as to which tool has pressure sensitivity or not.

[melonramune]

I'll try to sum up all the programs everyone listed. Feel free to add on stuff from your own experiences.
Autodesk Sketchbook: Really nice brushes, but like Kirita the learning curve sucks. The layout can be a bit awkward for many people [so much blank space!!], but it becomes really convenient once you get used to it. But it doesn't have all the useful tools you need for more advanced drawings unless you buy Pro.
Firealpaca: Very easy to use but is also very simple. It doesn't have a lot of functions for advanced drawing; it's basically a simpler+free form of SAI. I've personally had difficulty using it because it seems like my lines are coming from the opposite end of the brush..? Some people might have problems with that as well so just putting that out there.
GIMP: Basically free photoshop. I haven't used it in years, but from what I remember it was really good. But it's for image manipulation, like photoshop. You can draw with it, but it's not specially made for drawing so it's not as convenient.
Krita: Also a photoshop-like program but more geared towards drawing. The learning curve is a bit hard, but it's a very powerful freeware once you get to know it. It's also very good for BW comics because it comes with tones and hatch brushes. The only problem is that it requires a lot of memory and processing power...Use a high power computer or suffer frequent crashes. thank goodness for autosave!!
Mischief: The free version is limited.. I heard there's no layer and limited colors and brushes, but it'll do for casual drawing. It's a vector based program, so if you're looking into one. Last time I used it I thought it was ok. Nothing particular to note, if I remember correctly. The infinite scaling threw me off though.
NekoPaint: It's basically an older FireAlpaca, imo. The functions are very basic, but they're good enough to do simple drawings with.
openCanvas1.1: Extremely basic painting software. Imagine a super basic form of Corel Painter. To be honest, I'd even say OC 1.1 is basically MsPaint but with layers. It used to be freeware, but all versions of OC beyond 1.1 are now paid software. I believe they used to put 1.1 for download on their front page, but I can't seem to find it anymore. I'm not sure if downloading 1.1 is legal anymore, but you can try if you like living life on the edge.
Paint.NET: Basically a photoshop wannabe...Its layout is very similar to photoshop, but it's lacking in tools and usefulness. It's also made for image manipulation, not really drawing. It's nice for casual drawing. The lack of pen pressure is a huge pain though...idk if they fixed that yet. Their line curve function is useful though.
Also, I don't think any of these tools besides Mischief allow vector use...? It's been awhile since I've used most of these.

[meepGTV]

That's quite a range of options... Thanks for the help, guys! I start testing some of these out.

[meepGTV]

I found that I fixed the firealpaca issue by setting it to track my mouse rather than my tablet.

[ametueraspirant]

li'l bit late, but when confronted with a tough choice, I always turn to tom's guide. That community just seems to KNOW stuff if you know what I mean.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/download/Software-Drawing,0702-7029.html

[happehlappiah]

Can someone post some download links? D:

[melonramune]

I'm pretty sure you can find them by just googling them. I'm not familiar with the forum rules yet, but I hope pasting download links don't count as advertisement...?
Autodesk
Fireaplaca
GIMP
Krita
Paint.NET
I've also forgot to mention NekoPaint. It's in Japanese, but here's the translated version.
There's also openCanvas 1.1. I believe a few years ago, openCanvas released 1.1 out for free use, but it seems like they've retracted that recently. You can still find downloads for 1.1 out there, but I'm not too sure about the legal situation for it, so I'm not gonna post the link.
I've updated my original post to include the two.
Edit: I finally found the link to another one. It's Mischief.