Looking for the perfect Art program

[TomSawyer]

Hey everyone

I've been working on my art for a while now, but... It was all on paper

So can someone recommend a program for me to use?

I'd hate to have to scan everything, and loose quality

[fleohr]

• Medibang
• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• Paint tool SAI
• Clip Studio Paint

These are the ones I know so far, Medibang is the only free software and a good one imo

[Rowein]

I use the Paint Tool SAI, it's simple and for what I need it fulfills its functions very well.

But drawing programs, like any tool, depend on how you feel when you use them, so at least I recommend you try several before deciding on one.

Good luck!

[TomSawyer]

Thanks for the support

[dawgofdawgness]

Pain(t) Tool Sai is pretty good for doing digital art if you're not full on painting things (that's more for Photoshop). Idk if this is the case with everyone but Sai also tends to do THIS

but hey if you like that glitch aesthetic, Sai is the way to go. Clip Studio Paint is also really good for comics.

[Pandastrophic]

I do all my colouring and painting in paint tool sai for both my illustrations and comic, it has never failed me and the brushes and blending in it are almost always better than photoshop.
However I find photoshop is better at effects, colour editing and in general a much more stronger program that Sai than can take on bigger canvases. With my comic I use PS to arrange the coloured panels and add the text.
I'm not sure you'll be able to find the one perfect art program, I think you should try a few of the ones already recommended and maybe you'll end up using like 2 at the same time for different things.

Idk if this is the case with everyone but Sai also tends to do THIS

I've used Sai for like 8 years and that never happened, I think something is wrong with the version you're using??

[VibrantFox]

As a user of Medibang and FireAlpaca I'd recommend both of those and they're both free. I've gone in and out of using the panel tool, it's add new brushes via Medibang Cloud every so often as well as having the ability to make your own. Manga effects like speed lines and patterns. Not as many filter options as Photoshop but the get the job done. but all in all p good for a free software.

As mentioned Clip Studio Paint/Manga Studio are both good but will cost you money to purchase but the best time to go for it would be during one of their sales and it's price goes down to about $25 I think. I've never used Sai save for one of the free trials from the site but I've heard there's supposedly other methods of getting the program (idk what they are) As for Photoshop I'm sure it's possible it's just not sure how (assuming there's differences between CS6 and the newest version)

I hope your able to find something that works ^^

[indigodrawing]

There is no such thing as the perfect art program, only the perfect art program for your particular style of working. Only you can decide what that is. If there are certain things you want/need in a drawing package that can narrow things down, so you might want to add what you're looking for to your post.

Personally I like Clip Studio a lot because its vector drawing tools are really good and look just like normal raster drawing, except you can go back and edit a line you've already drawn without redrawing it.

[mariusthered]

I use Clip studio Paint pro, and I have never looked back.
Happy with the results and you get a website with the program to visit where you can find brushes and textures and even 3d models and poses for free.

[dawgofdawgness]

Oh, that explains it. I downloaded it from a shady YouTube video

[TheFalseVyper]

What DID YOU DO!?

LOL

I shouldn't be laughing, because if SAI ever did this to anything I was working on, I may just have to take an angry nap before even considering looking at my computer.

[punkarsenic]

medibang is free n ive heard good things, firealpaca is also free and like an open source version of sai

paint tool SAI is easily cracked, its pretty nice for painting

id go for clip studio paint. right now its $50 single pay (thats cheap), but if you wait for a sale (which are frequent) you can get it for $25. its really worth it, i love it

[punkarsenic]

maybe were using the same shady version...

for me, it only did that when the file was a bit too big for it to comfortably handle

[defudefu]

If you have Ipad Pro, Procreate and medibang works wonderful to me

[qwerty]

Several months ago I tried a lot of different software and ended up using Clip Studio Paint. Reasons:
- it was pretty cheap (only $50 one time with free upgrades to new versions)
- it wasn't slow on my laptop, unlike Photoshop and Krita
- it is designed mainly for manga / comic creators but can also be used to do 'painterly' things

As far as free software goes, there is FireAlpaca and Krita. FireAlpaca is what I started with, it is simple and doesn't have as many features as others, but it's fast and somewhat geared towards comic / manga artists. Krita was too slow to be usable on my machine, but otherwise was so spectacularly good I was a little heartbroken that I couldn't use it.

Really a lot of it comes down to what interface you like best; they are all different. As far as I'm aware, all of the paid programs let you do a free trial, so I would just try out a bunch.

[beta1042]

There are A LOT of free softwares out there... I tried them all but eventually decided the money for CSP was worth it and it's the program I use now, atleast for comics a lot of the features like close gap bucket fill, vector layers, easy speech balloons, and all the gateway assets just made it worth it to me.

If you want to try the free stuff first before you start trying the things that cost money, these are the ones I heard of:
Fire alpaca
Medibang
Gimp
Krita
Sketchbook