Which is the best software for painting digital art?

Question

I found ARTRAGE 2 quite interesting yet i think there is a better software available coz the quality of painting i c on fanarts is way too better than it. I'm much into manga so it wud b nice if u guys tell me wat software i shud use to make high quality manga fanarts.Thank You

Answer 1

Photoshop by Adobe is the most popular software in general, but as stated is expensive. Twistedbrush & Paint.Net are good.

Three free apps that I'm currently experimenting with are;
paint.net @ http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/
paintbox @ http://www.download.com/PaintBox/3000-2192_4-10512631.html?tag=lst-0-5
twistedbrush @ http://www.pixarra.com/
Free version @ http://www.download.com/TwistedBrush-Free/3000-2192_4-10408034.html?tag=lst-0-8
(These are all listed at www.download.com as well. Search for 'paint'.)

Some others that may interest you;
Project Dogwaffle @ http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/
Free version (older, but works) @ http://www.download.com/Project-Dogwaffle-Free/3000-2189_4-10302840.html?tag=lst-0-3
Check this link for 2D & 3D apps; http://freeartsoftware.com/

You might want to do a search for 'Rendering software' apps to get the finish/effects you may be after too.
POV-Ray @ http://www.povray.org/download/
Tutorial @ http://www.3dlinks.com/links.cfm?categoryid=13&subcategoryid=124

Hope this stuff gives you some ideas and helps. Good luck!

Answer 2

I'm a student at The Art Institute of Indianapolis and I do this all the time. It's a simple process. Ready? First make your drawing. Next, take a sheet of tracing paper and trace your drawing. Once it's penciled in on the tracing paper, go back over your lines with a pen or sharpie. However make sure that all your contour lines come to a complete close somewhere in the image. Next scan your traced image into photoshop or which ever program you prefer and save it as a tiff. finally, use file/place in Adobe illustrator to bring the tiff file in. You need to use Illustrator as it is a Vector based program. Select your art work and click live trace and play with the various parameters to get the look you want. There is so much more I can detail about Illustrator but I'll leave that up to you, as there are 5 different ways of doing the same thing in that program and it's a matter of preference once you use one. Hope that helps.

Answer 3

I am a colorist and I use Photoshop. Most people in the comicbook industry use Photoshop as well. I have tried CorelDraw, but didn't like it. Just recently discovered ZBrush, but I think it is quite advanced and more for 3D illustration than 2D. Can't wait to learn to use it though! Photoshop is expensive, so be prepared! Good luck!

Answer 4

Adobe photoshop cs2,or z brush.
www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/index.html

Answer 5

Open Canvas (Portal Graphics = http://www.portalgraphics.net/en/)

Photoshop (Adobe = http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/)

Painter (Corel =
http://apps.corel.com/painterix/home/index.html)

Answer 6

I use Twistedbrush by Pixarra.

Answer 7

photoshop