How do I, though clueless, learn to do digital art on the cheap?

April 29, 2008 9:21 AM

How do I, though clueless, learn to do digital art on the cheap?

I'd like to learn to do digital art, especially for 2-D games (i.e. using bitmaps rather than 3D models) My key problems: I have no artistic experience, and I'm not a terrific artist (although I'd be willing to practice). Also, I am a cheapskate, and I really don't want to purchase Photoshop, although I'd buy books if they'd help. I've got a cheap little Wacom tablet that I can use. Any software I'd use would be Windows based. Cheap is good, free is better. I've tried Gimp for Windows, but I've had some technical problems getting it working right on Vista. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to software, books, articles, resources, etc?

posted by unreason to media & arts (10 comments total)

Pretty broad question, but if you want to start dabbling in photo manipulation and digital painting without shelling out the bucks for Photoshop, try the free program Paint.Net. Don't be fooled by its name, it is neither an online application nor located at paint.net.
posted by advicepig at 10:04 AM on April 29, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Check out Project DogWaffle.
View the previews for these instructional DVDs.
Rent the ones that look best to you.
Visit a few blogs and follow the links...

Good luck!
posted by dpcoffin at 10:54 AM on April 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

If you can't draw then you probably should use a 3d program rather than GIMP. It's a lot easier to use a 3d program to draw buildings, vehicles, and landscapes than to do it any other way. For this Google Sketch-up is the obvious choice.
posted by JJ86 at 11:14 AM on April 29, 2008

There are loads of paint programs freely available online known as oekaki. It tends to attract the Japan-o-philic/anime crowd but the programs themselves have developed into tools that are simplified versions of more traditional paint programs. Since you're a beginner, this may be a good option for you to pursue since you won't be overwhelmed by the million different options like photoshop will give you.

I also loooooove to use openCanvas, which I only found out about because some of my favorite (online) artists said that they were using 'oC' to create their images. I've used Paint Shop Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and a smattering of other programs pretty intensively (I user Photoshop daily at work) and I have to say that openCanvas is by far my favorite as far as painting goes. (Photoshop is far superior in terms of image manipulation.) Another advantage is that openCanvas can 'log' your brush strokes and play them back to you. You can also download other people's logs (called event files) and watch how they draw - extremely useful for learning new techniques.

The program retails for 8,000 or 6,000 yen (depending on which version you get) which is about $77.50 or $58.12 USD. A lot more affordable than Photoshop, right? :)
posted by reebear at 11:21 AM on April 29, 2008

Are you mainly going to dabble, or do you plan to do this semi-seriously over the long-term?

I ask because I've seen people in your situation choose their software tools thriftily, then proceed to use it for a period of time equivalent to tens of thousands of dollars labour if they were working, and end up with reduced results and highly skilled with a toolset that no-one uses and that will not expand to meet their emerging skill.

Basically, they screwed themselves over by being penny-wise pound-foolish - putting significant amounts of their time into it, but sabotaging that investment just to save a few bucks. You will be putting time and effort and love into this, and that is worth a LOT - do not fall into the trap of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

The take-home message is not that YOU MUST BUY PHOTOSHOP (note also that there is a cheap lite version of photoshop for the casual home user that mainly just has the commercial-printing features locked out, and those are completely irrelevant to your needs anyway), or that you must spent lots of money up front to do digital art, but just that in this instance, your thrift which is normally an asset, is instead a weaselly demon working against your sound judgement, seeking to undermine you before you even begin. So be careful - you are on risky ground here.

If there is a way to get GIMP working, it would be good because conceptually, GIMP is like photoshop, and photoshop is industry standard. This means that like photoshop, while it's good, it's not as good as some packages at creating art from scratch, since photo manipulation is the focus, but if you really are new at this, your first art software is going to mold your thinking to an extent - it's going to be your mental "native language" for a while, and having your native language the industry standard is like being a native English speaker, instead of a native Innuit speaker - it's more widely used and thus usually much more useful.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:22 AM on April 29, 2008

Just to clarify what my plans are, I plan to make some 2d games as shareware (part-time, I have a full time job doing something else). I've seen a lot of good games suffer from bad programmer art, so I'd like to learn to do this right.
posted by unreason at 11:37 AM on April 29, 2008

Photoshop is really a crappy drawing program. It wasn't designed for that use and is pretty horrid to use for drawing. Even Gimp is image manipulation software as opposed to a drawing program. Use Illustrator or free equivalents such as Inkscape for actual drawing.

I still would go the way of 3d though even if your end result is going to be 2d. You can do much more powerful things with it. Especially if your drawing skills are lacking, you can use it to make better renders of objects.
posted by JJ86 at 11:49 AM on April 29, 2008

I had considered going with 3D modeling, but I decided not to. I like the looks of drawings better than a lot of rendered art for my purposes, particularly if I want to do anything organic like a plant or a person.
posted by unreason at 12:23 PM on April 29, 2008

Photoshop is really a crappy drawing program

Check out those Gnomon videos; PShop is THE digital drawing tool of choice for a huge number of incredibly accomplished, working digital artists.

IF you can actually draw, you'll find PS (or any other bitmap graphics tool with a brush engine) far more useful and intuitive as a digital drawing tool with your tablet than a vector/bezier-based drawing tool like Illustrator will ever be. But they're both just tools. Any tool can be made to do miraculous things by the truly skillful.
posted by dpcoffin at 12:23 PM on April 29, 2008

Photoshop is a great program for drawing :) I work on 3D and 2D game assets, along with concept art, and there's no other application for the 2D stuff I'd use. Gimp is too simple, Painter is too complicated, but Photoshop is just right. If you plan on doing this long-term, even as a hobby, it's the best investment.

openCanvas is a really fun program, but I use it for some more "messy" and rough paintings. I'm not sure how well it would do with the cleaner game-ready graphics you probably have in mind.

People should stop bringing up 3D apps, though! The OP already mentioned the goals s/he has - and bringing 3D into the equation complicates it beyond belief. 3D renders != 2D shareware game. Even if the OP discovers a hidden talent in 3D, it will not allow for the making of a playable game. Not unless you tackle rigging, animation, and programming with a 3D engine as well.

With that out of the way, a quick resource for drawing/painting is deviantART's tutorial category. There are a ton of talented artists sharing their techniques, and there have been several occasions where I had a "So that's how you do it!" moment. Worth looking at, in any case.

GFXArtist just compiled 100 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Beautiful Art. I'm sure the tutorials on their own site are mentioned there too.

CGSociety is usually referred to as a 3D resource, but there are many incredible 2D works as well - and a General Techniques section where you could find further help.

On that note, I wouldn't forget about ConceptArt.org


I'll come back and post more if they come to mind. Best of luck to you!
posted by Bakuun at 12:28 PM on April 29, 2008