Best art program for a beginner?

Curious how many people use, say Blender, to draw 3D characters and animate them. Then, use tools to render animation frames to 2D sprite sheets. Blender lets you control camera angle making it easy to produce different perspective based 2d art.

Drawing the art is likely just as if not more time consuming but once its done in Blender you can change the sprite sheets a lot easier then redrawing 2d sprite sheets.

Also, I like Inkscape.

I'm also use Inkscape and Adobe Illustrator to make vector graphics. But I will use Adobe Flash to make my game arts.

I tried inkscape and GIMP and ended up going back to adobe, I use Illustrator for most of my game art as I prefer vector work and I really don't like pixel art at all. Vector work scales much better so I can re-use the same art much faster in different platform ports of my games.

Inkscape and GIMP just didn't have all the options I wanted compared to Illustrator CC and Photoshop CC... but they also aren't free. Out of all the free options I tried, GIMP and InkScape were the best, GIMP is more raster art like photoshop, InkScape is more vector like Illustrator.

For a begineer, I recommend INKSCAPE.. Its awesome and easy to learn.. Find more art on youtube using inkscape.. <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

[quote:3i8wgt20]Curious how many people use, say Blender, to draw 3D characters and animate them. Then, use tools to render animation frames to 2D sprite sheets. Blender lets you control camera angle making it easy to produce different perspective based 2d art.

Drawing the art is likely just as if not more time consuming but once its done in Blender you can change the sprite sheets a lot easier then redrawing 2d sprite sheets.

Also, I like Inkscape.

I use a program called DAZ Studio(Free) for just that purpose. Much easier than trying to copy a wooden doll to get those postures. Its a good technique for complex animations

Also note that the title is art programs for beginners. I learned digital art using Paint.NET and can attest to its versatility. The nice thing about it as opposed to GIMP is that the GUI, (Personally) is more clean and utilitarian. Once you get to the point that you are playing with the image altering settings you will find that Paint.NET will have a large selections of plug-in's for you to play with.

One thing you may find is that drawing with the mouse leaves a lot to be desired. I use a Bamboo Drawing tablet that you can pick up for 60USD for a middle of the road one and it allows you to sketch more naturally.

A lot of people are suggesting vector image software such as IncScape and Illustrator(you can find CS2 Free form Adobe) but I dont think that they are good beginner drawing software. When I first started a few years back I tried vector graphics but had a hard time getting the how to to click. With IncScape which I use extensively now after a few years of experience. you do not sketch, which was the part that bothered me. You dont even really draw as you are just setting up vertacies and vectors to create shapes and using the program to make the basics do various things. But you of course are welcome to try and you may find it easier than I did.

Depending on your style your pipe line will use many programs. I use a hybrid of 2d and 3d products in my art and once you pick up the basics those will most of the time carry to smiler products. Except for Blender I have not tried it in three years but with a GUI that was difficult to work and a hot key / general controls hard to memorize. I would stay far far away.

I use a slew of different programs, depending on what I'm going for.

Blender 3D I use for a lot of quickly blocking things out. Being able to move around a 3D scene to see how something looks is great.

• I can also use it, by importing cut up PNGs, to create animations

Inkscape is my illustration software of choice. It's great. I've used Illustrator, but it's not really worth the $$ to be honest.

I only use Gimp sometimes. It's powerful, but feels weird, especially coming from Photoshopland.

And .. I use Krita. http://krita.org It's a paint program , but you can do a lot with it such as tiled painting. IT's great for environments and textures and such.

I use free tools like gimp, paint .net, and inkscape.

Mostly i use inkscape a lot, because i like vector base art its easily customable for my work.

I like PIXLR.com - it works like an older version of Photoshop, but it's a webpage : any connected computer becomes a workstation (for basic stuff.)

Gimp is pretty good but if your really dedicated i would personally suggest photoshop or illustrator. They are expensive but in my experience as digital artist and amateur game developer worth every penny.

GIMP (take the time to learn it, it's totally worth it)

Paint.NET

Inkscape

Paint.NET should be used for basic stuff, GIMP for your real editing, and Inkscape for quick character design.

Just started using xara photo/designer 9 which I am finding easier to use than inkscape.

also wanted to add serif do some nice art programs (but with some annoying "sales" phone calls) and also have a look at artrage

I used gimp for a few years, then got SAI

I guess it could depend on what you want to do with it but, Adobe Fireworks is sill my graphics software of choice.

I liked both ToonBoom Studio and Anime Studio 10 but bought AS10 because of the cheaper price.

I use GIMP and Inkscape, though GIMP not as much; one of Inkscape's strengths is that you can make multi colored fonts with it by putting text through filters, then exporting a bitmap.