Tools

I use a Wacom Intuos3 as my primary input device for digital drawing/painting.  The Intuos3 is a tablet that delivers top-notch pressure sensitivity and angle input.

I use MyPaint to do the sketches featured on SketchBank.  MyPaint is a fast and easy open-source graphics application for digital painters.  I like that MyPaint is free and open-source, it has a wide array of brushes and allows brush customization.  Unlike most Image editing suites MyPaint uses “Dabs” based brushes.  “Dabs” are very useful for realistic looking brush effects.  MyPaint is Linux-based, but it is available in Windows and OS-X flavors.

I use GIMP for resizing images.  GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program.  GIMP is great for image authoring and basic image editing tasks.

While working on sketches I have created a set of design tool inspired brushes for MyPaint, including a range of pencils with angle dependant shading mode, two realistic artists’ erasers, and a range of inking options.  I have hosted the brushes here.  To install brush packs, open MyPaint, right-click the brush group field(where the group names are, not where the brush icons are), and choose “Import Brushes…”  Next point the file browser at “AshDrawingTools.zip” and click Open.

Summer 2014 – New tools like an Artist’s IPS monitor and 32 gigs of RAM, are opening up new software options for Sketchbank.  Krita is now my drawing software of choice, Krita boasts a large number of brush options including dabs, vector and raster brushes.  I will also be featuring more Blender work as now I can produce high quality photorealistic renders in minutes instead of hours, with cycles based GPU rendering.  As a learn to use these new tools I will be able to produce much more work, in much less time, I plan on hopefully being able to create at least one post for Sketchbank every 2 days.