designer4play » a blog for art directors and kinky types

So I’ve been meaning to introduce you to a new favorite program of mine. Designing is one thing – drawing is an entirely different experience and one I wholly recommend. It’s good for the soul. It’s a nice break from font choices and pantone swatches. It’s something every designer should make an effort at. Employers usually recognize that a designer who’s an artist has a large edge over someone that just knows how to kern text properly.

I usually paint in Photoshop. I like the ability to create custom brushes and the tools are familiar. But when I just want to draw – whether storyboards or sketch ideas or just to make a fun mess – Photoshop just doesn’t seem to cut it sometimes.

Enter: Artrage by Ambient Design.

I found this program when it entered version 2.5 and was really impressed with how it was made to work with a tablet – the interface was unique and yet immediately intuitive. It was made to get out of your way and just let you create. You don’t need keyboard shortcuts or long menus to change the most important parts of your painting – everything is immediately available right when you need it.

They’ve now released version 3.0 – and many are saying that it has finally entered the digital painting race with the ‘big’ guys: Photoshop and Painter. The odd thing is – it costs a fraction of what those programs cost.

In a day where software is barely affordable to mere mortals – Artrage can be bought for $20. The pro version is only $80. And if it sounds like I’m a commercial for them I am. An unpaid one of course – but I really love good products with humble prices and I think they deserve as many users as possible. Not to mention – the program is a pure joy to use (and abuse.)

So – how is it different from Photoshop?

Many, many ways. The first major difference you’ll notice is the interface. It’s made for you to create. With a single right-click everything disappears and leaves you with an empty canvas. Otherwise you have sliders that allow you to dial in colors, opacity, rotating canvas etc. intuitively with your pen.

Below is how I have it set up on my Toshiba Satellite in Tablet mode.

The second thing is how paints work – they work like natural media – they have texture and two colors next to each other will blend and merge in ways that Photoshop can only dream of. Below is an example of orange, yellow and white oils mixed together with various levels of dryness and thinner.

Version 3.0 just added water colors and I must say – they are beautiful for the grungy looks I like to get. Below is an example of chalks (orange) mixed with water colors in orange and yellow.

Stencils can be made from any black and white image – and allow for an incredible range of ideas – from adding textures, scratches etc. to… well… stencil art.

I love the way it handles things all artists need like reference images – just import them in and position them where you want them. Hide them – bring them back – reposition. It’s a fantastic way to work.

One of the greatest things about Artrage is how customizable you can make it. You can have preset brushes you’ve made so that the program becomes truly yours.

Version 3.0 adds a brush called ‘sticker spray’ which sounds a bit childish – and it definitely can be. But there’s huge potential for it. It’s essentially like a pattern brush in Illustrator. It will repeat an image – or even more powerfully – a series of images – randomly across your canvas. This allows for some really complex brushes – like alternating numbers such as below

It also does full color images – but I’m not to into that. I’m more excited by how it can add texture and dimensional patterns to my work.

A few people on Ambient Design’s forum were discussing how to convert Photoshop brushes into sticker brushes in Artrage. It was a bit of a process but doable and very exciting. Then they announced an small update to Artrage that imported the Photoshop abr files directly.

The update also allows pods and interface items to be hidden (something myself and a few other members were creating interesting work arounds for).

This tells me this company is listening – it’s actively improving and making this program even better for artists who just want to have fun creating. And I’ll do all I can to support companies and people like that. So give it a try – I think you’ll have some fun making messes (and even art!) again.

A demo for mac or PC can be downloaded here: http://www.artrage.com/artragedemo.html

// jayse