An Honest Review Of Corel Painter 2018, From An Artist Who Has Been Using It Since Version 8.

An honest review of Corel Painter 2018, from an artist who has been using it since version 8. 

Painter is like the most beautiful lady, filled with so many bad habits that never change. 

And I say so with all my heart.First, let me get this straight, I love Painter, I wish I could be using Painter for all my painting needs. Alas, after giving Painter a chance for so long, I realize that love is a life long journey, and it’s better to be married with someone who has a great character than just beauty, and that someone is Photoshop. 

But sometimes, for an exciting fling with ex, I go back to Painter just occasionally, hah. 

Now lets get to the good sexy points first:

PROS 

Painter has the most robust brush engine in a painting software available today. The options for adjusting it are so diverse, that it can be a little daunting to anyone who hasn’t use it before. 

Painter has the best brushes to mimic traditional media. Once you tried it, you will know it. The oils, pens and palette knives are some of the tools that I wish other software have. 

Painter can apply different colors to each bristle of the brush, hence creating that organic multi-color strokes that is very difficult, if not impossible to do in other software. 

Painter can “paint on a path”, which is super amazing. Which means you can use that oil brush and still achieve a very sleek finish even with complex shapes, while varying degrees of pressure and strokes to make it look natural. 

Take a look at some of the line work I did using Painter: 

Look at the lovely brushstrokes on their hairs, and sleek line work through out all 3 art. These are easily achievable in Painter. Their natural brushes are so good that I’ve never had to create my own brushes, they are good right out of the box. 

Painter also has a palette for mixing colors the traditional way, which is very good for people with long traditional backgrounds. 

Then Painter has “Blenders” 

If you are starting digital art, chances are you have been using traditional mediums for a while, and you know traditional mediums are not the easiest to blend totally smooth colors. 

Now if you look at her pink hair above, painter can blend exactly that smooth very easily. You can just lay down 2 blocks of solid colors, and use blender “just add water” and brush over it, until you achieve the smoothness you want. For beginners, this seem god send. For more experienced artist, you can change/use different brush tip for the blenders and achieve a more textured look. 

But what makes blenders so good is not the smoothness of it, but rather, it can change the approach you create art and speed it up. Rather than blending every element slowly, you can just lay down blocks of solid colors fast, and blend them altogether later.

So Painter has fantastic brushes and a great brush engine, plus a nifty blender right? But that’s about it. 

CONS 

Now its the cons. Prepare yourself.

Painter as a software is very clunky, glitchy, and it has been the same ever since so long. The people at Corel is either incapable of improving it, or they just doesn’t care. 

1. Using Tablet Eraser Lags 

Yes you read that right, even basic feature like switching to eraser lags. But hey, that’s the faster version. You know what’s slower, switching to eraser tool command also lags, for half a second or a second I don’t know. 

This makes rough sketching extremely annoying for me. Where I tend to draw and erase immediately, the constant switching of tools creates a constant sudden lag which is really frustrating, breaking momentum. 

2. Default eraser cannot be adjusted. 

What? Yes, you are stuck with a pressure sensitive eraser, with a soft or hard edge version. Yes, ever since forever they never change it too. In order to change it, you need to do some out of the box file editing, but that means you can’t change it while you are working, so it’s useless as well. 

Well you can adjust the eraser, but only as a “brush tool”. Which you have to select a new brush to erase, and you have to reselect your previous brush to paint again. 

Again this is very annoying for me, whereas in PS I just need to press “e” to erase and then “b” to paint again immediately with my brush cursor still in the same place on the canvas. In Painter I have to go over the canvas to select the eraser (b), erase, then select again the brush, and back to painting, which takes up tons of time. You can’t use a different shortcut like PS, because as I say, the “adjusted” eraser is considered a brush tool. 

3. The 1st time you open the brush engine, it lags, for about 3 secs 

Yes, it lags again, though only for the first time, but I don’t know why, it never change since forever. 

4. Using big brushes lags. 

Painter always claim that their current version is faster than before, but that only shows how bad it is the previous version was, and the current version is not much better. 

I often paint in large canvases in PS so that I can put in tons of details. Sometimes there are tons of layers, sometimes just a few. But in all cases I can use brushes up to 800px wide without problem, in 1000px I have to paint slower or the strokes will not catch up. I usually do that to cover large areas.

One may argue that Painter’s brushes are more sophisticated, but most brushes lags when they pass 100px, with few layers. With tons of layers? Its a nightmare. 

5. Painter’s drag zoom, zoom you to the MAX.

Sometimes, when you are trying to paint a certain area, you put one of your hand in Ctrl-Z (undo), so that you can keep immediately undo each time you didn’t get the strokes right. 

Occasionally, you didn’t press Ctrl in time and pressed the Z, so it becomes “zoom” (shortcut for both in PS and CP is same), and then you stroke your brush in zoom mode.... you zoom a little in PS, so you just zoom out back once again, but in Painter, you always zoom in to the max, 1600% zoom. So you zoom out repeatedly to get back again. 

Like wtf Painter? who zooms in 1600%?? 

6. Painter’s “Canvas” is a mystery. 

For a long while, I often wondered what the “canvas” layer is for (The bottom most layer), until now I still don’t have clue. The canvas layer cannot be edited, moved, or duplicated, so if you open up an image in Painter and would like to duplicate, or erase the background and paint underneath it, you are out of luck. 

It is unbelievable, that in 2018, you can’t drag an image and put it on another layer in another document.

The canvas is more nuisance than useful. You can’t create another layer underneath the canvas. You can’t even copy and paste the canvas. 

Ah but you can move that layer into another layer or another document through an unorthodox method, you know what? You have to go under layer tab, and choose “Lift canvas into watercolor layer” 

Then you can drag “that watercolor layer”. So essentially, you need to convert to watercolor layer and thus it duplicates the layer for you and change its blending mode to “gel”, but it cannot just duplicate that into a normal layer? Yeah, that’s Painter’s canvas. I always start my image in PS. 

7. Color Picking from another image causes it to select it, so you have to click your file again.... and IT LAGS, EVERY SINGLE TIME 

It’s no surprise that in the digital era, picking colors has become so easy, and as an artist, I often use color reference from other images. But imagine when you have to reference many colors and each time you reference there’s a lag in between, it’s like painting back and forth 2 different file, and with a lag. 

I will add on to list in the future, these cons are the only ones I can remember for now. 

(Switching brush selection and brush engine.)

(path tool)

CONCLUSION: 

It’s 2018, and Painter still doesn’t fix the most basic functions to allow Painter to be used easily. There are more issues, but these are the most basic issues that stops me from fully using Painter as my go to software. And these are issues that have persists for a very long time (forever?), instead Painter introduces gimmick features like “music brushes” and charges a whole lot for each new version of Painter. 

I use Painter only for my line/brush work for now.

Instead of improving and fixing to make Painter a fully usable wholesome painting software, Painter chooses to focus on trivial features that nobody asks for. 

Painter could beat Photoshop and become the King of painting software, but it can’t, because it never changes it’s bad habits.

Cataclysm Empress Feeva by luffie 

I think she pairs well with Kira, and Kanon, don’t you think so?

Just oh so beautiful!

- SteelJoe (Deviantart)

What do you need to start doing digital art? 

The ultimate comprehensive guide for the absolute beginners. 

Now, you’ve probably decided to venture into digital art, or digital painting to be more precise but you are a little unsure what you need to get a good start without making too many mistakes. 

I am a digital artist myself, so this guide will be very practical and based on my experience and also many other artists, not just some guide you find on a tech blog. And also, this guides assumes that you want to be serious in digital art, not some casual hobby.

Now without further ado, let’s dive in to the important parts shall we? 

EQUIPMENT

1. A laptop 

When looking for one do take note that it should have 

About 8gb ram or more 

Minimum of 1gb dedicated ram on graphics card, preferably 2gb.

Screen size about 14-15 inch is good.

You might be thinking why not a tablet? Most tablets do not have the computing power to handle large files, which you will do, when doing nice digital illustrations. The screens are too small, forcing you to zoom in and out often, disrupting workflow. And keyboard shortcuts saves a lot of time. 

Of course if you don’t mind, a desktop or workstation with large monitors of even Cintiq (tablet monitor) will be the best ideal solution. But that will add up to quite a lot of budget. And a desktop is not portable. Laptop nowadays have enough power to do some heavy digital art. The ram are what is important to work with digital art in a reliable speed, if you get anything less than that, then you might encounter some major annoyances in speed when your file size starts to get big. Besides, those specs are readily available and will last you for quite some time without needing to upgrade. 

2. A graphics tablet 

There’s not much brand available in the market of tablets, the most popular on is of course Wacom. But there is also various chinese/taiwan brand available in the market. 

My recommendation is: Wacom Intuos 

Preferably A4 size. Unsurprisingly, wacom is also the most expensive brand there is. If budget is a little tight, you can get wacom bamboo that is cheaper, with less sensitivity pressure, but you probably won’t notice it anyway. If you get smaller than A4, your wrist might get sore/tired easily after prolong hours of painting. 

The other brand are actually really usable too, but they require batteries on their pen, and I hate having to forget replacing them and having them dying on crucial moments. Of course, they are much cheaper than wacom, so there’s that. 

In my experience, a wacom intuos is very durable, and will last you a very long time. I am using an old version that is wacom intuos 3 A4 size. It has dropped on the side before, thereby having a crack, but the tablet is still functioning fine, and I haven’t replaced a nib for ever. So I think in the long run, it is a very good investment. Get a good tablet, and if you take care of it, it will probably last you many many years. 

SOFTWARE 

Now there are several popular brands in the market, and from time to time, I always found people asking which software they should use and buy. While different software cater to different needs, not all software are made equal. 

The software that you often hear are probably: 

Photoshop (PS)

Sai 

Clip Studio Paint (CSP)

Corel Painter 

Procreate and Medibang etc 

You can read my detailed review of PS and Painter here. 

But let me throw a short gist here: You want to get serious and go far in digital painting, so you want a software that is robust, reliable and provide powerful tools for professional work. 

In the end, only 3 remain: CSP , PS, and Painter. 

I won’t delve in to the rest, but simply, they don’t have enough professional features to carry you far. 

Now don’t get me wrong, anyone can create great art with whatever tools, hell some can even paint with MS Paint and Mouse. But the appropriate and powerful tool can carry your skills far than MS Paint and mouse will ever do. 

This is not a debate about good art, it’s a guide on the most useful tool for the job. So let’s move on, and I’ll give you a brief description on what each software does. 

Corel Painter: 

If you want to emulate traditional media look and artistic brushes, Painter is easily the king. Here is what painter can do (all my art): 

That oil painting look can be achieved in Painter easily, and it has much more tools like Palette Knife, Watercolors and Pen etc. 

Plus Painter can also create some very sleek line work like this: 

Painter has a “paint on a path” feature, that allows any kind of brush to produce very sleek line work. 

So, line art and Traditional look: Use Painter

Though I have to warn you, the brush control panel is extremely robust and can seem quite daunting at first. And Painter has many annoying quirks and glitches that can be annoying, which you can find out in detail in my review. 

Photoshop 

In summary Photoshop is king, you can read a detailed review here. 

If you are looking to create art like this: 

Or this (and also top banner art): 

Then PS is the answer. It has all the tools you need to do from A to Z. 

Concept art, speed painting, character design: use PS

If you want to do line art though, PS is quite bad at line stabilization, it will look like this at best: 

As you can see it’s not bad, but it can’t produce that sleek and cleanliness that Painter can. While Painter can do it in one stroke, PS needs to do it with multiple stroke and eraser. So if the lines are only used for sketching like me, then PS is fine, otherwise it’s not. 

Clip Studio Paint 

I haven’t dabbled very long in CSP to produce a complete art with it. But CSP is very geared towards those who wanted to create manga in it’s purest form. 

It has multiple options to create Manga panels, it also have plenty of options for those half-tone shadings. The brushes provided within are also catered to making manga. While CSP can also be used to make paintings, it doesn’t have features as robust as Painter or PS. CSP also has good line stabilization. There’s one thing it stands out though. CSP is cheap. So in summary: 

If you want to make comic/manga: Use Clip Studio Paint. 

CONCLUSION

“In summary, get a decent laptop, an A4 intuos tablet, and Photoshop to get started. If budget is an issue, save on software first. PS uses subscription for $20 a month, CSP standard version is only $50 (cheap!).” 

Now that you have everything ready, let’s get started on learning how to create digital art..... on another tutorial! If you found this helpful, please reblog, thanks!

Photo http://ift.tt/2tVV0zp 25, 2017 at 04:39PM

Lemon Cheese Cake by luffie 

A portrait practice on skin colors and realism, I quite like this