Game Development Community

Decent Free Art Tools

by Scott Manning · 09/21/2006 (11:33 pm) · 5 comments

Probably most people have seen or heard of Gimp on these forums, but not GimpShop. GimpShop is a refactoring of the mostly the gui and other parts of Gimp where the menus and general usability looks and feels like Adobe Photoshop, making it easier to transfer from Photoshop over to Gimp.

For something free it doesn't look that bad. Plus its on multiple platforms.

Wikipedia link with more Info, and links to site:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop

Heres a pic:

img162.imageshack.us/img162/2937/gimpshopwindows2ta1.th.jpg

And there's also Paint.net, a MS Paint replacement/clone, though it requires you to install .Net 2.0 if you haven't yet.

Wikipedia info link:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.net

Pic:

img69.imageshack.us/img69/7427/pdn26seattlefp2.th.jpg

#1
09/22/2006 (7:50 am)
Awesome, I've always loved open-source software, and have used the gimp, blender, openoffice and inkscape for a long time. I have always wondered why the gimp didn't have a 'photoshop' mode. And now it apparently does! This will help convert many unbelievers, awesome!

Thanx
#2
09/22/2006 (9:15 am)
Also check out Artweaver. Its a nice freeware art tool that is basically a cross between Corel Painter and PhotoShop. If you are used to using PhotoShop you'll be right at home using it. I still prefer PhotoShop but Artweaver is a very powerful free art tool.
#3
09/22/2006 (10:03 am)
I've been teaching with Paint.net lately, but Artweaver looks very promising.
#4
09/22/2006 (12:33 pm)
Here is a screen shot of the Artweaver UI for anyone thats curious. It has a lot of nice features, a lot of the options are in the same menu layout as photoshop, it has a nice clone tool, layers, layer blend modes, masks, and even has natural media art tools like Corel Painter. (Pastels, oil paints etc.) Also drawing tablet support worked well with my Wacom tablet. Over all its the best free photo tool Ive used to date.

www.darkindustries.com/gg/artweaver.jpg
#5
09/22/2006 (1:56 pm)
For animation I've been wanting to make some time to check out Plastic Animation Paper