Want to get into art-making.

Hi, I've been looking at solme of those amazing art works posted in this forum and I kinda want to try to make some my own. I can draw some nice sketches with my pencil and paper, and I do consider myself having some skills. So what do I need for this? Does it require a tablet, or is it doable with only the mouse? And what programs do you guys recommend? Tnx in advance.

I use Photoshop CS3, and my tablet; Wacom Intuos 3, a big version. I like my tablets big. :P

You can also just continue working on traditional methods. Then you don't really need anything but a proper scanner. Maybe a program to edit the image a little, but you can use free stuff like GIMP for that.

BTW is anyone painting with a mouse? (maybe at super high resolution)
I just tried the first time using photoshop and it was kind of hard to paint anything...
on the other side i have no artistic skills ;P

up until last year, I did. :P
That's why most of my old drawings are very much magic wand+paintbucket+burn+dodge
>.>''

paintbucket xD photobucket is the image hoster.

Painting with a mouse is hard, but doable. I can't imagine the wrist strain though.

Yaaay, a budding artist!

There are two main ways to do this: you can do it the old-fashioned way (paper and pencil) and scan it, or you can draw it on the computer.

If you're going traditional, you can do everything on paper if you want, though I know from personal experience that some coloring methods (namely colored pencils) suffer greatly going through a scanner. Just remember to make everything dark enough and solid enough (no graininess), and it should come out all right.

If you're going digital, you have a few options. You can sketch it on paper first, scan, and polish (I believe this is how Makani operates) or you can draw it entirely on the computer. For programs, I personally use the freebie "Essentials" version of Corel Painter that came with my tablet, and it works great, but I know a lot of people like Photoshop (I've done a thing or two in Elements but don't have a lot of experience). There's also Adobe Illustrator, which is vector graphics and which my mom keeps pushing me to use, but I don't like it much (it keeps smoothing out my lines! anyone know how to disable that?). About a tablet - tablets are preferable if you're going to be drawing on the computer, because they let you simulate drawing normally as opposed to fighting a mouse; I use an Intuos3. However, I did know one person who produced truly spectacular drawings with a mouse. She (he?) was back on KFM and I can't quite remember the name; I'd have to look it up. So it is possible, but know that it'll be quite hard.

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