MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
My daughter is pretty handy with a pencil, pretty good with Paint. She'd now be better off using something better on the PCs. I was about to introduce her to CorelDraw, but she might be better off just digging in to whatever the industry is using today. So, what should she go for?
[i]whatever the industry is using today[/i]
A Mac + Adobe stuff?
I'd say go with Adobe Elements it's about £50. Then if she keeps it up, starting looking at the full Photoshop version, but it isn't cheap 😉
If you don't want to go as spendy as photoshop/creative suite. I've herad good thinmgs about The Gimp, depends if you want the conversation about what a gimp is ...
Maybe, some decent cash could be spent on a Wacom tablet? CorelDraw will probably do 99% of the stuff in a similar way to the Adobe equivalent (Illustrator). Its learning the principles and practising them that are the important bits.
Paintshop Pro has an animated GIF generator which could be useful for simple cartoons.
There is a free vector drawing package on the web (i.e. equivalent of adobe illustrator or Corel Draw) - it is called [url= http://www.inkscape.org/ ]Inkscape[/url]. There are some great [url= http://www.flickr.com/groups/547272@N22/ ]examples[/url] on flickr.
I find vector drawing programs the best for creating art from scratch. Photoshop and other raster (like GIMP - which is free and can be set up to look like photoshop) packages are better for photo editing but are not great for making nice art from scratch - all IMHO of course!
+1 for GIMP
+1 for Inkscape (for vector graphics, etc)
Check out the free options to save the budget if you don't know exactly what you need/want.
Inkscape instead of Illustrator
GIMP instead of Photoshop.
Depending on how advanced you want to get, check out Blender
http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/
If you want to paint or draw on a computer, photoshop is completely the wrong tool, as is gimp, as is blender.
Gimp is a nice tool for photo editing (as is photoshop). Blender is an okay, tool for 3d modelling, although it has a terrible interface, and I wouldn't wish it on my children.
If you want her to learn vector illustration, then corel draw will do the job if you have it (it isn't that hard to move from Corel Draw to Adobe Illustrator.) Again it isn't painting on a computer, but it is at least a way of creating nice images on a computer. Inkscape is okay if a little buggy, and not as good as Corel Draw.
Although if she wants to do painting like stuff on a computer, something like ArtRage http://www.artrage.com/ is really fun. There are fancy expensive things that are similar although harder to use (and more complex) like Corel Painter (which is probably the standard for this type of program, but v-expensive). They make most sense with a graphics tablet (you need one that is pressure sensitive). Some graphics tablets even come with ArtRage nowadays, and they aren't very expensive.
Doing painting on a computer is great fun. It has loads of advantages over traditional painting, whilst achieving the same look in the end result. The real advantages I find over paper are:
a)You can undo easily.
b)You can do multiple layers, so you can paint bits of the picture at a time.
c)You can save and print multiple copies easily, and upload them so friends can see them / get them put into photobooks etc.
d)You have access to an infinite number of colours (well around 4 billion)
e)You have access to masses of different painting tools.
f)You can choose to erase stuff very cleanly (although you can use a simulated rubbing out type tool).
g)You can zoom in to do details
I've just recently done a kids book using a digital painting tool (I actually used mypaint, which is free, but fiddly to use - I'd recommend ArtRage over it if you have the money going spare - it is pretty cheap after all), and I reckon it took us about 1/4 of the time it'd take us to do the same thing by hand, with a way better looking end result, it looks like someone vaguely good at painting has painted the pictures, you can't see any of the points where I slipped and had to undo, whereas usually our books are a lot more rustic looking (plus this time we can print off two copies rather than just making the one).
Joe
Xara
Oh yeah, one thing I also forgot, if she likes doing comics, comiclife is the software for that. Worth the money, there is nothing similar for free, and my comic making friend assures me it is very good.
Joe
Thanks all, I think I'll get her going with Corel, I have an old version of the suite sitting around which came bundled with a scanner or something a while back. If she takes to that well enough she can choose what to move on to. Will get her on to the demo of comiclife too, and she can spend some crimbo money on the ful version if she likes. I can teach her AutoCad and 3ds if she wants to go that way with it, but I'm out of touch completely with the DTP/graphics/imaging end of stuff. Now if only I can get her to back her stuff up regularly, and not keep her homework only on a memory stick.
Now if only I can get her to back her stuff up regularly, and not keep her homework only on a memory stick.
Set her up with a dropbox account. Free and sorted!