Best Free Paint Program

A paint software application supposed to mimics traditional painting mediums and effects more than just a bitmap drawing program like Microsoft Paint. My only two requirements are a graphic tablet support and the feel of natural paint on a digital canvas. All artists at one time or another dream of doing a comic book and cartoon animation, so if it supports animation or booklet pages, it's a plus. WOW, these free paint programs are truly a fantastic work of art, anyone of these will definitely satisfy the graving artist in you. List in favorite order:

Project DogWaffle is surprisingly full featured. It has a comprehensive set of tools, including fully customizable brushes, lots of filters and effects, multiple color selection options, a good set of color gradients, animation aids and more. On the downside the program runs slowly on older PCs, has limited layer support, has a clunky cut and paste mechanism and only handles BMP and Targa files. Don't let its appearance or unfamiliar menu control fool you, this is a great total artistic program to get.

ArtRage is an amazing natural paint program that allows users to achieve realistic paint effects without the messy cleanup. The user interface is wonderfully design and simple to use tool that will suit young adult through to experienced artist, even in its limited version its an amazing program and if you do grow out of its limitations you will at least have built a firm affordable foundation from which to move on. Bottom line is that you can concentrate on your creativity, rather than wrestle with menus.

TwistedBrush has one of the most versatile and powerful brush engines in existence, yet it was designed from day one to be easy to use. “Simplicity without sacrifice, powerful enough for the professional artist yet simple enough for the novice” as noted on their web site, the quick start guide is a nice intro to the programs abilities. TwistedBrush runs on all versions of the Windows operating system and is designed for all realms of digital art including natural media fine art even with its limited feature, it's program worth looking into.

Pixia is the English version of a popular Japanese painting and retouch software for full color graphics. It supports mask, layer and many other editing functions. You can use your own customized brush tips and even use an image file as a brush tip to create unique effects. With the new engine the paint feel smooth like ArtRage, lots of free plug-ins, and filter downloads makes this program to be quite unique and different from other tools and make this a well worth pickup for painting photographs.

MyPaint is a fast and easy graphics application for digital painters. It lets you focus on the art instead of the program. It comes with a large brush collection including charcoal and ink to emulate natural painting. If you want to look deeper, MyPaint is built around a highly configurable brush engine. This allows you to experiment with your own brushes and with not-quite-natural painting.

Artweaver offers you all the artistic effects which you need for your creative painting. You can create sketches from photos and experiment with a wide range of natural brushes. The brush simulation is as realistic as possible therefore it's suitable to leave your creativity free to run. Artweaver has countless file formats; transparency and layers; many effect filters; editable text layers (font, size, color, leading); history function. Available in English and German language, it can easily be translated through the support of language files.

Best Free Digital Editor
 

Quick Selection Guide

Project DogWaffle 1.2 Free Edition       realistic paint effects and frame-based animation tool   support for only Targa/BMP file formats, lacking only the advanced layer and scripting tools, unappealing interface   http://www.dogwaffle.info/   http://www.dogwaffle.info/dogwaffle/free/Dogwaffle_Install_1_2_free.exe   4.3 MB    1.2    Restricted Freeware (full commercial version available)    Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP   released in 2004, a subset of the PD2-would like to see a more recent free version, the commercial version is now at 4.