shunkawarakin asked:

Have to ask because it's a combination I don't often see (SAI/Photoshop seems to be most common), what parts of your process did you use ArtRage for vs. SAI? What is ArtRage doing for you that SAI is not? I have fiddled with ArtRage a little but don't really have a feel for where to even start.

If people will forgive me a text post, I wish to answer this one publically. By the way, the new version of ArtRage 4 is out for only $50 and it’s reducing Adobe’s stranglehold on the illustration industry, especially since it also comes complimentary with a lot of Wacom tablets.

Artrage is a bit devilish when you first open it, and its power is deceptive because you need to learn how to use the Settings menu and the menus at the top as well. My favorite option for it is with the Studio version which includes “Real Color Blending” and helps it act like real paint.

Artrage does two things SAI does not: it imitates a 3d sculpted surface and canvas texture and wetness of the canvas, so in some ways, it’s like Zbrush 4’s 2.5D app.

I love its tools and it has a LOT of nice layer blending options, high resolution, it’s fast! But I use stickers, watercolor brush, paint brush, palette knifing, glitter, markers, ink and pencil and just about all of its options.

You really need to hit up the tutorials section though, it’s very intuitive once you get used to it! http://www.artrage.com/artrage-tutorials.html I just adore it for painting.

SAI has serious stability problems, it can crash a lot with Windows 7. It’s also missing essential features. Artrage, for example, has Stencils, straight line rulers, and Circle selection features. Let’s take a common problem, making a circle. You can’t do it in SAI without making a massive brush then erasing the middle or importing a circle from another program.  In Photoshop, there’s shapes but I’ve never liked using its pen tool. I pretty much rely soly on Lasso, Eraser, and Airbrush whenever I use it.

Or another issue, drawing a straight line for backgrounds. SAI has faux vector layers and a line tool there, but then you have to constantly Rastertize. Same problem in Photoshop. It slows down workflow, it causes hiccups. Of course out of all of them, I prefer to use Flash for my solid-colored pieces. It’s my Illustrator because I never bothered to learn that one. Unfortunately, export of images out of Flash is capped at 4,000x4,000 pixels.

I just find myself using Photoshop less and less except for some certain tools like Layer Blending options, filters, Clone, and Hue/Saturation type adjustments. Photoshop CS6 can handle REALLY high resolution images at sizes that make SAI and Artrage buckle (10,000x5,000 pixels anyone?) so it still has an edge over the others in different respects.

I also like to use Zbrush4 for its drawing applications as well, and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. The copic markers, pencil, and brushes are quite nice in that one too.

They’re all toys to me, in some ways, they are the only toys I care to play with as an adult.