Comments on: Kind of like Corel Painter, but without the crashing

Kind of like Corel Painter, but without the crashing

JHarris — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:17:02 -0800

Artweaver is a freeware "natural media" paint program, of the same type as Corel Painter. Natural media means it uses tools that are intended to simulate actual art tools, like oils, pastels, pencils and so forth. It's not as feature-rich as Painter, but it's getting better.

It also leaves out Painter's most aggravating attribute: it's tendency to get hosed periodically and require a reinstall.

By: majick

majick — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:38:45 -0800

This requires Windows.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:48:26 -0800

OMG MICROSOFT-ZONE!!!

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:49:16 -0800

Looks like fun JHarris, thanks for bringing it to my attent-[BLUESCREEN]

By: teraflop

teraflop — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:52:59 -0800

Reminds me of ArtRage for Windows and OS X, posted previously. It's $25 for the full version, but even the starter edition is pretty awesome.

By: tkolar

tkolar — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:03:41 -0800

...but even the starter edition [of ArtRage] is pretty awesome. I'll second that. And there's the whole OS X thing.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:30:06 -0800

Sorry for forgetting to mention its OS, I thought about it right after I hit submit. ArtRage does look interesting. Don't know how it stacks up to Painter. In case you haven't guessed, I'm a little frustrated with Painter at the moment, and it was casting about to look for a replacement that I found Artweaver. Painter has this problem, and it's apparently survived multiple major version numbers, that's referred to by some as the "Painter Poof," where it will crash in a particularly sudden way. It dies without a message box, without an error message, without making a sound, it just suddenly destroys all its windows, discards any open files, and thus unadorned folds up and flees the mortal coil. It looks very much like the window has minimized, but it won't be found on the taskbar or in Task Manager. It's infuriating to lose work to, and because it leaves no traces of its demise a nightmare to track down the cause of. But there are rather few alternatives to Painter, outside Artweaver and ArtRage, to be found.

By: Memo

Memo — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:31:46 -0800

This kind of software requires a graphic table to be useful at all, right?

By: JHarris

JHarris — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:37:07 -0800

Memo, it can be used with a mouse, but a tablet is very useful for it since it uses pressure information for manipulating the tools.

By: Flashman

Flashman — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:45:07 -0800

I was trying to install it, but it tries to make you sign off on some sort of punk-ass 'license agreement'! Homey don't play dat.

By: Flashman

Flashman — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:46:49 -0800

Just kidding, this is pretty awesome.

By: malocchio

malocchio — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:49:46 -0800

It dies without a message box, without an error message, without making a sound, it just suddenly destroys all its windows, discards any open files, and thus unadorned folds up and flees the mortal coil. It looks very much like the window has minimized, but it won't be found on the taskbar or in Task Manager. That's almost....beautiful. I've finally found the way I want to die.

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:50:22 -0800

This kind of software requires a graphic table to be useful at all, right? Nah, only if you want to draw stuff.

By: moift

moift — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:58:48 -0800

This thing is pretty good, thanks. If your technique is anything like mine though you'll want to go to Edit > Preferences first thing and jack the undo levels waaaaay up from the default of 8.

By: version control

version control — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:02:41 -0800

Looks awesome, thanks for pointing it out! I had the super underpowered Painter Classic a couple laptops ago and really liked it, except for the part where you couldn't actually save anything.

By: jhc

jhc — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:21:31 -0800

Thirding Artrage. I haven't tried this though -- looks more complicated, which could be a plus or minus.

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:16:56 -0800

I'm still waiting for the chip that I can implant into my visual cortex that'll draw stuff for me. Because these hands, here? They're like flippers when it comes to drawing. thanks, though! I'm sure I'll have fun messing around with it and my used wacom.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:33:21 -0800

Moift, seconded on the undo levels. Only 8?! Madness. I also am not fond of how quickly-drawn strokes tend to pick up little tails, but Painter does that too.

By: jfrancis

jfrancis — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:06:11 -0800

I'm happy enough painting in Photoshop Depending on the look you can get pretty painterly results with a hard round brush and a wacom pen Artrage is nice, too.

By: Lou Stuells

Lou Stuells — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:32:12 -0800

Oh, ArtRage is so sexy. I just sent payment to download. Thanks for this!

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:24:19 -0800

Thanks for the post; it's favorited. I second the compliment on the poetry of your description of Corel's oft-repeated demise. I'm always looking for natural brushes that really... satisfy. Hell, oddly enough, I can't even seem to find a totally simple spritzing kind of spray brush that gives you the feel of splattering real paint or ink evenly off a toothbrush with your thumb, heh. I guess I'd almost be happy with a PaintShop version of lowly old MS Paint's spray can, lol, but I can't seem to find or figure out how to make one that makes me happy. Maybe one of the programs in this thread will come thru.

By: darkripper

darkripper — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:25:11 -0800

I just don't get those kind of programs. I've seen often better attempts at simulating traditional media by skilled photoshop users. Anyone interested should really start from this link.

By: Outlawyr

Outlawyr — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:19:05 -0800

I still miss Fauve Matisse. That was a great piece of drawing/painting software.