Corel Painter

Hah, look at that! Two posts in a day? Must be the three coffees I had already.

This is a silly rant, so there's no need to take it to seriously. I have an issue with painter. I think is a dishonest piece of software. Yes, dishonest. I have nothing at all against Corel company, but this is how it goes for me:

Digital painting is an already accepted medium in the art world/industry. So for me, using photoshop as a tool to create a digital piece is absolutely normal and, "honest", if you want. My tool is digital, and the look will be kind of digital. It might resemble something else by the way its applied, but is still digital. 

What's my beef with Painter. It "tries" to look as if an art piece was made by oil, acrylics, watercolor or other traditional media. It might be silly of me, but I don't like it. Not the artwork itself, I might love it deeply, but the idea of using a software to imitate something that you can make by hand, getting dirty and all. 

In fewer words: photoshop is a digital tool that allows you to create digital stuff, while painter is a digital tool that imitates traditional stuff digitally. The only thing that bothers me is that connection between the artwork and its origin (plus, the hot keys, menus and other little things are in completely different places, and the overwhelming GAZILLION amount of specific brushes). 

Well, at least that's how I felt when I had to face it for the first time for my digital painting class. The only moment I tried using it before, I started mixing techniques, pressing buttons, changing settings and failed miserably at any attempt of a decent drawing/painting. To tell you the truth, I FEARED painter. But it was a requirement now, and I did a bit of real oil painting the past semester so, I was a bit more confident now. I won't say it was pleasant, 'cause it wasn't. It was painful, actually. But after a while, playing around with painter things started getting nicer and nicer... Not that I have finished anything yet, but well, let's say that I don't hate it that much now. 

Here, my Painter thingies:

My very first try with digital inks and digital acrylics I think (see how the word "digital" kinda soils the word "acrylics"? Bad Painter!)

A quick second painting.

An unfinished in-class portrait painting. 

And this one is based on a picture, but since it was a bit boring I decided to add a chicken leg. Chicken legs make things better. Period. Tried to keep it loose.

I do want to better this last one though.

By the way, one of the few things that I learned with this software: Don't mix techniques. You wouldn't do it in real life, and you don't wanna do it in here. Trust me, using charcoals on top of oils will only mess things up.

Have a good one.

Cheers!