Rizian Art

Hi guys! It's Monday, so today I'm going to write a new review about some drawing software I've been using since one year, what I'm telling you here is about my own experience, other people can have their own, but I'll show you a little review and the pros and cons for Adobe Photoshop and Paint Tool SAI.

Well, to start we must talk first about one of the most used software for Digital artwork, it has a lot of tools and uses, so you can find here everything, I really mean it, everything!! You can adjust the default brushes, add your own, use blender, manipulate light and shadows in your paintings, change colours, manipulate photos and add the little final details to your artwork. It is a very complete software, but that's the bad point in Photoshop, you need to take your time to learn to use all the options and tools available, there are so many tools that you can be a little stressed when using Photoshop for the first time.

Pros:

- Very useful and versatile for Drawing or Painting.
- You can create your own Brushes or Download some cool brushes in a lot of Websites.
- You can have every tool in the same program, you can easily do a complete piece only using Photoshop.
- On the internet you can always find a lot of tutorials of how to use this program.
- You can create your own shortcuts, and modify the default actions, so this can be really helpful and can save you a lot of time when working.
- The selection tools are more reliable in Photoshop than in other Programs.
- You can easily edit a scanned draw in Photoshop.
- It is compatible with a lot of formats like PDF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIF, and others.

Cons: 

- At the beginning is really hard to get used to all the tools, so you have to go slow and have tons of patience.
- This program is a nightmare for slow computers, it needs a lot of resources from the computer to work with it.
- Most of the people give up when trying to learn Photoshop, so they start drawing or painting in other programs.

Paint Tool SAI is for me one of the easiest and simple Drawing software I ever used, because it shows only the important tools to make a draw or a painted artwork, you can easily customize the tools with a simple Double click. The bad thing is that most of the people needs to open Photoshop to add the finishing touches to their artwork, or just to add text to the image.

Pros:

- It is really a really simple Software, so you can memorize the tools more easily than other programs.
- You can customize the available tools, create shorcuts and rename the tools, only by Double-clicking the Tool you want to change.
- It may not be compatible with a lot of formats as Photoshop is, but it has the most used formats in Digital art.
- It is a very light program, you do not need a very fast Computer or the best of the Graphic cards to work in excellent conditions.
- It has better selection tools than Photoshop.
- The Lineart layer add some cool tools for fixing little details in lines and a very interesting tool to create Vectors and modify them.
- This is a very popular software between people who draw/paint Manga or Anime style. So you can give it a try to this powerful Japanese Tool.

Cons:

- This software has no Text tool.
- You can't modify colours, light and shadows as easy as Photoshop does.
- The brushes are very limited, you can create your owns, but in "available forms" you will have a limit.
- You can find some resources for this software but not as many as Photoshop.

So, that's my opinion about these two great programs, I usually use both, because I just can't find perfection in just one. You can make your own conclusions, remember this is only my opinion. So I hope this review was useful to you, I'll be back the next Monday with a new post in the Blog! Have a nice day!

Previous Posts:

Manga Studio 5 Review
Tutorial: Draw Women Hair
12 Tips for Webcomic Beginners
Tutorial: Create Scenery/Background
How to get used to your Tablet
Improve your sketch abilities in 10 steps

Hello! I feel I have been years since I wrote a new entry on the Blog, but since we have spent the holidays back to work and make our own, hehe. How have you spent in the new year? I hope this year 2013 are the best for you and all your wishes and expectations come true. Well, because we made a small wave can get into the issue, the issue today is not a tutorial, nor any classification of characters or drawing lessons, today I come to tell you about a personal experience in the field of drawing.

"Carlos, how ~ # @ # & * you did to improve so fast in 8 months? I've been drawing since two years ago and I do not see any improvement."

This question came from more than one person personally when I uploaded the image you see above to my Deviantart, my response was simply: "I do not know, maybe I was doing what I liked to do." But beyond that simple and easy answer, the question of "why some have such a drastic change in his drawings in such a short time and others not?" And the research I could find a better answer to the question that I have made some close friends. I will tell you:

I've always wanted to do a manga, but I was not drawing very well, in fact one of the things I did is what many who want to learn how to draw manga do, I sat at the computer, open the browser, and type "course to learn how to draw manga on-line", at first I will not deny, I kept drawing Naruto, Ichigo from Bleach or some characters from my favourite series, I enjoyed it very much, and I will not deny that I was feeling like "Damn, I'm a @#~^* god". Gradually I realized that this was not going to lead me anywhere and that if I wanted to draw my own manga I should make my own characters, and in fact I set the task to do, holy @#$~* that were horrible, I look and gives me a bit of nostalgia but also some laughter, I will not deny it, but I had the motivation to someday make my own history and I did not give up, so I thought and thought through my inspiration and things I could create from my mind after taking some spare time.

When it came time to do my first story I self demanded enough, but at the end I did not like what I wrote and it was archived as a reference, however this was not the first "slip" I had, I filed approximately four stories and more than 20 characters next to them, for some it is a very small number, but for me it is something that fills me with pride. But there is something that I always key feature quite the time to talk about "how to improve" or "create a unique style" ... those are the references.




Do you have an account on Deviantart? Well, actually there are many similar sites, I have a Deviantart account because I think it is a very complete Web with a large audience and also has so many artists that have helped me in different ways to become better each day. The importance of joining a social network is that you have the capability of upload your pictures, perhaps receive criticism, get some motivation behind a simple "Like" or "Favourite", also make references to artists you admire, meet new artists and techniques that can surely improve the one you're currently using, find another good tutorial and especially to define your style through everything you've seen.

When I took some references I found on Deviantart artists gradually felt the confidence to come up with something more, so I took a pencil and began to create, when I had realized I had my first "20 Watchers" in Deviantart then 100 and so on, regardless what to draw, I always tried to do better than before I did wrong line in a drawing, now was a perfect line, but can not draw scenarios were drawn today, could not draw women, also I can do, I have even learned a thing or two about colour, but none of these things are the work of one or two nights, it's hard work and perseverance, everything is learned in time, the style of each artist develops knowledge process itself, not knowing the other process.

When I made up my mind that I must enhance my own process, my own methods, that's when everything became easier and stronger, I held a more obsessive drawing, then I could say "This is what I always do" From there it was just self growth that took me some way to where I am now standing. Everyone has a different process, many take longer than others to adjust to his style, others take less time, and not bad either case, we are all different people and have different objectives, it is more than normal for these things to happen, especially on something as subjective as it is art.

"Patience, patience, patience ... know yourself, study your processes, close the book for a second and try to accomplish things through your own understanding, is my advice."

I hope you have enjoyed this post, I also like to know your experiences on this topic, do you have any skill to improve your next picture? Guides you any special technique? Any artists to share? Come on, do not be shy! With that I say goodbye, but not before to tell you I've been very active on my Facebook page, or Twitter, so I recommend you stop by there as I will also be sharing interesting things I usually find on the network, Greetings! Happy new year!