BallpointFries

GETTING STARTED!

Tablets under $30
Huion
Ugee
www.amazon.com/Ultrathin-Graph…

DIGImend Drivers (for Linux Users and their non-Wacom graphics drawing tablets).
github.com/DIGImend/digimend-k…

Windows:
medibangpaint.com/en/
firealpaca.com/
www.gimp.org/downloads/
graphicsgale.com/us/download.h…
www.madewithmischief.com/
sketchbook.com/
krita.org/en/

MacOS:
firealpaca.com/
medibangpaint.com/en/
www.madewithmischief.com/
sketchbook.com/
krita.org/en/

Linux OS:
github.com/Symbian9/azpainter
www.gimp.org/downloads/
krita.org/en/
mypaint.org/
twilightedge.com/mac/pikopixel…
mtpaint.sourceforge.net/

Linux OS *with Wine:
graphicsgale.com/us/download.h…
FireAlpaca
MediBang Paint Pro

In Browser Pixel Art and Editing:
www.piskelapp.com/
lospec.com/pixel-editor/app

Also:
www.getpaint.net/

At the moment of writing this, I primarily use AzPainter, GIMP, myPaint, and Krita on Ubuntu OS with an XP-Pen Star G430S graphics tablet (with a DIGImend driver).

I have been using GIMP since the 90's. I have a mac mini on which I still use firealpaca, medibang paint pro, and sketchbook.

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Being an illustrator on Linux is a little tricky but more than possible. I did it and you can too! It sucks not having options or getting bricked when your computer gets too old to handle the latest windows updates.

If you're an artist with a slow dinosaur desktop or sluggish laptop (your dying computer) on hand then grab a USB flash drive, burn a Lubuntu .iso on it right away, and then install Linux!!!

A few terminal commands and downloads later you should have everything you need to draw!

Burn a linux distro onto a usb flash drive.
lubuntu.net/
Install GIMP 2.10

*Lubuntu is very lightweight and runs very fast but if you think your hardware can handle something a little bit bigger, there are two up to date Linux distros for artists with all the programs you need preloaded:

ubuntustudio.org/download
labs.fedoraproject.org/en/desi…

(Get LTS wherever or whenever available!)

Many windows programs can be installed to linux via Wine and there are great free alternatives to the rest.

Krita (for painting)
AzPainter (as an alternative to Paint Tool SAI)

At the time of writing this, AzPainter has an AppImage you can download and run right away!

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I Installed the latest FireAlpaca with Wine and it worked. (UPDATE MediBang Paint Pro also successfully installs with Wine!)

Downloaded from firealpaca.com/
Pulled up terminal
sudo apt update
...
wine (insert path to firealpaca installer .exe, it was in my /home/username/Downloads/ folder for example)
then FireAlpaca64 shows up on my desktop!! And all I do is double click and it opens!!!

More Info
www.winehq.org/
www.howtogeek.com/105271/how-t…

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KRITA (Making it run faster)

Whenever I install a program to try out I always take a look at all the settings and in Krita, it's super important because if your Internal Pool is 0 then it runs very slow!

Settings > Configure Krita > Performance...
Increase "Internal Pool" from 0 to 36MiB!!!

You can probably set it lower or higher but higher won't necessarily make it run better. It might even make it run slower so stay close to the sweet spot!

I also lowered the mount of Undo. The default amount is generous so it won't hurt you even if you make a lot of mistakes to lower it a little.

I closed all the docks I don't use.

And Krita runs a lot better now!

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Turning on Pressure Sensitivity on GIMP

Settings > Input Devices ...
Select tablet name and set Mode to "Screen"
Select brush...
Tool Options > scroll down... to Dynamics
Select any one of the following "Basic Dynamics", "Pen Generic", or "Pressure Size" and test the brush on the canvas!

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Hope this helps!