At the Beach - An ArtRage Expiriment Page 2

On Tuesday, I shared a the first page of the beach paper doll in color.  I decided to round out this week with the second page because I want to focus on an Easter set next week.

After finishing both pages in ArtRage, I've got a few pros and cons about the program.  First, it's super easy to just pick up and use.  The tools are all pretty intuitive and self-explanatory, especially the fact that it's gesture based.  I can interact with my computer screen the way I use my smart phone.  Secondly, I love the way the program mimics natural media.  I used the felt tipped pen for most of the base coloring. It was fun smearing marker and blending layers of markers! I also liked that there were a lot of functional features, such as selection tools and blending modes.

Right-click to download and print

Now on to the cons.  There aren't a lot, really.  Importing patterns and textures is a little more cumbersome than in Photoshop but totally possible.  I had some problems with palm rejection but I'm not sure if it was the program or my computer so I really don't want to blame the program.  ArtRage 4 doesn't have the ability to add type, but ArtRage 5 does so I can't really complain about that either.

ArtRage 4 DOES have a type tool, as the awesome folks over there were kind enough to tell me!
 
 The biggest gripe I have is my own fault. I used the metallic paint option and forgot to turn it off. I ended up losing about an hour of work and having to do it over, partly because I didn't notice it was still metallic. And the reason I didn't notice is because it really only showed up as metallic when I exported the file.  ArtRage doesn't render metallic media well and that might - again - be the version I'm using.

Overall, I recommend ArtRage as a natural media program.  It's inexpensive and it's fun (and no, no one paid me to say that! I just personally love the program).

I'll probably play around with it more.  If you also test it out, let me know - I'd love to see it!

At the Beach - an ArtRage Expiriment

So the bad news is, there isn't a Josephine today.

The good news is, there's something different.

Much as I love the Josephine series, I wanted a brief break.  I've been thinking about ArtRage lately - they just released a new version - and I've been thinking about upgrading.  Thing is, I don't use it much so I can't really justify upgrading.

And I thought, why not use ArtRage 4 and see where things go.

Right-click to download and print

This is the beach paper doll from ages ago! I didn't realize it had been almost exactly a year since I posted the outlines of this set. It seemed like a good set to experiment with because I already had the line art and it wasn't a huge set.  That proved very helpful because this one sheet took me the better part of three days to color.  I'm terrible at estimated the time I spent, but if I'd say it was between 6 and 8 hours for this sheet.  And there's a second sheet for this doll, coming as soon as it's finished . (Don't hold your breath for the rest of the beach kiddos.  It might happen. It might not.)

Briefly, I used the felt maker tool in ArtRage for most of this with the pencil tool, too. The metallic paint option is awesome and I used that for the belt buckle and a few other things.  The background and bases are images that I combined & blended in ArtRage using blending modes - which have slightly different result than in Photoshop.  ArtRage 4 doesn't have a type option so I added the title in Photoshop.  The export-to-Photoshop option is fantastic and proved very handy!

The outlines and tabs were Photoshop, as well as the text.  Aside from that, everything else was ArtRage 4.  It really simulates natural media.  There are strokes and brush marks and everything! Lots of fun and I highly recommend it.  Maybe I'll color more black & white sets this way.....

(And I haven't given up on Josephine. I promise!!)