Free or cheap art programs that I know of

[lunarkreatures]

Hi everyone, today I bring a list of some accessible programs for lots of art related proposes. These are the ones I know of and that I have used.

Drawing and Painting

Krita

This is the main program I use, its very powerful and has almost all features photoshop has, only lacking in better text and vector tools right now. It also supports animation (frame by frame) and gmic filters which is a big library of filters, and it's completely free and opensource.

Medibang paint pro

Another free program and the other one I use the most. It's a bit similar to Paint Tool Sai but its focused on comic creation. It's also powerful but lacks on some image adjustment features.

FireAlpaca

Medibang paint pro older sibling, both programs use the same core but have some different functionality. FireAlpaca has animation features while Medibang doesn't.

Mypaint

The closest to traditional drawing, lacks lots of features like selections. Some say that this is good cause its closer to traditional media but I strongly disagree. I don't use it much but some of the brushes are nice.

Az Painter

An old program, newer versions are linux only but its still worth mentioning since the brushes are close to Paint Tool Sai's.

Alchemy

A very interesting program focused on creating chaos to help to come with concepts, it hasn't been updated in years but its still very unique. One thing worth saying is that there is no ctrl+z.

Pixel Art

Aseprite

One of the most well known pixel art programs nowadays. its price is very accessible.

Pyxel Edit

The best to make tilesets, its also really cheap.

Graphics Gale

Its now free, its an old program but its a really good option.

Jpixel

A free program, from what I used its pretty good.

IDraw3

Like there are people that to this day use character maker 1999 for pixel art, some still use this.

Animation

Pencil 2D

An easy to use and understand animation program.

Opentoonz

A more complex animation program. It has a lot of things and its a professional animation program.

Photomanipulation and adjustments

Gimp

One of the most popular free programs, I dont like the workflow for drawing and painting with it but any image editing in it is great.

3D modeling

Blender3D

One of the best 3d modeling programs out there, completely free and opensource. Blender3D is almost another OS inside your computer. It has from 3d modeling, sculpting, animation to composition and video editing. Blender 2.8 also bring A LOT of improvements on the interface, its looking great and EEVE is an amazing render engine.

Music

Sunvox

tracker A really good tracker where you are capable of creating your own sounds.

Bosca Ceiol

Piano roll If you have no idea of music theory this is the program for you, it's made to be easy to make music in it.

LMMS

Piano roll A well known replacement for FL studio. it has some quirks but has a lot to it.

Dlefmask

tracker If you like to emulate old video game sounds this is one of the best. you can choose between lots of different systems.

Famitracker

tracker A NES tracker, it was my gateway into trackers. To this day I prefer them to piano roll style programs.

Comments

[armaina]

This is a really nice list, though might I suggest a couple more to check out?

Paint dot Net
https://www.getpaint.net/
Another good candidate for basic image editing as well as simple sketching and painting tools

And Sketchbook which just went free this year
https://sketchbook.com/
It's both a mobile and desktop application and has a lot of really nice natural looking brushes

Also if you ever want to do vector work, I have a couple suggestions for that as well

Inkscape
https://inkscape.org/
Free, works for most general use and editing but the UI can still be confusing

Affinity Designer
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/
Now I don't know if you consider 50$ affordable, but it's cheaper than Illustrator at least and it's a flat license fee and is excellent for professional work.

[lunarkreatures]

Thanks for your addition, I must confess I didn't include Sketchbook cause I don't like the program at all XD just like Paint Tool Sai, Photoshop, Clip Paint Studio I could never get used to it. Seems like I forgot to put Inkscape on the list, its the only vector program I use, I don't use vectors that much tho, probably the reason I forgot to include it. Affinity design is sure cheaper than other alternatives but for someone like me who lives in Brazil 50 dollars right now is like 200 reais, still affordable but not to the same extent as pyxel edit and aseprite. But thanks again for the addition!

[armaina]

Oh lol that's fair.

and yeah vector applications are still pretty niche, most people don't need them unless they're working on something specific so it doesn't come up much.