Loving the atmospheric brushstrokes here. Nice subtle movement.
Photoshop CS5. Before that I used CS2 and PS7. (Adobe has made CS2
available for download.
This thread on Adobe's forum suggests that despite the message on the download page, it is
legal to use the program without purchasing another version. I don't advocate illegal software use, so please, read the thread and see if I've interpreted this correctly.)
Honestly, in my experience software choice is not the most important thing. Photoshop has an extremely rich feature set, and that's why I use it, but a lot of the bells and whistles aren't strictly necessary for digital art. Even most of the basics aren't required. I used to think layers were everything, and then I watched
Nebezial paint masterpieces in an hour on a single layer. I used to think custom brushes were indispensable, and then I found out that
Feng Zhu uses Photoshop's default sets, lol. (But to be fair, Neb's
work does make a
strong case for custom brushes.)
I would strongly urge anyone who doesn't have Photoshop (and those who do, for that matter) to remember that drawing and painting happen in your head, not in a program. Your task is the same no matter what you use: figure out what your medium can do by trying stuff! Oh, and if you're not making loads and loads of mistakes, you're doing it wrong. Mistakes are how you learn. Just experiment, and if it doesn't work out, great! Really, that's what you want sometimes. It makes you better informed for the next painting and you will learn all sorts of wild tricks by accident.
