So I've been doing a lot of drawing lately. I've been doing a little bit just about every day. Sometimes with the boys and sometimes just by myself. I'm planning on scanning some of my drawings in and sharing the progress I've been making improving my art, but I haven't gotten around to it yet (hopefully soon!). But with all that time spent drawing with pencil and paper, I haven't been doing a lot to work on improving my digital art. Well today wifey linked me to a great tutorial for creating some super cute ninjas in Illustrator. With cute ninja's like that, I couldn't resist giving it a try.
There was just one little problem. The tutorial was for Adobe Illustrator.
You see, I made a decision a long time ago when I started writing tutorials for my site that I would force myself to always use free tools. I wanted to encourage people just starting out and when you're just starting out, it helps when the tools you use are free. So I create my own sound effects, I beg for free music from friends (thanks Nick!), I use Visual Studio Express (it's free) AND I always do all of my own work in a free digital art program. So although I own and am learning to use Illustrator, it doesn't really fit that whole "free" thing (it's like way on the other end of free, it's in the "expensive" category in fact).
And that brings us to GIMP. I decided to tackle the tutorial just using GIMP and while I love GIMP, it is free and like all free tools it sometimes lacks the features that the professional and expensive tools have. But, staying on course, I still managed to walk through the entire tutorial and produce my own cute little ninja in GIMP! (yep, that's my Ninja you see!) There were a few steps that took a little more work than using Illustrator. And I'm sure there's things I may have been able to do easier or smoother if I knew how to use GIMP a bit better (my lines always look so jagged). Overall however, I think it came out pretty good for a quick bit of work.
I'd recommend giving the tutorial a try yourself in your favorite art program. It's pretty quick and simple, but teaches you some pretty nice little tricks. Link me to the image if you feel brave enough to share. I'd love to see how it turns out!