PRB
June 5th, 2009, 08:45
I’ve found an awesome tool for painting. I find I like vector based drawing tools for making all kinds of shapes that go on the plane. National insignias, non-standard lettering, especially in nose art, and most of all, curved lines and shapes with curvy edges.
Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/ (http://www.inkscape.org/)) is a free open source SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic) editor. It’s easy to use, and exports files in a variety of vector formats, which can then be imported into your texture files in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.
The cool thing about drawing with vector tools is that you don’t have to worry about getting whatever you’re drawing the right size. Just draw it, and then size it later. The other cool thing is for tracing. You can import a bitmap of a complex nose art you want to reproduce, put it on the bottom layer, and then “trace” over it using the various shape, line, fill and gradient tools. Then dump the bitmap and you have a beautiful scalable version of the nose art.
Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/ (http://www.inkscape.org/)) is a free open source SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic) editor. It’s easy to use, and exports files in a variety of vector formats, which can then be imported into your texture files in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.
The cool thing about drawing with vector tools is that you don’t have to worry about getting whatever you’re drawing the right size. Just draw it, and then size it later. The other cool thing is for tracing. You can import a bitmap of a complex nose art you want to reproduce, put it on the bottom layer, and then “trace” over it using the various shape, line, fill and gradient tools. Then dump the bitmap and you have a beautiful scalable version of the nose art.