How does AP compare with Clip Studio Paint and Corel Painter and other painting software

[Artvid]

On 12/6/2020 at 1:52 AM, SrPx said:

IMO, illustration can be vectorial or raster based

SrPx, yes, both vector as pixels, but for me, that's not really the point. I use 'illustration' in the meaning of illustrating something as if I illustrate literature, a book front cover or a magazine front cover. With some few exceptions, I never accept commissions. My artwork doesn't illustrate anything, and even as it's semi-figurative, it's colours, lines and planes that interest me. The result is that I work abstract, and the painting doesn't illustrate anything (that's up to the viewer).

[Artvid]

On 12/6/2020 at 1:52 AM, SrPx said:

EDIT and PD : Anyway... I'd strongly recommend to export the RGB file from CSP, Rebelle or whatever your painting tool is... import it in Photo, and do the (+edits, if needed) export to a CMYK file, be it as PDF (many print companies will require a PDF/X-4 in Adobe RGB color profile, some even as a sRGB file (don't ask me why.....)) or etc, from Photo. As CSP has several lacks, not only in this matter, specially when preparing your final file.

@SrPx, not sure what you mean with PD or CSP?
CMYK, never use that. Never use black, as pigments (when I painted on canvas, or digital). Using the palette and mix (as I did when working with acrylic) black from only red, blue and yellow.

To be an artist is for me never about technique, it's like musicians say, all about if you have found your own 'voice'. If a visual artist doesn't have her or his own 'voice', is s/he a true artist? That's the only definition of an artist in my world?

Have been a selected artist with my art projects, by among others UNESCOs head office in Paris, but I refuse totally to work with the so-called star-curators and galleries. Now I work with musicians and consider myself as a 'visual musician' (-:
Search 'Arnvid Aakre' on youtube, and you can see a tiny bit of how I work with musicians.

Thank you for your long reply, sorry to come back so late, but I had a deadline with some musicians in LA.

Below is an example with sketches for Chinatown Bluesband's last album, here performing the Stones cover 'Mothers Little Helper' with a very simple setup.

[Artvid]

On 11/12/2019 at 3:13 PM, lian00 said:

Hello, I’m not a industry pro and I bought CSP and Affinity Photo. I usually color scanned drawings (ink or pencil) and I work in A3 "big" size (I am a comics artist and a page can be 50 cm big) . With my old gamer PC 8Go Ram, Affinity has big problems to manage such a size in 300dpi.

@lian00 - strange. Are you able to give me the size of your work 'A3' with 300dpi?
I said 'strange' as I have worked with images (all 300dpi), in size up to 50'612 x 4'223 pixels. Haven't done larger, but even this size Affinity Photo took without any problems (-:

[SrPx]

4 hours ago, Artvid said:

@SrPx, not sure what you mean with PD or CSP?

Sorry, my bad. I got used to certain acronyms that are very common in graphics related software. PD --> Public Domain (work without copyright,  that can be used by  the general public without a license, accepted as such in a number of countries).  PS --> Photoshop. CSP --> Clip Studio Paint (a software for comics creation and illustration, but not as capable in image editing as Affinity Photo).

4 hours ago, Artvid said:

CMYK, never use that. Never use black, as pigments (when I painted on canvas, or digital). Using the palette and mix (as I did when working with acrylic) black from only red, blue and yellow.

Well, CMYK is a standard for printing (if your target is screens, TV, or the web, it would be even more clearly worse to work in CMYK than in RGB) , my point was/is that currently is in many cases better to work in RGB mode and make the final export as CMYK, but only if required; many times is fine to deliver in RGB, as a PDF/X-4 or the like (IE, Amazon KDP won't accept files in CMYK, only RGB, specifically Adobe RGB, indeed, not even sRGB, but that's only an example).

4 hours ago, Artvid said:

To be an artist is for me never about technique, it's like musicians say, all about if you have found your own 'voice'. If a visual artist doesn't have her or his own 'voice', is s/he a true artist? That's the only definition of an artist in my world?

Well... I've heard that before. I know what you mean, but I can't agree with all what it implies.... or, maybe is not the case, but with what often people ends up attaching to that concept. I agree, an artist must have a "voice" (his "voice" can be even in gray scale, not even using color... so, a palette can define your voice, but is not what necessarily defines an artist (quoting myself)). Why having developed your own technique is an obstacle to that? Technique has never been an impediment to have your voice. We would say then that Velazquez, Vermeer, Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt or any of the impressionists and even a number of expressionists of the 20th century weren't artists, or that they did not have their own voice.... and that would be.... were to start.... untrue and wrong, let's say at least. Caspar David Friedrich had an incredibly powerful voice in every painting, every brush stroke, yet his technique was detailed and accurate (quite realist), but what he was able to transmit (not everyone is able to perceive it, though) was very intense. Delacroix, in another sense, too... Technique has played a very big role in their expression. One could almost say Cezanne was a precursor of many new tendencies (to me, him and Goya are big influences in figurative Expresionism of the first years of the 20th century, like Turner is also a "father" of impressionism (Velazquez, too, in a way...)) so key in the 20th century, yet he asked Pissarro to teach him academic drawing and painting (he was humble to admit he would improve his expression). In a way, even Cubism, which is essential in modern art as it the first tendency to more definitely start cutting ties with realism, follows a technique, a procedure, a method, heavily studied and planned and built by Picasso and Georges Braque, following first certain geometric rules (indeed, at start they don't even worry about color!).  Something more that comes to mind... the impressionists were called so by an art critic (went to a Monet's exhibition) who wanted to make fun of them (as in, those were not paintings, were just "impressions"). Yet that style and techniques became a revolution, as they were not using the academic rules of realism. Yet still,  Impressionism is strongly based on technique, indeed, in several techniques (pointillism is quite a technique, and it branches from there). That's not to say that art not based on a method is not art or not expression, or that it can't communicate. Art is expression, and that covers many takes at it. It is a similar error, of the same nature, in my opinion, to state that technique is an obstacle or an enemy of art expression. Also, recognition (for me) is not necessarily a solid criteria to define art either, better said, to establish what is art or better art.... as there are many contemporary factors (society of the moment, investors, technology, etc) to that, which often are not related to actual art concepts.

You are probably (I have my reservations, though) right, in an strict way, about your distinction between, let's call it fully independent art and certain type of commission work (yes, replacing illustration with that, I'll explain below), but mostly when it is extreme, IE, when the artist can't put ANYTHING of his/her own... (this happened to me at game companies, but not in the role of concept artist, in which I had more freedom). After all, illustration has been often related with some sort of "work for hire" (ehm, painting  -and every form of art, since the Egyptians, Greek, Rome...-  has been so too, though... in every way and sense, so even this reasoning to try to agree with you partially has a main flaw). I still... think that (illustration...even graphic design! The Bauhaus tried to kill that aspect of it with their function first and function over form; IMO, time has told us it didn't) is absolutely, completely, Art, yet. Every painter in the Renaissance would have one or several patrons (The House of Medici comes to mind...because, yes, a banker can have good artistic criteria). Some aristocrat, king, governor, bishop, etc.  Indeed, we OWN a ton of great master pieces to them. We own them almost everything, in art. And the artistic value of those master pieces is out of debate. Art has been often (although not always or not exclusively) a service to the community, or a reaction to it, but rarely unconnected or fully independent.... even since the cave men times.

To summarize it, that technique(/s) which for some of us use, is a brick more (but a very important one) of our master piece, and that the other element, working for someone else's project, it neither stops us to express our own voice (when that happens is typically another factor involved, whether there was technique or a patron involved or not). People finding for example that a realistic picture is "soulless" are often not digging the subtle details and how much of own expression is in that work. But in my opinion, that is their loss.

I'm trying, but I can't agree in considering illustration (or any art expression funded by some sort of patron) as non artistic.  An illustrator will be able to leave her/his expression and influence in so many ways. Literally, every monument, every sculpture, almost every painting in history has gone that road.... And it is still being done so in many artistic disciplines. Even more, you could illustrate your own book, using techniques as well more related to illustration than painting. So the specialty or discipline itself would not even be the factor; patrons, and technique, are indeed in every artistic field.

 

[SrPx]

3 hours ago, Artvid said:

@lian00 - strange. Are you able to give me the size of your work 'A3' with 300dpi?
I said 'strange' as I have worked with images (all 300dpi), in size up to 50'612 x 4'223 pixels. Haven't done larger, but even this size Affinity Photo took without any problems (-:

That PC's disk could be having issues (or be too fragmented, virtual memory not well assigned, or etc), or maybe there are some "invisible" apps in the background eating a lot of performance. 

In Affinity Photo preferences, could have the graphic software engine in Affinity, instead of setting the graphic card (although unsure if that'd be of heavy influence... probably yes).

Maybe the key is in the rest of the hardware: The CPU could be really a too low one (ie, a celeron, sempron, some old intel dual core, some of those AMDs E1, etc).

A3 size is 297 x 420 mm, so, at 300 dpi, that's around 3508 x 4960 pixels. Should be handled fluidly in old PCs, my guess there's some big issues there.

Beware that some tools are slow in every machine (like some auto refinement brushes), due to they do very heavy computations. So, I'm only speaking of normal brushes and not some very specific and super complex tools.

With my old 2008 i7 860 (4c/8t, 2.8 MHz), 8gb I could still paint fluidly in Affinity Photo (in a worse version than current) on a Canvas of 12.000 pixels width (can't remember the height). A lot goes on system configuration (at least on Windows) and more rarely, Affinity Photo preferences. But also the CPU. My current machine is a world of difference vs my previous PC.

[SrPx]

Back to topic, and to summarize (my current POV) : YES, Affinity Photo, specially my last tests with latest stable A. Photo, although counting on my observation about the color picker in a specific usage, and my temporary trick to solve it, counting on that, I can finally say that it is VERY valid as a painting tool. It has indeed some powerful advantages. I don't see a problem of using it for digital painting instead of Clip Studio Paint.

[Artvid]

@SrPx

I guess you are more tech than me (-:

I use computers as I used my pencils. Never had the need for expensive brushes, mostly I used a brush with an angle on the handle close to the bristle head (also called radiator brushes) as my canvases were at least 200x160 cm. I use software the same way, even in Corel Painter (which I have used for more than ten years) I guess there is not many per cent of full options I use. I have no time to investigate tech but know enough to my artwork. Used PaintShop, but when my printer guy told me I should go for Adobe RGB, I stopped with PaintShop as it could not have Adobe RGB colour profile, only sRGB.
Tested several other programs, but remembered that I had also used Serif before, and when I found Affinity, that was exactly covering my need. So all my ten thumbs up for Affinity (-:

My relation to software is about as the same I have for my scooter - either it works, or not. As I knew Serif a bit, the hill to get into this program was not that steep. But tech apart from having all programs by Affinity, my Painter and Wacom Mobile Studio, that's not interesting for me. But I respect and applaud all who want to dive into the tech side (-:

Btw, thank you for explaining your abbreviations.

[Artvid]

@SrPx

For the difference between art and illustration, note that I wrote: "To be an artist is for me never about technique"
In other words, what I say is 'for me', not a general statement.

Illustrators are artistic or whatever, but for ME I don't care as long as I don't have to illustrate. It doesn't mean that I don't like illustrations or whatever as long as I don't have to illustrate. See my point?

When I was running a underground gallery in Oslo, Norway, I had lot's of artists - from fresh artists to international legends as lovely Christo and Jean-Claude. Sad to say that Christo also passed away earlier this year (https://christojeanneclaude.net/). All of them had their own angle towards art and their own expression - and that is how it should be in my world. 

So I appreciate other peoples work, their angles and their artworks. But I mistrust anyone who believe they know everything. The worst in the art industry is for me still the socalled star curators. If I'm allowed, can I recommend you two books you might find interesting?
First is:
CURATIONISM - HOW CURATING TOOK OVER THE ART WORLD AND EVERYTHING ELSE by David Balzer
and the second:
THE PAINTED WORD by Tom Wolfe