Hello everyone. I’d like to begin by extending a thank you to the wonderful developers and other volunteers that make Mypaint a great program. I’ve been using it for about 2 years now, as an introductory program for digital art. Honestly, I think it’s one of the best programs out there in terms of ease of use and actually getting things done without messing around with 100s of shortcuts, and the UI is very well organized and minimal.
With that said, I find it saddening that the program isn’t used all that much by more visible art creators (most youtube videos, etc, focus on Krita, Clip Studio Paint, or Photoshop). Hopefully I can do my part to help the community grow when resources allow, and we can all see this become a viable option for those working professionally.
Finally, the one thing I’ve always had trouble with is the brush engine. Try as I might I cannot create brushes that simulate oil painting. I’ve used Tone’s brush pack, but they do not seem to scale up well for some reason. My standard workspace is set to A4 size (2480 x 3508). If some kind soul could create some oil painting brushes and post them it would be greatly appreciated!
For an idea of the style I am looking for, watch this speedpaint created in Paintstorm Studio.
Here is a screenshot of the style of brush I am looking for:
I agree. I have been using it for a couple of months and it’s really great and stable. I think it’s not more widely used only because it’s missing some essential features like selections, lasso tool; scale, rotate, move, resize, flip ops; psd file support and to fix a couple of bugs. I wish I could contribute to the development but I have no experience with Python and GTK+.
Thanks for the reply and video. Unfortunately I will have to wait until that scaling feature is integrated into a stable release, as I am on Linux and use only what is available in the stable releases to avoid any problems with my system. Very helpful though!
In regards to your ideas about why MP isn’t more widely used, I agree. Although I think that for small scale projects that isn’t an issue. People are just used to depending on programs with these features. Part of why I like Mypaint is the speed and simplicity of getting things done, just like with traditional media. Most professional artists (I would think) wouldn’t need to readjust proportions and scale things and so on with such frequency, as they will have already learned these things from traditional work. In my opinion, the selecting and scaling is a nice emergency feature, but not worth the bulk and mess it usually entails. This is just my two cents of course, but just looking at the Photoshop interface, or Gimp, or any of these other programs makes me think “man, what a cluttered mess”. I like how clean mypaint is interface wise. This is why I want to see the program enter mainstream use. I plan to contribute somehow…donations or otherwise when possible. The one thing that would be awesome though is a better text tool, for doing mockups of logos or something without having to spend hours in a vector program.
Yes, I also like MyPaint clean interface and mainly the low memory footprint, it scales very well with a convoluted canvas with several layers. The brush engine is top notch too.
But I think the selection features are often used by beginner to professional level artists, from what I see. If you watch Apterus’ videos, for example, you’ll see that he often uses it to move things around, resize stuff and fix anatomy, as well as the liquify tool.
Thanks very much. I’ll have to figure out what a flatpak is, as I am not a linux power user. I don’t usually mess with my system unless needed, lol. Making the jump from Windows to more open source software has been a bit of a mess, but well worth it in my opinion. In either case, I am in no rush. I assume the program will be updated to a stable version and put into repositories soon enough.
Yeah, you are totally right. These features are used by all levels for sure, but I just think that they are too heavily relied on. Almost like cheating if you will. Now in a professional context with tight deadlines I can see where it would be useful, but I just think not using these features, and at a minimum having them hidden away would make one’s work more fluid and natural in the end. All in all it boils down to personal preference and need. I only brought this up because when I watch these videos, from Apterus or anyone else, most people who reach that level of quality make great things without adjustments. Why burden a program with things you may only use 20% of the time? Or rather, why have it clogging up the UI? When all is said and done, I just like how Mypaint looks most of all. Other programs could learn from that design.
I love the simplicity of MyPaint and how it’s possible to paste into a layer (a scanned traditional), and be able to really get on with painting, and also crop the canvas to size, along with simple intuitive controls. I’m unable to compile or do anything more technical, Linux Mint 18.1 doesn’t install flatpak’s, and 18.2/3 are not an option personally, due to no 32-bit, so I’m using 1.2 (18.3 supports flatpaks, but when I tried a live run yesterday, it wasn’t working yet). Appimage’s and deb files work great on anything up to and including 18.1, and all supported through to 2021.
The only two things that break the flow are being unable to lock the UI so it’s steady, and having to go outside the app to make an albeit rare adjustment. Sometimes it’s not about lack of having seen or ability, but you decide on a different composition later down the line. Having to group all layers in order to work on a layer externally in that way is the only problem, as you’ve then lost the freedom of using the layers.
The stability is brilliant; no crashes, and how it recalls work eg after a power cut, is really good. I really appreciate it. Thanks for all your hard work.
