Best Mac program to use for CWs?
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I’ve been wanting to make CWs for several years but I’ve never had the right computer, program and tools to make them. I recently got a MacBook Pro 2012 and it’s an amazing computer. I also dug out my very old but still working tablet. I read around the CW forums and found the google drive to a few tutorials, however it looks like most CW makers use Sai, which won’t work on my Mac since I don’t have windows. I did download a free art program called Krita that seems to be pretty fun, but I only played with it a little. I don’t have photoshop but I was maybe considering getting it...idk it’s kinda expensive and I’m poor af. The reason I want to make CWs is to maybe make a little cash on the side from commissions.
So with this Mac, what program would be the best to use for a beginner CW maker?
Are there any more tutorials that I should look at? The ones I found tbh didn’t seem too helpful especially since the one for the dress making looked hella complicated and confusing.
Any other help and pointers is greatly appreciated. Thanks :3
[-Disease] firealpaca is a free art program that works similarly to SAI and should have everything you need to draw a CW - layers, transparency, clipping masks, blending modes, etc.
there's also pixelmator, which is a cheaper alternative to photoshop that has many of the same features. it costs $30 (well, $29.99) on the app store, and you can download a 30-day free trial on their site.
as far as drawing the actual CW goes, idk how much experience you have with digital art, but you'll want to get comfortable with line consistency, perspective, how clothes fit on a body (specifically on the HA base's doofy squishy anatomy), and shading, as well as how to use clipping masks and blending modes.
look at wearables (both custom and official) that you think look good and try to analyze what you think they're doing well - softish shading with a complementary color and conforming to a light source? the curvature of their lines that allows the item to look like it's actually sitting on / wrapping around the HA's anatomy? matching the 3/4 view perspective instead of putting things like buttons, zippers, bows, etc smack in the middle of the base?
Thanks! I have a bit of experience with digital art but not too much. I have no idea what clipping masks and blending modes are ^.^’ is there a tutorial on that somewhere? Also idk if you heard of it but I got krita on my Mac and I think it’s pretty cool, I haven’t tried to make a cw on it yet tho
[-Disease] i'm not familiar with krita, i tried it but it kept crashing even when i downloaded the most up-to-date version so i never really got to use it.
i'm sure you can go on google or youtube and search "(name of art program) clipping mask tutorial" to find info about those things, but i'll do my best to explain them as well.
BLENDING MODES
a blending mode changes the way a layer looks based on the layer beneath it. so for example i've drawn two weird blobs on one layer, and a third blob on another layer above that. right now everything is on the "normal" blending mode which means everything will appear exactly as i've drawn it.
now if i change the top layer to a different blending mode, in this case "multiply," you will see it sort of "mixes" with the colors beneath while adding their brightness/darkness together.
if you change what's underneath the multiply layer, it will obviously create a very different effect.
this is very useful for shading, especially on top of something that already has multiple colors - e.g. for a pink-to-blue gradient shirt, you could use a purplish color on your shading layer and set it to multiply, then adjust the opacity until it looks good.
there are lots of other blending modes, i recommend going through all of them and seeing how they look with different colors. will it make things darker, lighter, or maintain the same brightness? there are fancy mathematical explanations for how and why they do the things they do, but you don't really need to know that if you just remember what the result looks like. the main ones i think you'll want to keep in mind are:
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multiply - "multiplies" or combines the color values of the top and bottom layer, resulting in a darker color.
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screen - combines the color values of each layer, but does some weird inversion stuff that results in a brighter color.
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overlay - this is sort of halfway between multiply and screen, and tends to maintain the brightness of the colors on the bottom layer(s).
you should of course play around with others as well, like hard light, soft light, hue, color, saturation, and luminosity.
CLIPPING MASKS
clipping masks are pretty straightforward. all this means is that whatever is on this layer will only appear on pixels that are covered by the layer beneath it.
so for example if i draw a blue heart on one layer and a purple blob on another layer...
and then set it to a clipping mask like so (the way you do this will vary from program to program, but often you can right-click the layer you want to make into a clipping mask to find this option)...
you can see that the purple blob is only visible to the extent of blue heart's pixels.
i can then play with the blending mode and opacity (in this case multiply and 30% opacity) to create a "shading" effect (obviously this one looks quite bad since i'm just drawing blobs with my trackpad but i think you get the idea).
you can also have multiple layers masked to the same layer, so if for instance you need two layers for shading, one layer for highlights, and one layer for a sparkly effect, you can make them all clipping masks and they will mask to the first unmasked layer beneath them. in many programs, you can also mask a layer to another clipping mask! so if you don't want your second shading layer to surpass the boundaries of your first one, you'd just choose the "make clipping mask" or "create clipping mask" option twice. let me know if any of that was unclear or if you have any other questions, and again i'm sure there are plenty of tutorials on youtube.