Sketchbook Pro & Illustration Friday

This past week I downloaded the trial version of Sketchbook Pro. Many people have recommended it to me, and one of my favorite comic artists, Skottie Young, uses it.  So with that in mind, I decided to check it out.

I had created a sketch a few weeks back for Illustration Friday’s prompt “Prepare”.  After loading Sketchbook Pro, I decided to paint it.  I found the Sketchbook Pro software to be very user friendly. There really isn’t that big of a learning curve like Photoshop and other software paint programs I’ve used.   I used it with a Wacom tablet and my computer.  I know quite a few people that use it with their Ipad or Android also.

It was a lot of fun.  I did find a couple of tutorials that helped me learn the basics very quickly.  I really liked the pencil tool and how it seemed just like a colored pencil.  I still have to figure out the brushes on the paint brush as they seemed too “soft” for my taste.  It has quite a few tools, such as the copic markers and pens, paintbrush, ellipse , paint bucket, ball point pen, etc.  The interface works the same for each tool, so it is pretty easy once you figure it out initially.  I liked the way you can scale and rotate an image too. Very simple. And the ruler tool was a neat feature.  I can see myself using that a lot.

Here is the finished painting. It’s still a little rough.   I will probably go back and rework it once I get more knowledge of the program.  The cat is in honor of my friend Dolly’s cat, Oreo, who recently died.  RIP Oreo.