Another relevant application would be Corel Painter Essentials.ĭespite a vaguely toy-like interface and inclusion of craft store sillyness like a “Glitter” tool, ArtRage in actual use defies your initial impressions and becomes a surprisingly powerful tool, suitable for creating serious digital artwork. The most direct competition for ArtRage might be AutoDesk’s Sketchbook Pro, though I don’t have a copy of that for comparison. The Studio Pro version, which is what I tested, features layers and layer groups, layer blend modes, support for plug-in fliters, importing and exporting custom brush settings and a range of surprisingly sophisticated capabilities for its modest price. (Wacom’s Bamboo Pen model allows for basic pressure sensitive pen input for about $70 U.S.)ĪrtRage features digital emulations of painting and drawing tools for oils, watercolor, pencil, ink, airbrush, chalk and others. Though not strictly necessary, ArtRage is meant, like those other tools, to be used with a pressure sensitive tablet and stylus when drawing and painting. I received a review version of ArtRage3 Studio Pro, and as someone with both an eye to the needs of novice digital painters and a long personal history of creating digital art in both Painter and Photoshop, I put it through its paces. One of them is ArtRage, a digital painting and drawing application by Ambient Design that represents an inexpensive alternative to the industry standard digital painting and drawing applications like Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop (I might include Manga Studio Pro as a standard at this point as well). There are smaller, easier to use alternatives, however, that can make the dive into digital art simpler and require less of an up-front investment.

The transition can be daunting, though, with some artists feeling intimidated by what they perceive as complex and expensive digital art tools and the implied learning curve.

An increasing number of artists, even those firmly committed to working in traditional media, are discovering the value of adding digital painting and drawing tools to their repertoire.

Artrage 5 demo