On this page, I catalog all the software and links that I use or refer to, to do my artwork to the best of my abilities! I update this page when I find new information to share with you, so don’t be afraid to send me new knowledge my way!

For my traditional art tools, check out my Supply List Page!

Digital Art Software

Clip Studio Paint

Currently, my go-to choice for digital artwork. The software frequently goes on sale and it has a great cloud feature to let you save your shortcuts, textures and brushes over multiple machines installed with Clip Studio Paint.

The intricate brush settings give you plenty of potential art supplies to work with. Compared to Photoshop, it has less bloat in it because it’s a program specifically build for making comics and manga. If you have this, I also recommend purchasing Frenden’s Brushes for Manga Studio to really rock it out!

Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5

It’s the industry standard but I don’t use it as much as many other artists. These days Adobe has moved to a cloud system, but I’m still rocking my old student version of Creative Suite 5.5 from 2010. I still use it to open PDF files, so I can edit them to be individual images.

LibreOffice

I use this for writing and typing in general, this is a nice lightweight program to install on my computer and it’s free compared to Microsoft Word.

Google Docs

If you have a Gmail account, you can use the variety of applications from Google Docs. When you use it in conjunction with the phone app, you can easily type down story ideas or notes for refining on your computer.

Dropbox

Dropbox as a good basic way to keep backups of your files. Use as many cloud services as you can in addition to your External Hard Drives to reduce the chance of losing important work.

Game Development

Aseprite

My current program for doing Pixel Art and Animation! The UI is easy to understand, and it has nice features working with colors and animation. It goes great with reading Pixel Logic by Micheal Azzi!

Unity Engine

A high profile engine that’s free to download and learn! It can make games in 3D or 2D, and it’s a good beginner tool for starting to make Video Games!

Good Game, Peace Out Rollback Network SDK

For those programmers who want to make the fighting vidya gaems, Rollback Netcode for online play is becoming more of a big deal. Lucky for everyone, the source code is free to use commercially and non-commercially, so if you have Visual Studio and CMake, you can just plunk that shit in.

Animation

Krita

Krita is a more general Digital Arts Program, but it also has animation features!

Blender

Blender is a top of the line, freeware 3D modeling software that’s as good as all the paid 3D programs! It has so many features that it’s dizzying! If you want to try out 3D modeling for the first time Blender is the best possible program to get started!

Audacity

A freeware Audio Recording and Engineering Software!

Other Resources and Software

Neil Cicierega’s Work Timer

A fascinating app written by Neil Cicierega in AutoHotkey for Windows to help productivity. When using programs that you chose for it, the app will time you as you work. If you aren’t using that program or if you stop for too long, the timer will stop until you resume again. [Direct Download Link]

MastaFran Comics

The cartoon art of Ryan Francis

Software List