Super Newbie Questions about ArtRage Lite

[Optymistyk]

I am very new to digital art in general but have some experience with drawing and sketching, and just recently I bought a Wacom Draw tablet which comes with a free download of ArtRage Lite. Before I was messing around with Krita a bit but at least to me Krita was super buggy to the point where it made working in it really frustrating.

So without further ado here are my Super Newbie Questions:
SNQ #1: The thing I really liked in Krita was that you could zoom in on the reference picture by clicking and dragging a rectangle over the area you want to zoom. In ArtRage there seems to be no zooming at all, you can only rotate or enlarge the whole reference, but not zoom in. Am I missing something?

SNQ #2: Why is this called "Lite"? Is it missing some important features? If so which missing features are the most important for a begginer/advanced/pro digital artist?

SNQ #3: Can I get a normal pencil? I mean the kind you can buy at any art store, like 4H,2H,HB,B2,B4 etc (Yeah when I am at an art store I don't usually ask for an "Auto Smooth Me" Pencil y know) ? Is this a good approach to digital art or should I stick with the weird pencils?

SNQ #4: Where do I find useful user-made presets? Are there any user-made presets you would consider essential?

SNQ #5: Anything else you think is important in digital art that a newbie might miss.

[HannahRage]

SNQ #1: The thing I really liked in Krita was that you could zoom in on the reference picture by clicking and dragging a rectangle over the area you want to zoom. In ArtRage there seems to be no zooming at all, you can only rotate or enlarge the whole reference, but not zoom in. Am I missing something?

SNQ #2: Why is this called "Lite"? Is it missing some important features? If so which missing features are the most important for a begginer/advanced/pro digital artist?


Haha, 'zoom in on reference' is one of those features :D You're not missing anything, but it's a feature in AR4.

There are a lot of more advanced options for all the tools and menus - too many little things to list - as well as features like custom sticker spray creation, symmetry and grids.

There's a full comparison list here: https://www.artrage.com/artrage-lite/features/ and you can try the actual demo of AR4 here: www.artrage.com/demos




SNQ #3: Can I get a normal pencil? I mean the kind you can buy at any art store, like 4H,2H,HB,B2,B4 etc (Yeah when I am at an art store I don't usually ask for an "Auto Smooth Me" Pencil y know) ? Is this a good approach to digital art or should I stick with the weird pencils?

SNQ #4: Where do I find useful user-made presets? Are there any user-made presets you would consider essential?


Open the Settings to adjust your pencil - Auto Smooth Me is a preset, so it's just a saved 'shortcut' ;D If you like using it, great, otherwise, find the preset closest to what you want, then go to Settings and tweak.

ArtRage 5 has much nicer pencil options that work a lot more like graphite pencils, but that's not out yet.

In the meantime, SomeoneSane has created these marvellous sticker spray presets that mimic pencil very well:
https://forums.artrage.com/showthread.php?44963-I-need-a-finger-for-my-pencil-work&p=451625#post451625

I also recommend https://forums.artrage.com/showthread.php?37021-so-sumi-why-don-t-you for some lovely inking tools and https://forums.artrage.com/showthread.php?17698-The-Prolific-MisterPaint for a great range of canvases (also found at http://www.stefanofiorearte.com/?Freebies )

You can find more things here: https://forums.artrage.com/forumdisplay.php?20-Art-Supplies





SNQ #5: Anything else you think is important in digital art that a newbie might miss.


I'm just going to point you at https://www.artrage.com/start-using-artrage-lite/ and then point at my signature ;)

[Optymistyk]

...

Thx a lot, that's super useful. :)

[RobertAbrams]

I bought ArtRage Lite today to try out with my Wacom Cintiq.
So far so good, but it is missing the Symmetry features.
My daughter, who is ten, saw the polypaint exhibit at the Museum of Math and wants to be able to do something like that.
(The exhibits at the Museum of Math, MoMath, in NYC are worth a look.)

My understanding is that I would get symmetry features if I upgrade ArtRage.

Since it looks like both ArtRage 5 and 6 are being sold, which would you recommend, both for symmetry and other features?
If there is a comparison page, that would be great.

Thanks.

Robert

[markw]

I bought ArtRage Lite today to try out with my Wacom Cintiq.
So far so good, but it is missing the Symmetry features.
My daughter, who is ten, saw the polypaint exhibit at the Museum of Math and wants to be able to do something like that.
(The exhibits at the Museum of Math, MoMath, in NYC are worth a look.)

My understanding is that I would get symmetry features if I upgrade ArtRage.

Since it looks like both ArtRage 5 and 6 are being sold, which would you recommend, both for symmetry and other features?
If there is a comparison page, that would be great.

Thanks.

Robert

Hello Robert and welcome to the ArtRage forums:)
The current retail version of ArtRage is ArtRage6 which was released just a couple of months ago.
It has all the features of it predecessor AR5 plus some new features introduced with ArtRage6.
You can find a features list here: https://www.artrage.com/product-comparison/

As an owner of AR Lite you can get a 30% discount when you upgrade to the full version of AR6.
See here for details: https://www.artrage.com/upgrades/