Art Tools, Workflow & Journey: What Do You Use?

[Slime_Punk]

There are a couple of threads about specific users' art tools but I was hoping to make a bit of a master list here so that others can find inspiration on the fly. So even if you're already made an individual thread, you can totally reiterate your methods here so we can all ask specific questions and really get to know your specific workflow! Or, if you've never discussed your art workflow (or the tools you use the most), we'd probably all love to hear about how you make your artwork! Feel free to share as much of the journey as you'd like!

Posting examples would really make this a lot of fun, too! So, if you want to demonstrate some new workflow or something too, that would be really awesome! I'm always curious about what others are doing in order to create their art, so your contributions will not go unnoticed!

I guess I need to start with mine. Gulp. Well... it's complicated.
(Originally I forgot to post a picture!)

Spoiler: Uhh... It's a lot.

I started doing graphics (before I went to school for graphic design) because I needed artwork for my music, so I started with the basic raster editor Photoshop so I could make simple composites, and then eventually moved onto Affinity Photo & Affinity Designer as I got more into actually using vector art (I never really gelled with Illustrator). Later on I stumbled upon The Nik Collection (PS plugins), which I now use on mostly all of my photography because you can really dial in some crazy filter action.

Later on I started using Opencanvas and Clip Studio Paint when I got my first drawing tablet, and I still use them both a hecka-lot - CSP for their awesome 3D reference models, since I can't draw a human on my own to save my life. I picked up PD Howler, Artipic, and Pixeluvo on steam during one of their bigger sales, and although I don't use them very much anymore (due to lackluster feature sets), Howler is still really cool for randomized procedural generation.

I ventured into creative coding a little over a year ago and started making cool little programs in Processing, Python and p5.js, dabbling a little bit with Touchdesigner (visual programming) in the meantime, although I'd love to really do a deep-dive on the latter sometime and level-up my skills.

I also like to use consoles... not for gaming so much, but for art. My 2DS is modded and loaded up with voxel editors, Colors 3D, and SmileBASIC and all sorts of other apps I haven't even begun to scrape the surface with. Mostly I use Colors 3D for painting and SB for more of that sweet coding action on the go. I also just recently got a switch for the later versions of both apps, Colors Live and SmileBASIC4 with the addition of Fuze4, which I've managed to make some crazy stuff with so far.

Being a fan of pixel art, the aforementioned Colors Live and Aseprite are my jams for that (aside from fantasy consoles - more on that below).

Filter Forge was a massive discovery for me about a year ago as well; being able to combine visual programming / node-based editing with creating my own Lua scripts (all as a Photoshop plugin, no less) has really been a huge for my creativity. I've been able to create so many cool filters with it, which is basically 99% of my contributions to the Art Remix Thread. A lot of the time I'll program and script an entire filter for someone's piece, run iterations on it, or whatever. It's just so much fun.

Lately, I've been dabbling in Blender because digital sculpting is way too much fun. I'd like to eventually get into the 3D-modelling side of things, but just being able to freely sculpt things and take shots of it has been so much fun.

Fantasy consoles like Pyxel, Pico-8, Basic8 and TIC-80 are pretty big for me, too. Being able to draw and code anything up on the fly with very minimal setup is awesome. Even though these are essentially game engines, I just use them for practicing my physics programming and creating animations / artwork. I've got a lot to learn in this territory but it's super rewarding and has supercharged my inspiration over the past few months.

Also, I guess it counts, but my 'budget' Rebel T7 is a huge star in my artistic endeavors. I had never owned a camera prior to 2020 and I'm so glad I got it - it's all I'll ever need and it's a workhorse in my workflow. Sometimes I'll just use it to create texture / asset packs from household surfaces, add them to other projects, etc. It's way too much to list all in one go, but it just does so much for my artwork.

Also, I keep a metric crap-ton of markers, pencils, pens, acrylics, oils, glue sticks and magazines around for whatever. I love doing acrylic pours, 'analog' collages, and whatever types of abstract stuff I can come up with. I've been known to snap a picture, create a vector out of it, print it off and paint it in acrylc just because I can. I really love imagining stuff over and over again because it's like its own little field trip everytime.

So, what do you use?

 

[Misery]

Okay, so, firstly, I'll plug two threads of mine:

The unusual art apps that I use

So, I've gotten really into this stuff in the last few months. Bit of a new special interest, I could say. For the most part, what I create is fractal images... often 2D things, sometimes 3D, always bizarre and generally surreal. If you want to see the things I've made so far, go here and...

www.autismforums.com

That's easier than listing all of that stuff again, and I wanted the screenshots to still be associated with it (without having to fill this thread with them) because I find that a lot of people still dont really know what fractal art is, or how it's made. So, the explanations and screenshots in there hopefully help. The fractals are always the first thing I'll talk about when the subject of art is brought up, as I think it's super fun and interesting, and it gets even better if you then take those things and combine them with OTHER things.

Secondly, I'm really into using AI to make stuff. Like these: I've got even crazier ways to make digital art now

Generally, if it's an AI that you can use to make something, I've probably used it, or am at least aware of it. Art AIs in particular are interesting to me... when I first heard about the idea awhile back, it sounded silly to me. I'd only seen the results of the really weak AIs at the time (which produce ridiculous nonsense), and I kept seeing a lot of people saying "argh, if AI art really happens it's gonna RUIN ART, it'll be so lazy and soulless!" and back then, I'd had that thought too. Eventually (after already being somewhat familiar with AI stuff) I dive into it myself, and I'm surprised at the complexity and difficulty of making things with it, yet also surprised at the things it can make... if I'm willing to put in the time to get good results. AI art is best when combined with image manipulation programs like Photoshop or other things. The big problem with AI art is that, aside from the super weak AIs like Craiyon, well... it tends to be very bloody expensive to use at all, regardless of what you're making with it. And it has a much higher learning curve than you'd think, and can be very frustrating. But when I get a finished product after hours of iterations and working with it, it's worth that frustration.

So, that's my digital stuff. How about physical media? I'll share some photos here:

My art station table thing. It has drawers underneath and the angle of the whole thing can be adjusted. The markers in there are one of my most frequently used tools. In the upper right corner is Posca markers, which are nothing like normal ones and are pretty new to me, they can do some really cool stuff. Also of particular note (but really hard to see) is my precision eraser. It looks like a pen, but instead of a pen tip, it's a very fine eraser tip. Absolutely excellent when using pencils, it lets me fix super tiny mistakes without smearing everything all over the place. It's a funky little thing, it has a click motion like a mechanical pencil, to feed more eraser material into the tip, and you refill it with little cartridges when it runs out.

My "art cart". This carries a ton of tools and supplies of all sorts (many of which I dont yet understand how to use). It is on wheels, which is important, as space in this room is fairly limited and this is the same room where I have my PC and VR unit, which needs a lot of space, so this being able to be rolled into any position is important. It's got all sorts of stuff in there. I'm still very new to all of this, so there are many things I dont quite understand the use of. One big focus is the wood thing at the top, which primarily holds pencils and paint brushes, and then has a couple of little drawers with other stuff too. Pencils and markers of all sorts are what I'm most familiar with. Speaking of which:

This is my brush marker set. The main thing I know how to do with physical stuff is lettering, and that's what these are best at, and it's why I have so many markers of all sorts. But the Tombow dual brush types are what I have the most of, and are the things I've used the most frequently. They seem designed specifically with brush lettering in mind, and you have to be very careful with them. Using them on the wrong paper (like sketch paper) will quickly ruin the brushes, and if the caps arent perfectly clicked into place when done using them, they'll dry out and be ruined *really* fast. So it's real easy to lose one like that and need to replace it. Using brush pens (which is what they're usually called, though they're really like markers + paintbrushes) is very different from using normal markers or pens or whatever, so there's a learning curve with these.

Lastly:

I get these green boxes in the mail every month which come with all sorts of random art supplies, themed to go together. I never know what I'm gonna get in these, but it's always been quality stuff, and as someone who is new to all of this, this is a great way to learn more. In this months box, a big new set of a whole different breed of marker, and some paper and other things in there too.


There's more I could talk about... like my fountain pens and the supplies that go specifically with those, or the very strange world of VR art, but... that's probably enough for now.

 

[Raggamuffin]

Pen, pecils.



Fin.

Ed

 

[Jordy]

There are a couple of threads about specific users' art tools but I was hoping to make a bit of a master list here so that others can find inspiration on the fly. So even if you're already made an individual thread, you can totally reiterate your methods here so we can all ask specific questions and really get to know your specific workflow! Or, if you've never discussed your art workflow (or the tools you use the most), we'd probably all love to hear about how you make your artwork! Feel free to share as much of the journey as you'd like!

Posting examples would really make this a lot of fun, too! So, if you want to demonstrate some new workflow or something too, that would be really awesome! I'm always curious about what others are doing in order to create their art, so your contributions will not go unnoticed!

I guess I need to start with mine. Gulp. Well... it's complicated.
(Originally I forgot to post a picture!)
View attachment 84967

Spoiler: Uhh... It's a lot.

I started doing graphics (before I went to school for graphic design) because I needed artwork for my music, so I started with the basic raster editor Photoshop so I could make simple composites, and then eventually moved onto Affinity Photo & Affinity Designer as I got more into actually using vector art (I never really gelled with Illustrator). Later on I stumbled upon The Nik Collection (PS plugins), which I now use on mostly all of my photography because you can really dial in some crazy filter action.

Later on I started using Opencanvas and Clip Studio Paint when I got my first drawing tablet, and I still use them both a hecka-lot - CSP for their awesome 3D reference models, since I can't draw a human on my own to save my life. I picked up PD Howler, Artipic, and Pixeluvo on steam during one of their bigger sales, and although I don't use them very much anymore (due to lackluster feature sets), Howler is still really cool for randomized procedural generation.

I ventured into creative coding a little over a year ago and started making cool little programs in Processing, Python and p5.js, dabbling a little bit with Touchdesigner (visual programming) in the meantime, although I'd love to really do a deep-dive on the latter sometime and level-up my skills.

I also like to use consoles... not for gaming so much, but for art. My 2DS is modded and loaded up with voxel editors, Colors 3D, and SmileBASIC and all sorts of other apps I haven't even begun to scrape the surface with. Mostly I use Colors 3D for painting and SB for more of that sweet coding action on the go. I also just recently got a switch for the later versions of both apps, Colors Live and SmileBASIC4 with the addition of Fuze4, which I've managed to make some crazy stuff with so far.

Being a fan of pixel art, the aforementioned Colors Live and Aseprite are my jams for that (aside from fantasy consoles - more on that below).

Filter Forge was a massive discovery for me about a year ago as well; being able to combine visual programming / node-based editing with creating my own Lua scripts (all as a Photoshop plugin, no less) has really been a huge for my creativity. I've been able to create so many cool filters with it, which is basically 99% of my contributions to the Art Remix Thread. A lot of the time I'll program and script an entire filter for someone's piece, run iterations on it, or whatever. It's just so much fun.

Lately, I've been dabbling in Blender because digital sculpting is way too much fun. I'd like to eventually get into the 3D-modelling side of things, but just being able to freely sculpt things and take shots of it has been so much fun.

Fantasy consoles like Pyxel, Pico-8, Basic8 and TIC-80 are pretty big for me, too. Being able to draw and code anything up on the fly with very minimal setup is awesome. Even though these are essentially game engines, I just use them for practicing my physics programming and creating animations / artwork. I've got a lot to learn in this territory but it's super rewarding and has supercharged my inspiration over the past few months.

Also, I guess it counts, but my 'budget' Rebel T7 is a huge star in my artistic endeavors. I had never owned a camera prior to 2020 and I'm so glad I got it - it's all I'll ever need and it's a workhorse in my workflow. Sometimes I'll just use it to create texture / asset packs from household surfaces, add them to other projects, etc. It's way too much to list all in one go, but it just does so much for my artwork.

Also, I keep a metric crap-ton of markers, pencils, pens, acrylics, oils, glue sticks and magazines around for whatever. I love doing acrylic pours, 'analog' collages, and whatever types of abstract stuff I can come up with. I've been known to snap a picture, create a vector out of it, print it off and paint it in acrylc just because I can. I really love imagining stuff over and over again because it's like its own little field trip everytime.

So, what do you use?

You have too many pencils

 

[Slime_Punk]

Okay, so, firstly, I'll plug two threads of mine:

The unusual art apps that I use

So, I've gotten really into this stuff in the last few months. Bit of a new special interest, I could say. For the most part, what I create is fractal images... often 2D things, sometimes 3D, always bizarre and generally surreal. If you want to see the things I've made so far, go here and...

www.autismforums.com

That's easier than listing all of that stuff again, and I wanted the screenshots to still be associated with it (without having to fill this thread with them) because I find that a lot of people still dont really know what fractal art is, or how it's made. So, the explanations and screenshots in there hopefully help. The fractals are always the first thing I'll talk about when the subject of art is brought up, as I think it's super fun and interesting, and it gets even better if you then take those things and combine them with OTHER things.

Secondly, I'm really into using AI to make stuff. Like these: I've got even crazier ways to make digital art now

Generally, if it's an AI that you can use to make something, I've probably used it, or am at least aware of it. Art AIs in particular are interesting to me... when I first heard about the idea awhile back, it sounded silly to me. I'd only seen the results of the really weak AIs at the time (which produce ridiculous nonsense), and I kept seeing a lot of people saying "argh, if AI art really happens it's gonna RUIN ART, it'll be so lazy and soulless!" and back then, I'd had that thought too. Eventually (after already being somewhat familiar with AI stuff) I dive into it myself, and I'm surprised at the complexity and difficulty of making things with it, yet also surprised at the things it can make... if I'm willing to put in the time to get good results. AI art is best when combined with image manipulation programs like Photoshop or other things. The big problem with AI art is that, aside from the super weak AIs like Craiyon, well... it tends to be very bloody expensive to use at all, regardless of what you're making with it. And it has a much higher learning curve than you'd think, and can be very frustrating. But when I get a finished product after hours of iterations and working with it, it's worth that frustration.

So, that's my digital stuff. How about physical media? I'll share some photos here:

View attachment 84936

My art station table thing. It has drawers underneath and the angle of the whole thing can be adjusted. The markers in there are one of my most frequently used tools. In the upper right corner is Posca markers, which are nothing like normal ones and are pretty new to me, they can do some really cool stuff. Also of particular note (but really hard to see) is my precision eraser. It looks like a pen, but instead of a pen tip, it's a very fine eraser tip. Absolutely excellent when using pencils, it lets me fix super tiny mistakes without smearing everything all over the place. It's a funky little thing, it has a click motion like a mechanical pencil, to feed more eraser material into the tip, and you refill it with little cartridges when it runs out.

View attachment 84937

My "art cart". This carries a ton of tools and supplies of all sorts (many of which I dont yet understand how to use). It is on wheels, which is important, as space in this room is fairly limited and this is the same room where I have my PC and VR unit, which needs a lot of space, so this being able to be rolled into any position is important. It's got all sorts of stuff in there. I'm still very new to all of this, so there are many things I dont quite understand the use of. One big focus is the wood thing at the top, which primarily holds pencils and paint brushes, and then has a couple of little drawers with other stuff too. Pencils and markers of all sorts are what I'm most familiar with. Speaking of which:

View attachment 84938

This is my brush marker set. The main thing I know how to do with physical stuff is lettering, and that's what these are best at, and it's why I have so many markers of all sorts. But the Tombow dual brush types are what I have the most of, and are the things I've used the most frequently. They seem designed specifically with brush lettering in mind, and you have to be very careful with them. Using them on the wrong paper (like sketch paper) will quickly ruin the brushes, and if the caps arent perfectly clicked into place when done using them, they'll dry out and be ruined *really* fast. So it's real easy to lose one like that and need to replace it. Using brush pens (which is what they're usually called, though they're really like markers + paintbrushes) is very different from using normal markers or pens or whatever, so there's a learning curve with these.

Lastly:

View attachment 84939

I get these green boxes in the mail every month which come with all sorts of random art supplies, themed to go together. I never know what I'm gonna get in these, but it's always been quality stuff, and as someone who is new to all of this, this is a great way to learn more. In this months box, a big new set of a whole different breed of marker, and some paper and other things in there too.


There's more I could talk about... like my fountain pens and the supplies that go specifically with those, or the very strange world of VR art, but... that's probably enough for now.

Wow! Your art setup is amazing. Awesome pictures!

 

[Shevek]

Sometimes I use a pencil. Sometimes I ink it in. Some of my friends draw in books, but I prefer single sheets that are easy to turn to any orientation. I may or may not use my drawing aids, which include a flexible ruler.
Sometimes, I use dozens of silversmithing tools. My favourite is the shiny hammer, which leaves interesting facets. I polish out all the other tool marks. The text book I used is over 500 pages, and I used most of it.
Sometimes, I use a wide array of woodworking tools. On the good stuff, I may keep sanding with finer and finer grits until it looks polished with no wax or oil.
Sometimes, I make fiberglass from a mold. For my master shape, I make a special filler that sands as easily as the foam base. Then I harden its surface with Polyvinyl Alcohol or shellac, so that it can be polished and waxed to form the molds. To make the shape work beautifully, I first use a glorified calculator.
Sometimes, I use a word processor and a thesaurus.
Sometimes, I use a camera, and light.
Sometimes, I use sunlight, prisms, and hand-held reflective junk to accompany music.
Sometimes, I sing and clap my hands.
Sometimes, I anticipate a situation and get a big laugh.

 

[All-Rounder]

It has been a long time since I obsessively drawn dogs against my art teacher's advice, but this is my last art piece.

Cheap pen & paper laying about.

 

[All-Rounder]

I'm using a universal stylo pencil on my mobile.

 

[Slime_Punk]

You have too many pencils

I know! I picked up a huge kit on Amazon like 3 years ago and really haven't bothered much with colored pencils because I'm terrible with them! The same goes for all the markers - that little pouch thing all the way over on the right is filled with them, and I still usually just do stuff digitally because everything is easier that way. lol

 

[Gift2humanity]

Mine are scattered all over, various paints, mostly acrylics, various types of pens, pencils. Some of it is in our SHOP in town where I hang out and do other creative stuff.
I can't photograph it as it's all scattered all over, some of it in the shop where I hang out in town and do other stuff like poetry, writing, singing etc.
I can't really take a photo, this thread makes me think I need some boxes and shelving to put my art stuff on.
I have to finish pencilling one, but want to paint the other.

 

[Alexandria]

I don’t know where to begin! (Or where to end…) So I will keep it condensed and contained to recent activities.

Sometimes skipping back and forth between them, I used the following programs for this particular transformation : Fotor & Twisted Brush. I have added two short videos below. One showing some of the transformations and the other showing a few of the steps made utilising Twisted Brush filters.

As for the process of my artwork, I use different mediums at different times for different projects. I rarely plan anything. A mood hits and I simply begin to create. For my digital work I will sometimes use Windows Paint or something I have painted or drawn on canvas or paper - sometimes, a photograph I have taken. Whichever I begin with, I will use Paint, Fotor & Twisted Brush to tweak or transform it.

For instance, Here’s a collage of the original fast and loose watercolour I did before transferring it to my computer for transformation, along with some of the startling or more subtle changes in between, until I felt I’d achieved the final feel of ‘autumness’ that I wanted to create.

 

[velociraptor]

Don't know if photography is welcome in this thread or not, but here's my process for turning multiple drone images into a single panoramic image:

Taking the wide view

I bought a drone. It's the DJI Mini 2 Fly More Combo. I wasn't planning on this because they are darned expensive, but... I found a fantastic deal on Amazon and snagged it. The price was somewhere between MSRP and "it fell off a truck," so that was wonderful. I'll post a detailed review of the un

mccormickphotography.com

 

[Slime_Punk]

Don't know if photography is welcome in this thread or not, but here's my process for turning multiple drone images into a single panoramic image:

Taking the wide view

I bought a drone. It's the DJI Mini 2 Fly More Combo. I wasn't planning on this because they are darned expensive, but... I found a fantastic deal on Amazon and snagged it. The price was somewhere between MSRP and "it fell off a truck," so that was wonderful. I'll post a detailed review of the un

mccormickphotography.com

Absolutely! There seems to be quite a lot of us who use cameras as part of our workflow

 

[Slime_Punk]

As for the process of my artwork, I use different mediums at different times for different projects. I rarely plan anything. A mood hits and I simply begin to create. For my digital work I will sometimes use Windows Paint or something I have painted or drawn on canvas or paper - sometimes, a photograph I have taken. Whichever I begin with, I will use Paint, Fotor & Twisted Brush to tweak or transform it.

That's so cool! I didn't think anyone here had a similar workflow to mine. Some call it scatterbrained, but I call it inspiring!

 

[Alexandria]

Don't know if photography is welcome in this thread or not, but here's my process for turning multiple drone images into a single panoramic image:

Taking the wide view

I bought a drone. It's the DJI Mini 2 Fly More Combo. I wasn't planning on this because they are darned expensive, but... I found a fantastic deal on Amazon and snagged it. The price was somewhere between MSRP and "it fell off a truck," so that was wonderful. I'll post a detailed review of the un

mccormickphotography.com

@velociraptor, that is AWEsome!

 

[Alexandria]

That's so cool! I didn't think anyone here had a similar workflow to mine. Some call it scatterbrained, but I call it inspiring!

Ahhh, yes...the magic of the muse!