Software List

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

App.Diagrams.Net

Screenshot of a flowchart created in the software, App.diagrams.Net of a minor meme about the fighting video game, Street Fighter 4, explaining a stereotypical and low skill playing style of the characters, Ken.

App.Diagrams is an online flowchart maker software. It works like a charm, I even made this classic!

Inky

Inky is an interactive fiction software that lets you create stories in the Markup language, and export to web or plug-in to Unity or Unreal Engine. If you’re familiar with customizing on Twitch, it’s easy to pick up and start making interactive stories!

Aseprite

Puma Pixel Art Reduction in 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.

Brandon J. Greer Gameboy Color Palette

4 color palette created by Brandon James Greer. Each color is a tone of green going from dark green to off-white green.

A four color palette based on suggested colors by Brandon James Greer. Unlike the actual hardware color palette, Greer’s colors have more saturation and contrast, making it easier to work with as a beginner pixel artist. It’s been my workhorse color palette when starting many pixel art projects because it has the tones I need to make an illustration.

GB Studio

GB Studio, a easy to use engine for creating ROMS for handheld game systems

Animation

Krita

Krita is a more general Digital Arts Program, but0 it also has animation features!

Blender

Two compiled screenshots of an untextured 3D model created in Blender of an anthropomorphic male wolf. The image showcases closeups of the head from the front and a back view of the tail of the wireframed model.

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!

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]

PurRef

Reference Image collage created in PurRef of various sword. bow and arrow, other combat poses

A great software to organize your references! It has a function where it can stay on your screen and you can make the window transparent and lock the window so you can do drawing while still seeing it. A perfect thing for dual monitor drawing!

Sumatra PDF Reader

Screenshot of a page from Mike Winterbauer's Ebook, "Classic Game Covers: Confessions of an Art Junkie" depicting early sketches of the cover of the 1990 Nintendo Entertainment System game, "Solstice: The Quest for the Staff of Demnos"

Some of my references and “ill-gotten” books are in PDFs, so I use this as my PDF reader since it’s less resource intensive than Adobe’s PDF reader. This image example is a page from Mike Winterbauer’s Ebook, “Classic Game Covers: Confessions of an Art Junkie”

Open Broadcaster Software

A decent free program to let me livestream on Twitch and screen record my drawing videos online!

CRT View by Mattias Gustavsson

pixel animation of an yellow and brown striped anthropomorphic male dragon with brown spots in his wings and a scorpion-like stinger at the end of his tail. He wears full steel armor, a green scarf, an indigo rope belt at his waist, and yellow thorns wrapped around the horns of his helmet. The dragon stands at the ready with his long spear in hand. The entire animation with a filter reminiscent Cathode-ray tube screen.
CRT Pixel Animation of an anthropomorphic cat witch named Claudia wearing a two pointed witch hat reminiscent of cat ears, a black dress with a stripped long sleeve undershirt and stockings. She rides on top of a broom in the twilight indigo sky like a skateboard or surfboard.
Pixel Animation of an anthropomorphic talking puma, in a mall, wearing a purple shirt with the word "Meow" on the chest. The animation is under a filter simulating a Cathode Ray Tube monitor.

It’s a simple app that I use to give some of my pixel animations a CRT Filter to add to the retro immersion.At first, I didn’t see what the big deal was, but as I did more pixel animation, and my dithered colors had a pleasing smooth blend, I saw how much the CRT worked some magic.

Veadotube mini by Olmewe

A great software for getting started creating a PNG Tuber that talks through your microphone!

Spud Tablet by Sad Whale Studios

Along with Veadotube, I also use Spud Tablet, a software that comes with a tablet template and a hand image that tracks with mouse movement to give my drawing streams flair.