this video is made for all you teachers out there, as well as any beginner digital artists
looking to get a grasp on which is the best free digital art program for you.
i'm Aaron, a fellow art nerd in high school and i'm volunteering at winged canvas because
i have a passion for digital art. sadly a lot of schools don't seem to teach digital art. now, that
might be because a lot of people think it's not a real medium like watercolor or acrylic paint,
and i think that's far from the truth. digital art is getting bigger and bigger and more popular by
the day. we at winged canvas believe that it is actually the future of art. now, there are so
many good digital art programs out there that you may feel a little overwhelmed on where to start
so let's get right into it. the first free digital art programs i'm going to go over today are those
designed for digital drawing and painting. now that's like using watercolor, charcoal, or acrylic
paint, but in a digital setting so you don't have to actually go and buy the materials which, is a
lot better if you are on a budget. medibang has gotten super popular recently, and within reason.
the program is a joy to use and would likely be one of the go-to's for any beginner digital
artist. medibang has a ton of customizability including brushes, preferences, shortcuts, etc.
it has a simple ui and descriptions for each tool in the corner of the screen,
so it's easy to pick up for newbies. a lot of art programs seem to have trouble running smoothly,
which of course is a concern, but medibang runs the smoothest butter on my
subpar computer, so there should be no words there. the features of medibang are also
fantastic as a majority of the features are in industry standard programs like photoshop,
and has a cloud storage system so you don't need to be afraid of losing any of your work.
the only downside is that you need to have an account to access the portion of these features
such as the cloud and importing brushes and fonts. there are a couple of ads in the program,
but those only show up when you launch the program, so it doesn't interrupt your workflow.
but i know what you're thinking -- what devices does it work on? well i have good news for you,
as medibang is on every platform, including mobile devices and chromebooks, and that's why we use and
recommend medibang for all of our beginner digital art classes, and no this isn't sponsored. overall,
i give medibang a 5 out of 5 for compatibility, 4.5 out of 5 for features, a 4 out of 5 for
easiness, and 5 out of 5 on performance -- our top pick for drawing and painting.
next is firealpaca. firealpaca is a program you may have heard of when it comes to digital art, as
it is fairly well known. some of our teachers at winged canvas refer to it as a simpler medibang,
which makes sense. fire alpaca has a very similar ui to medibang as well as a small portion of the
same features. however fire alpaca is a program you'd probably give to someone who has never
touched a digital art program ever because the program is super simple which gives it the ability
to be picked up super fast. however compared to medibang, it is incredibly limited with its
features. it is definitely not a program that is used as an industry standard due to the lack of
advanced features, but again it can be very useful to teach a younger or less
advanced group of students. so overall i give fire alpaca a 3 out of 5 for compatibility,
a 2 out of 5 for features, a 5 out of 5 for easiness, and a 5 out of 5 for performance. Krita
is a fantastic program in my opinion. now that could just be me being biased since it was the
first digital art program i ever used, but it's probably not the best program to use for beginners
as the ui can be very overwhelming if you don't know what you're doing which gives it a bigger
learning curve. but if you can get past that, the program has so much to offer, like animation.
the program has customizability and brushes and preferences and Krita also has fantastic features
which include the majority of advanced features and other programs such as medibang or photoshop.
though, it is much different when it comes to ui, so it may take longer to get used to the industry
standard programs. but there is one thing that has to offer that these other programs don't -- and
as i mentioned before it has the capability of animation. again, the animation takes a little
bit of finesse to get right, but come on now -- it's a free program with animation capabilities
and that's fantastic! one issue though there is no cloud storage, and for a program with animation
which tends to take up a lot of time, and they're quite large projects, that's a bit disappointing
surprisingly though, even with these capabilities Krita still works on lower
end computers which is quite impressive. overall i give krita a 3 out of 5 for compatibility,
a 5 out of 5 for features, a 3.5 out of 5 for easiness, and a 4.5 out of 5 for performance.
ibis paint x is a program you may have actually seen a little bit over the internet, mainly due
to how simple and smooth it is to use, so a lot of art tiktoks use this program. it's entirely
mobile based, so you only need to have a phone and a finger or a stylus if you want to go the
extra mile. the program is incredibly simple to pick up, but that comes at the cost of having less
of the more advanced features, meaning it is not industry standard and has a large learning curve
from this program to another. due to this program being a free mobile app you can expect ads on it
as well as features locked behind a paywall, such as even simple features like different brushes,
but overall i give ibis paint a 2 out of 5 for compatibility, simply because it's only on mobile,
a 2 out of 5 for features, a 4 out of 5 for easiness, and a 5 out of 5 for performance.
these next programs are those designed for graphic design and photo editing. now this is optimal for
creating posters, logos, or making vector art. these programs are a lot different from the
drawing and painting programs, as they work with vector images instead of bitmap images. now vector
images are made with shapes and lines instead of bitmap images where they work with freeform lines
that you draw yourself. vector images can be nice because you can scale them up and down
and they won't lose any resolution or quality. let's get right into it starting with...figma
is another quite impressive program, and it's all browser-based, meaning it is a website,
allowing for it to be accessed from any device and no download necessary.
it is fantastic for group projects as it allows live edits from other collaborators. think of
figma as adobe illustrator meets google docs, and it's free to use! it's very simple to understand,
and also includes easy tutorials. a few downsides may be that a few features are locked behind a
paywall, such as the number of people in a project, and you may need to have a better
computer for smaller files as it can cause lag. but our design team at winged canvas has converted
from illustrator to figma because it allows for live collaboration. it's just a fantastic program,
and i highly recommend checking it out even if you're not going to use it. overall i give
figma a 4.5 out of 5 for compatibility, a 4 out of 5 for features, a 5 out of 5 for easiness,
and a 4 out of 5 for performance. the next program in this category is named GIMP.
GIMP is a very different program from all the other programs previously talked about, because
it is more of a photo editing program rather than a graphic design tool or digital painting tool.
it has those features that you think of when someone says the word photoshop. don't let this
simple use deceive you however -- GIMP is actually quite advanced, and can be very intimidating to
beginners. it is also fantastic on the side of compatibility because it is also compatible with
chromebooks and runs quite smoothly overall, but it is not as compatible with mobile devices such
as phones or ipads. overall i give GIMP a 4 out of 5 for compatibility, a 2.5 out of 5 for features,
a 2.5 out of 5 for easiness, and a 4 out of 5 for performance. we only have one program
that we'd like to discuss in the category of 3d modeling softwares and that is the one and only
blender. blender is a program that really outshines all the rest when it comes to free 3d
modeling programs. it has everything a program needs for industry standards in the 3d world.
it is just as good as all the other industry standard programs, and it's free! it also has 3d
animation capabilities, and rendering capabilities though you might need a slightly beefier computer
to be able to access those features lag free. as well as it is also not compatible with mobile
devices, but it is compatible with chromebooks, as long as you're willing to go through a few hoops.
another slight hurdle to get over might be that it's a little overwhelming to get into when just
starting off, so a good substitute might be something like tinkercad, which is a website
and is fully compatible with every computer like chromebooks, or sketchup, which is also industry
standard, but the recent version costs money. if you can sit down and spend the time to learn how
to use blender, then it is definitely the go-to program for 3d modeling. overall, i give blender
a 3.5 out of 5 for compatibility, a 5 out of 5 for features, a 3 out of 5 for easiness,
and a 4 out of 5 for performance. of course all these programs have their pros and cons,
so be sure to choose the one that suits you the best, or your classes needs the best. if you'd
like to support us and our creation of free arts education videos, check out our patreon, link in
description, as well as all the rewards we have to offer there. if you'd like to join our community
of art nerds, then check out our discord, again, link in description. now without further ado, the
best program in our opinion for digital art is of course, the one and only, medibang! medibang just
has so much to offer when it comes to features, and it's the most accessible program on the entire
list that we just gave. that's why we recommend it for all of our digital art classes and our lessons
on youtube. if you'd like to check out some more programs that we didn't mention in this list,
be sure to check out the description. we'll be updating that because the list changes so much.
there are so many new programs that are coming out and so many updates that are coming out from
older programs. and, well, that's the end of the video so thanks for watching and go be creative!