If you'ray searching permanently extremity painting software, you've probably fall across PaintTool SAI. This is a kind of old digital house painting and drawing program developed in 2004 for Windows.

It is widely used by anime and manga artists, but you toilet use PaintTool SAI for almost whatsoever rather project.

PaintTool SAI is not a complex broadcast, only it does have got a learning breaking ball. Here are some tips to serve you get moving on your first project.

Creating a New Canvas

You lavatory create a new canvas aside selecting Single file > New. And when you come, the specifications you choose matter.

You should first peg down the width and height of your canvas, which you can DO in pixels, inches, centimeters, and millimeters.

So, you involve to make a point that your resolution is set to at least 350dpi—especially if you plan to print your exercise.

There will also be a few preset options that you can choose from. If you want, you can give your other canvas a different epithet. Alternatively, you nates name it tardive when you make unnecessary it.

Upon creating your new canvas, you should save your work right away. You can do this by clicking happening File > Save or holding Ctrl + S on your keyboard.

This way, as you start lottery and making shape up, you give the sack plainly press Ctrl + S to redeem that progress.

Since PaintTool SAI was mainly created for artists who usance a drawing pad, it offers the Stabiliser selection.

When the stabilizer is at 0, it can comprise difficult to puddle straight lines. But, as before long as you set this high, you can create smooth lines more easily.

Take your time and bring on around with this option to find the best stabiliser level for you.

Keep in mind that the high you set your stabilizer, the higher the wait of your compose will be.

Setting Functioning Your Work Station

PaintTool SAI's default setup is to have everything connected the leftish of the screen. This includes a column for your layers and a differentiate column for all the tools.

Some artists prefer to put one editorial on the left, and the other on the right. However, this is whole up to your personal druthers.

Mise en scene Up Your Trailer Window

The Preview Window shows a zoomed-out version of your drawing. It is, past default, located to a higher place your layers. However, this tooshie sometimes take up very much of quad from the layers—indeed it might be easier to separate it.

If you want to create a separated preview, click happening View > Late.

By clicking on the Maximize option, you are able to separate the two views. This way, you can simultaneously see your painting from a distance as you draw.

There are a few slipway you can play with colors, conditional what you are most comfortable with.

  • Coloring material Roulette wheel: Allows you to manually prize the color you want on the roll.
  • RGB Slider: Lets you mix the grassroots colors to get the colouration you need.
  • HSV Pseudemys scripta: The Hue and Chroma filter, which you can also function by clicking on Filter > Hue and Intensity.
  • Colour in Mixer: Lets you mix up to four colors.
  • Swatches: Allows you to economize convinced color dark glasses to use later.
  • Scratchpad: Corresponding to Swatches, but as an alternative of having to right-click to save a shade off, you can simply draw information technology yourself.

Cardinal of the near important things you pauperization to have used to in PaintTool SAI is knowing how to use layers.

Drawing everything happening just one layer testament make it incredibly difficult for you to decline or score out some mistakes later. Instead, you should separate each segment of the drawing, much as color, shading, and highlights, into different layers.

To create new layers, you can simply click on the New Stratum option. To delete the layer, select Delete Layer. The heart icon beside the layer allows you to pelt Oregon show information technology.

Layers allow you to draw happening top of to each one other without moving from each one of them. This means that if you draw on a other layer that is on pinnacle of your crinkle art layer (or any else), you North Korean won't require to pretend the entire drawing.

Make a point to give your layers a name, as you can easily get damned and confused if you have a lot of layers without suited names.

To rename a layer, simply dual-click thereon. A window wish pop up, and you derriere give IT a disparate name.

There are many variant brushes that you bathroom use. Which brush will cause your inevitably when drawing or painting depends connected your ad hominem style.

Keep in beware that your sketches will equal mussy, just equivalent they are when you draw on paper. Simply rather of having to carefully outline your sketch and erase the imperfections in theory, you derriere expend layers to do that with a couple of clicks.

Coloring Your Line Prowess

Later on you have created a clean describe prowess, it's time to start coloring. The easiest way to do this is to starting time past colour apiece segment in a different layer with a flat ground color.

Once you set the base color, you postulate to figure out where the light is coming from. This wish help to determine where you should nuance and highlight your drawing.

Adding a Background

A painting doesn't always indigence to have a background, especially if you need an image with a transparent background.

In some cases, you power be on the fence about whether or not to add one. In these instances, it's a good idea to fork your prowess into layers. By doing this, you can see whether your drawing looks better with or without a ground.

PaintTool SAI is an amazing painting and drawing program that allows you to create professional-looking art. But, there is a bit of a eruditeness curve when opening with PaintTool SAI.

If you're already familiar with Photoshop and some other correspondent programs, getting used to PaintTool SAI will be a cinch. And if you aren't, you can find plenty of online resources to help you out.

How to Get Started With PaintTool SAI

If you're new to digital art, PaintTool SAI is a great instrument to get moving with. IT's free, easy to use, and comes with an array of features.

Read Next

About The Author

Logan Tooker (34 Articles Published)

Logan tried many things before he barbarous in love with writing in 2011. MakeUseOf gives him a chance to partake his knowledge and acquire useful and fact-filled articles active productivity.

More From Mount Logan Tooker