2d Program?

[irobashi]

Hey me again, my friend Jordan suggested I find a 2D art animation program before I try the 3D Blender program out, an animation one where you can make a video or little show and practice. Anyone know somewhere a safe program or site to download a good program thats free?

[cookepuss]

Great free 2D programs are actually harder to find than 3D ones. Blender is really quite an excellent piece of work. Finding something of that scope and depth for 2D is a little tricky, especially if you're talking about 2D animation. However I can suggest the following:

Plastic Animation Paper (http://www.plasticanimationpaper.dk/)
Pencil (http://www.crystalxp.net/news/en466-pencil-beta-version-animation-drawing-software.html)
Synfig (http://www.synfig.org)

If all you're looking for is 2D, without animation, then you could always try:
Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/)
Paint.NET (http://www.getpaint.net/)

None of these programs come without their own quirks, bugs, and oddities. However, they're free and serve their own distinct purposes. For the price, why complain? :)

Naturally, you can get better stuff if you're willing to pay a couple of bucks. You can get ArtRage for $25, Flipbook Lite for $79, and PaintShop Pro X2 for as low as $65. Each of these serve different purposes and are, in their own ways, viable alternatives to the more expensive apps like Painter, ToonBoom, or Photoshop - respectively.

Free is always a lot to ask, especially if you're spoiled by Blender's. However, cheap is doable. You can always find inexpensive competitors to or knockoff of the high end apps.

[Wynn]

Blender is a nice app for sure... it would be nice if we had more programs like that out there.

This one doesn't feature any animation but I just found it and It seems quite nice so far.. feels a lot like photoshop. Its a free web based app, and from what I've done it runs quite well for being on the web..

http://www.sumopaint.com/web/

[blankslatejoe]

i can second art rage--you can try out a nearly fully featured free version too, for download on their site. It's more painterly and not as useful outside the scope of raw painting, but it's an excellent tool for improving your color usage.

[nihilicon]

Thank you for showing us those apps cookepuss and segreto I'd never heard of them but they are also great for doing educational stuff with 'underprivileged' people (which is quite often what I do), it's great to be able to show them cheap or free apps that do cool stuff. Sumopaint is pretty amazing for an on-line tool and I could see lots of opportunities for using Plastic Animation Paper as well. I've read lot's of glowing reviews of Artrage also so I'm thinking I might go see what all the fuss is about.

[irobashi]

yeah thanks guys you rock!