best soft for emulating ballpoint pen ?

[misterD]

Hello.

I'm very happy i found this community. I'm sure you can help me.
I've recently purchased a USB pencil tablet to draw on my PC.
Now i'm looking for the best possible software to emulate all sorts of pens in the most realistic possible way :

felt-tip pens, lead pencil, ballpoint pen (this is my priority), lead pencil, marker pen, Posca Paint Markers etc.

thanks for your advices

[ragtag]

There are several options.

The most expensive at around $400 and most complete is probably PainterIX http://apps.corel.com/painterix/home/index.html , it can emulate all kinds of natural media, including pens, pencils, chalks and more. There is a cheaper version of it called Painter Essentials too at $79. There is a demo at their site you can download and try.

Then there is Project Dogwaffe or PD Digital Painter. Their website http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/ looks a mess, but the software is quite usable. Priced at under $100 it might be worth checking out. Only tried the demo, and found the interface a bit weird. Note, it's only awailable for Windows.

Then there is ArtRage http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html . There is both a quite usable FREE version of it, and one with slightly more features at $20. It's a very simple program for drawing with natural media tools. It has it's limitations, but is very nice for what it is. I bought the $20 version, and it has been worth every penny.

There are a few other like Sketchbook Pro at $200 http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=6848332 (which I believe is a lot like ArtRage, though I've never used it) and Bauhaus Mirage http://www.bauhaussoftware.com/[/url]products_mirage_studioPRO.php which is rather expensive aprox $500, but much MUCH more than a simple painting tool. It's a complete animation and compositing package in one. Tried the demo and was very tempted to buy it, except I didn't have any project I was working on that I could use it for.

Finally, if you want to do black and white comic inking you should check out MangaStudio http://www.e-frontier.com/go/mangastudio_hps and ComicWorks http://www.animebooks.com/decowo.html .

That's all I can think of from the top of my head, I'm sure there are more.

Cheers,

Ragnar
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