What app and how to use it.

Ha! A bum!!

Though Artrage does indeed have the tools mentioned, I think it's a lot easier in Manga Studio 5, and I haven't use it that much. But I found that it's very easy to get used to. I did use it to work on the flooring and walls in the last pic I did on the old site. The Day the Internet Died. Again, found it quite easy to use even for someone who hasn't had much experience doing it.

This suggestion will probably be of no use to you whatsoever but I've recently been obsessing about 2d pixel art and the tools to create it and I recall that Graphics Gale has a spline curve option.
As I said, probably not the kind of thing you're after and I'm not sure if it can create hi-res images but when I tried it out myself I remember thinking that the curve option was really easy to use and that other software should have something like that.

This is really useful stuff! Thanks guys!

Where else can a person get this sort of feedback and support!! I love this place!

I'll look into that too.

I really mean this: a great big THANK YOU!!

Do you (or anyone else) know which of these free apps are compatible with photoshop? Some apps share the same layer blend modes for example, while others do not.

Hey Dom.
I use and have used inkscape a lot for some of the things you're mentioning. You have a couple of options.

You can draw the object like you normally would and trace it using the bezier tool.

Or you can (stilll draw it like normal) and use inkscape's built in trace function and it will smooth it out.

Or just build it in inkscape (but that's not the easiest option to jump into).

I would suggest the second option.

There are a lot of tutorials for each of the options.
Let me know and I can point you in the right direction.

Domtopia wrote:

Do you (or anyone else) know which of these free apps are compatible with photoshop? Some apps share the same layer blend modes for example, while others do not.

In answer to this one. I believe gimp is.