Pixel Glade

The Paintbrush

This page compiles software I use for digital artwork including illustration, graphic design, and pixel art.

Artwork

Affinity is a competitor to Adobe (namely, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign) with a one-off payment model instead of Software as a Service. They make some improvements to the workflow including the ability to switch toolsets (e.g. vector or raster editing) without leaving the program you have open.

A raster and vector drawing program, a Photoshop alternative specialised for manga and anime art. I have used this for years so I am a bit biased. Note their pricing differs depending on whether you are buying for desktop (one-off payment) or portable device like iPad (subscription based).

A vector graphics editing program, a free Adobe Illustrator alternative.

Raster graphics program and a free Adobe Photoshop alternative.

A free Photoshop alternative. I have used Krita for compositing animation. It also has a useful feature called Gamut Maps to help you make restricted colour palettes.

Pixel Art

A free pixel art editing program. I used this for a few projects.

For a small cost, you can get access to this pixel editing program, with more features than Graphics Gale. This said, it is free if you can install the binaries manually but I had no success with this. I have yet to explore all its features, but I made the banner for this site with Aseprite!

Typography

A free font manager and better than the Windows default. Can make collections for fonts to install or uninstall (e.g. for projects).

3D Modeling

Free 3d-modeling software, but has a learning curve. I would suggest looking up YouTube tutorials for small projects that interest you to get started.