Product Review

Corel Painter X and the 6D Art Pen

Surely this award-winning software package needs no introduction. Its reputation for being the best emulator of “natural” media has not formed for no reason! This digital painting application has touched the lives of many digital artists the world-over and has changed the face of digital art many times over from release to release. Also, thanks to Painter and the talented artists that employ it, digital art is gaining popularity and credibility in the art community.

Painter’s digital arsenal includes interactive bristle brushes, “wet” watercolors, luscious oil paints, and over 40 other traditional media packaged neatly into a single application. With the latest incarnation of Painter, version X (10), Corel adds an entirely new functionality to its interactive bristle brushes with the introduction of Real Bristle Brushes brush category. These amazing brushes mimic the look and feel of a traditional bristle brush by applying brush rotation, a new brush shape (enhanced through the use of seemingly 3D brush tip shapes) which can be customized endlessly to create flat, round, and fan brushes, multiple color support though the Multiple Colors Sampler in the Mixer Palette, and other great features.

In the example above, I’ve put together several samples of strokes created with various Real Bristle brushes and the 6D Art Pen. As you can see, the brush rotation is very prominent. Fan brushes take on new life with interactive control of the angle of the brush tip.