Review One: My Paint, The View Of a Mouse User (More of an Interface Overview than a review)

Review One: My Paint, The View Of a Mouse User

This will by my first official review on an artistic product, I chose MyPaint because I just recently got it and I think it would be good to know for those who haven't used it to see an opinion from a mouse user. Though after rereading it it's more of an overview of what MyPaint has...Please take it for what it's worth anyways.

What is MyPaint?

The name is a bit deceiving but it's nothing like MS Paint at all but is a free opened-source painting program designed to imitate traditional media in a digital way, as such it's made specifically for Tablet users and the tablet pen's ability to have pressure sensitivity, which makes using a mouse somewhat difficult but not impossible. MyPaint is purely a painting program, it's cousin GIMP is commonly coupled together with it for the color balancing, pathing, the extra layer modes that MyPaint doesn't have, and all the other photo manipulation type things that GIMP has the ability to do that MyPaint doesn't.

Features:

Layer Modes:

MyPaint has 5 Layer Modes, being:

• Normal -Default
• Multiply - Makes the colors on the layer underneath darker even if you use the same color.
• Burn - Makes things seem a little burnt and overlayed.
• Dodge - I'm not quiet sure how to explain this one.
• Screen - Makes things lighter.

Brushes:

MyPaint Has 5 default Brush Sets and one Favorites “set” for if you have favorite brushes you put them in there to go back to easily.

The Brush Sets are as follows:

• Classic has 35 brushes
• Experimental has 23 brushes
• Set #1 has 28 brushes
• Set #2 has 36 brushes
• Set #3 has 32 brushes

Note: Some Brushes are bigger than the preview shows.

Color Selection:

There are 2 color selection tools “The Color Triangle” and “The Color Sampler”, I personally use the color sampler but I don't use all the extra options that go with it except the color history, there are many color wheel options for it and things of that nature but I don't like it, that is just a personal preference, though.

Window Modes:

There are 4 window modes for MyPaint.

1. Have the Tool Boxes roam free and move them around as you paint.

2. Dock the boxes on the side of the screen by clicking on the little triangle on the top of the boxes.

3. Have a combination of the latter two and have some boxes docked and some not.

4. Total full screen no boxes or tools seen, not even your windows navigation bar, it's just a full screen for drawing. To get a toolbox you use keyboard shortcuts to make them appear and you select what you want, after the aren't on the screen anymore. To exit full screen press the Escape Button on your Keyboard.

Dynamic Settings:

MyPaint has an extremely versatile dynamics section where you can adjust your brushes to almost exactly to how you want your brush strokes to look; There is a Quick dynamics section then a more detailed section located within the Quick Dynamics Section.

In the Quick Dynamics Section you can customize the following:

• Radius
• Slow Positioning Tracking
• Opacity
• Hardness

And there are 3 modes:

• Normal – The Default Mode.
• Eraser -Whether or not you want to make the Brush you're using like an eraser.
• Lock Alpha To Channel – When you draw you can only color over lines that already exist on that layer.

In the Brush Settings Editor you have the following sections:

• Basic
• Opacity
• Dabs
• Smudge
• Speed
• Tracking
• Stroke
• Color
• Custom

Each Section has one or more slider-bars with things you can change, very good if you are in to super detail with your bushes, I'm a very basic person I use the quick editor more than anything.

Platforms:

MyPaint Works in Linux, Windows, and Mac OS.

Other:

There are many other smaller tools within MyPaint, like an undo and redo button, a flip tool that only shows you how the image looks flipped to insure even lines, you are able to rotate your canvas Shift + middle mouse, or Shift + right click depending on the mouse I suppose - F12 resets it to the original view), a Scratch pad to test things on before you get to the main drawing or during to test things so you don't ruin you image and more!

Is MyPaint Good for Mouse Users?

Okay I've walked you through many of the features of MyPaint and if you made it through that long boring overview then you're probably interested if not at least very opened minded so, you don't have a tablet but you want you use this program, can you without much fuss?

My Answer:

Yes, you can, but with some minimal fuss.

As stated earlier MyPaint is designed for pen tablets like a wacom tablet, when drawing with a mouse you don't have the same pressure freedom as a pen to the tablet, but if you turn opacity down a wee bit then you can still do fine with a mouse, if you are already good with another program like Gimp, Krita, or PhotoShop for drawing then you shouldn't have too much problem drawing anything, coloring you might have a little irritation but don't you give up! You can still make nice things with MyPaint!

Here are an example of what I have come up with using MyPaint.

MyPaint Plus GIMP is like Chocolate syrup and 2% Milk, it's perfect and sweet. I used MyPaint and Gimp for this image.

Here are some tests I did:

The flower is the watercolor brush.

The rock with a butterfly is a mix of brushes but the ground I used the texture brushes and the marker brush to shade.

The heart was just me practicing making something with two different colors that match up to make a shape. - I used different marker brushes, the inking pen for the arrow, and the sponge blender brush to smooth out the shading/lighting.

The eye was just a test like the rest, and the face just to play with the inking pen brush.

I'm not the best at drawing with MyPaint but I think it's perfectly fine if you want to use a mouse, if you have no previous experience with drawing with a mouse it'll be a little harder but it's still worth it, plenty of people draw wonderfully amazing images with a mouse in all different programs!

End Result:

If you have a tablet I highly recommend this program, if you use a mouse I still recommend but how high I do depends on your patience at first.

All in all I rate it 4.5 stars out of 5 because I have never used it with a tablet only with a mouse.

MyPaint Official Web Site

MyPaint Official Downloads 

May God Bless you, your family, friends, your health and the health of all that know you. ~ Amen.

~ Firefly