Champagne Art Tools on a Beer Budget

[Gare]

So the topic title is corny, okay, sue me.

Here's how the story sort of goes: a lonnnng time ago, when the net was young and fairly free of viruses, there was a talented fellow Dieter Steffmann, who used to give his incredibly ornate typefaces away for free at alt.binaries.fonts.

I don't believe Dieter is making or giving away free fonts any more, but TypOasis lives on in a way, and they're archived Dieter's and several other artists' fonts.

Moorstation-Free Blackletter typefaces

They're mostly Blackletter (Goth) fonts, and there are a lot of gems if you do some searching. Here are some of my faves.

[Welles]

That's a super resource. If only I was still in my font collecting days...

[Gare]

Well, you don't have to collect 'em to appreciate 'em, right?

Aww, go ahead and scarf one or two! "Pointage" is wonderful, IMO.

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Although we still offer seamless tiling textures at TheBoutons.com, a lot of my newer ones are at Graphics.com. Click a thumbnail, then right-click to save the image. You don't have to be a member to access my textures or anything, but it's a good idea to sign up: Chris Dickman will like you for that.

Bouton Textures galore!

Boutextures2009.jpg

[Gare]

Photo FilmStrip does only one thing, but it does it flawlessly: you import your photos, specify pans and zooms, dissolves, and then add music.

This open source app for Windows is a 15MB download. If you want a good entry point for adding videos to your Photoshop or other skills, you can't go wrong. This capability can run you $50 and more if or when you'd need to buy a beginner's video editor.

Applet turns photos and art into movies


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[Gare]

Win DVD X authorware is free (regularly $30) through October 2009.

Free DVD authoring software

This sucker runs under Windows 7, so if you have any LOLcats.com vids you want to play on your TV and amuse what's left of your friends, download it!

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[Gare]

If you don't own Adobe Bridge, or just can't spare the time to load a proprietary applet for previewing your camera RAW files, Fast Picture Viewer is a free set of codecs that go right into your Windows system and unobtrusively shows you thumbnails when a folder window is in any of the Icon modes under Win 7.

Free Raw codec for Windows folders!

It also does Targa previews—essentially closes the gap between what you got on hard disk, and which file formats Microsoft thought were important to preview without having to open!



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[Gare]

It's for Mac, Windows, Unix, and the intro version—which is quite good—is small to download and it's free!

Livebrush is a vector drawing program whose developer,David Fasullo, has turned into an open source project...so expect more good things to come of it.

David's approach is different than the forlks who designed Creature House Expressions, but it can produce similar results. The strokes you can draw "blossom" according to the brush type you choose; I've drawn a simple example below, exported it and fiddled a little in Photoshop with the vine-like paths.

For $10 you get the export capability—SVG, which Illustrator can import, and bitmaps. Like any version 1, artists of all skill levels could ask for a little more, but hey, for $10??? I got the download pointer in my email within 3 minutes of PayPal buying it.

David appears to be a social and art-loving cottage programmer, so if you like the free version, help him continue with a few bucks.

The app is written in Adobe Air, using a lot of swf and xml, livebrush.org has developer tools if you'd like to build some additions or some novel other things. It's fast and stable, and unlike other "Web" apps, this guy runs on your desktop and you don't need an internet connection going, just like Evernote.

Free Livebrush vector drawing program

[Gare]

If you don't have enough pennies in your jar for Photoshop or Xara (c'mon, you can get Xara v 2 for $25!), you can still merge photos into a seamless panoramic image with Hugin, for Mac, Windows, and Linux (I think):

Hugin Panorama maker

Give it a spin and read the documentation: creating a great panorama means taking the right photos.

wow.jpg

My Best,

Gare

[Gare]

Vector Jungle offers free vector clipart, specifcally a lot of vector backgrounds at their website. You can download files for free, they don't ask for registration, there is no Commons Copyright stipulation...it's just a nice-spirited resource.

Vector Jungle

So say you're new to Xara Xtreme, you did a nice drawing and you need a background.

1. Pop the Vector Jungle file to your Desktop..
2. Lock the layer on which you've done your drawing.
3. Click the minimize/Restore button for Xara so you have a view of the program and your Desktop.
4. Drag the PDF version in the unzipped file into the Xara window, and then rearrange your layers so your drawing is on top.
5. Go brag up your fancy new composition.

Carnival-tent.jpg

It's really nice artwork!
My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

If you log into your Content Paradise account on Tuesdays (don't ask why, it's a sales gimmick), you can download free Poser animals, one of the nicer ones being the Swan.

Every Tuesday in June!

Aviary news-contentparadise-com Picture 1.jpg

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[Spinland]

Been spending too much time on Facebook: first reaction was to look for the "like" link.

[Welles]

Great tip, Gare. Thanks.

[Gare]

My pleasure!

The swan is a Noggins creation, quite nice (I know because I bout it 2 years ago), with plenty of articulation and over a dozen preset poses including flight. You just set up 2 keyframes of different wing positions, and you have a flight animation.

bot-and-swan.jpg

My Best,

Gare

[Spinland]

Nice! The little pop-up window is cute, too!

[Welles]

Noggin's Poser animals are the best.