As an artist, I’m committed to using open source/royalty free tools.

This page is a compendium of resources that I personally use or have heard good things about.

I hope you find them to be equally as helpful. I’d also like to include a disclaimer here- I am not sponsored by any of these companies, websites, or programs.

*** Unfortunately, some of my most useful tools do exist behind a relatively small paywall. This mostly applies to art creation programs/apps. Anything on this page that does have a price will be noted with an asterisk (*) and I will do my best to list equivalent free alternatives.

Programs

  • Affinity Logo

    Affinity Designer (*)

    Affinity is both a vector and raster based creation software and by far will have the highest price on this list. That’s because I consider it to be the best alternative program to the industry standard- Adobe Creative Suite.

    Affinity programs are one-time purchases and are available for Mac, Windows, and the Apple iPad.

    The price for computer versions of the software is around $55 USD, and the mobile version is around half that.

  • Procreate Logo

    Procreate (*)

    Procreate was originally developed as a raster based, digital painting app for the Apple iPad. It has since, expanded to add animation capabilities.

    Procreate is my current program of choice when it comes to making art. It’s intuitive and while I was in college the fact that I could carry it with me to class made life a hell of a lot easier.

    Procreate is a one-time-purchase program that sits around $10 USD on the App Store. All updates to the program come for free.

  • Krita Logo

    Krita

    Krita is a free and open-source digital art program aimed at painters and concept artists.

    I’ve never personally used the program myself, but I do own it and love to watch other artists paint with it on YouTube.

    Krita is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac

  • Clip Studio Paint (*)

    CSP is an intensive program aimed at comic artists and animators. The artist community behind this app creates a ton of beautiful, and useful, brushes for the program.

    The only real drawback I see in this program depends on which version you choose to use.

    For those who have Windows or Mac, the program is a one-time purchase of $50 USD. For those wishing to use it on mobile (iPad, iPhone, Android)- it is a monthly charge of $5 USD.

    Edit (12/5/2022) Clip seems to be moving towards both versions using a monthly payment plan. I also have concerns about AI integration.

  • Canva Logo

    Canva

    Canva is a design program that can be used for free in your web-browser. It also has a paid version, and an app.

    The program has become sort of a joking point in the design community for its ease of use, but I’d be remiss if I missed out on mentioning it. Anything beginner friendly is a good thing in my book.

    If you’re looking to get some ideas down quick, and without having to create your own assets from scratch I’d definitely recommend Canva.

  • Blender Logo

    Blender

    Blender is a powerful program that allows artists to draw, paint, sculpt, rig, and animate all in one software. The best part is that it’s completely free!

    It’s got a bit of a learning curve but there are resources on YouTube that can get you started pretty easily.

    Everyone loves the Donut Tutorial.

Image & Icon Libraries

Unblast contains ready-to-use mockups, fonts, and Icons for graphic designers. Resources created by the Unblast team itself are free to use personally and commercially, though resources from other artists may contain different licensing.

Always check the individual license on a product to make sure it suits the purpose you plan to use it for.

Unblast Resource

Coolors is a palette generator available on Android, iOS, PC, and Mac.
I actually used it to generate the colors for this very website!

Drawkit has a library of free and paid vectors for graphic designers to use in their works.

Unsplash is my favorite website for sourcing references in my work.
It is a collection of high quality images from all types of artists that are free to download and to use either personally or commercially- with or without accreditation. though it is always best practice to credit your sources.

Section Image by Jazmin Quaynor

Fonts

  • Favorite Fonts: Mowgli, Bongkar, Haxorville, Neue Protest, Bentoga, Riety, Lavoir, Daruma Drop

  • Favorite Fonts: Pineapple Days, Mentimun, FoxBot, Playfair Display, Hundergad, Kepolu

    Be sure to double check the licenses on this site before download

  • Favorite Fonts: Monserrat, Oswald, Bebas Neue, Pacifico, Abril Fatface, Fredoka One, Baskerville, Special Elite

  • Adobe Fonts are freely usable with a subscription to the creative cloud.

    Favorite Fonts: Puffin Arcade Chrome, New Kansas Bold, Maecenas, Campaign, Cortado Regular, Mr. Eaves