I’m awful at explaining things, but heres my best go.
First things first, firealpaca is a new art program that is free. You can download it in any language for mac or pc and it works pretty nicely. You can download it here.
Here is how I set up my artboard. Tools are on the left, layers and a preview are on the right. If you ever loose a window, you can click “windows” in the top. You can find save, new file, and open file under “file.” Undo, Redo, Copy, past, ect you can find under “edit.” New layer, fill, clear, rotate, ect you can find under “layer.” Select, Deselect, inverse, ect you can find under “select.” To have the pen or tool snap to a certain line and only draw in one direction, you can find under snap. Color gives you the option of a bar or wheel. "Tools" is basic tools, all of which you can find on the left of your screen as well. "Windows" controls the different windows open such as layers, brush control, color, ect. Help will find you certain tools incase you get lost or need assistance with a problem.
I am working with a mac, not a pc, however the set up and tools are pretty much the same from what I’ve heard.
I’ll start off by explaining how to make a new page, the brushes, and the tools that come with Firealpaca. Like most art programs, you can import different brushes and such to use. It gives you a few basic brushes to start out.
You can either go to the drop down menu under “file” and select “new” to make a new file, or you can use command + N if you’re on a mac.
This window will appear and you can choose the size of your file, the dpi, and the initial layer format (color or 8 bit). I usually work in 2000x2000 unless I’m doing a commission, then it varies around 4000x4000.
Here are the different brushes. You can see their textures below. If you want to edit any of the brushes, just double click on them and youll get a small page to edit the name, type, width, size, and opacity settings.
Those are the main brushes I use when I’m drawing. I use the pen for most things, but I like to paint with pencil and watercolor as well. I have two custom brushes that I use for blood, but nothing else really. The eraser brush erases and the firealpaca brush lets you draw with the firealpaca symbol. I don’t ever use it so I didn’t include it.
Firealpaca also gives you a nice little preview of the brushes when you’re using them. Here you can change the size and the opacity of the brushes really quickly while drawing incase you need a thicker or thinner or less noticeable line.
Above that I have my color palette. I only have saved Bubble, Mod, Carousel, and GhostBunnies colors. To add colors, you click that cute little page button. To delete one, you click on it and click the trashcan button. Be sure you add them in the order you want them because you cannot move the colors around.
These are your tools. They’re pretty basic. Pen for drawing, Eraser for erasing, Dot brush for pixel art, v for the normal arrow tool that I call the grab tool, shape tool for drawing basic shapes (shift does not keep them at the basic size so you will have to eye it), the bucket tool for pouring colors, gradient tool for basic two color gradients, select tool for selections, I dont know those next tools names, I think theyre drawing selection and erasing selection or something, but you can draw with them to make selections which is pretty cool. I usually use the lasso tool though. Text tool for text, however you are very limited with what you can do with text. You have quite a few font options though! hold down option to get the eye drop tool and hold space to be able to move around the drawing if youre zoomed in.
I’ve included the quick keys so you don’t have to go over and click the button every time you need to use a certain tool. Down below you can see the options you get with each tool. The tool options appear at the top of the program and change depending on which tool you are on.
For the pen and the eraser, you get the snap tool (quick keys 1,2,3,4 and 4) which just makes it so you can only draw straight lines in certain directions. You can also draw a straight line by making a dot, holding down shift, and clicking where you want the straight line to go. AntiAliasing makes the lines texturally smoother, and then line correction makes them visually smoother.
The dot brush you can choose your pixel size, anywhere between 1 and 3. This is good for if you’re doing pixel art.
For the shape tool, you can choose your shape (you have rectangles, ellipses, and polygons), you once again can choose antialiasing or not, and for rectangles you can choose to have round corners and the percent of how round they are! You can also edit the opacity of the shape.
For the Bucket tool, you can reference either the canvas or the background. Once again you can choose antialiasing or not, and then theres the expand option! This is important if you are going to be filling or coloring with the bucket tool! It will expand your coloring 0-3 pixels so you dont get that white line between the color and your outline.
Gradients you can choose weather its Linear or circular and you can choose if its forground-background or just background.
The select tool lets you select a certain part of the drawing, for example if you want to cut it out or move it. It gives you four shape options, I usually find myself using the lasso tool when I’m cutting out certain parts of the drawing. If you grab a certain part and realize you suddenly want more, hold down shift while you are selecting and it will just add onto the selection instead of starting anew one.
If you are going to be moving your selection, you must have your move tool over the selected area or it will move the entire layer.
For the drawing selection tools, your only option is antialiasing.
Here is the right side of my screen. I keep the navigator small and it just gives you a preview of the art board. You can zoom in/out by clicking the magnifying glasses or command + +/-. You can zoom to a certain selection by the blank magnifying glass. You can twist the layer by pressing the circular arrows or keyboard right/left, and you can go back to the original right side-up by clicking that cool line circle thing.
Then you get to layers which is very fun. You can change the opacity of the layer with that pink bar. Lower opacity means it will be clearer, higher opacity means it will be stronger. I only change the opacity when I am trying to differentiate between layers or when I am drawing lineart over a sketch.
You have these lovely blending options.
I cant explain them without sounding dumb so I wont try, but Multiply makes the color darker, add will make the color almost white and it will make an airbrush look crazy bright. Great for lighting up sparkles or doing shines on the hair. I dont use overlay or screen much.
Protect alpha will protect the lines under it, a clipping layer will only let you draw on whatever its clipped to, and locking a layer will make it so you cannot draw on the layer at all.
When making a layer, clicking the blank page will get you a new layer, clicking the 8 page will make you an 8 bit layer, clicking the two pages ontop of eachother will duplicate the layer you are on, clicking the page with an arrow will merge the layer to the lower one, and clicking the trashcan will delete the later.
Yeah that’s all I got. I’m horrible at explaining things, so I’m sorry. xD but best of luck!
