Resource Roundup June 2024 – Art Squirrel

I’ve gathered some random resources and news, recent and not so recent for this months art resource roundup.

PureRef 2.0

PureRef 2.0 is out. PurRef is a program for organising reference images and notes for creative projects developed by Idyllic Pixela 2 person team from Stockholm, Sweden. Version 2 has updated the UI from the last version, implemented full GIF support, introduced drawing tools, grouping features, hierarchical organisation, rich text editing, a title bar with easy access to always on top of feature and other improvements.

ConjureSDF

ConjureSDF for Blender 3.3 is available on Joao Desager’s Gumroad shop and Blender Market. ConjureSDF is a Blender modeling addon. Allowing you to create flawless smooth shapes with non-destructive boolean primitives. Joao Desager is a Technical/Environment Artist and tool developer. The addon is in early development still but if you are after an SDF modeler, have a powerful computer and like using Blender it may be a good option to try.

Shapelab

Shapelab is a VR based digital sculpting software. The latest update of Shapelab adds a desktop mode as well as VR for switching between different tasks as well as other useful features like quad remeshing.

First Beta for Krita 5.2.3 Released

The official Krita blog has more details. They also recently posted about how Krita has been around for 25 yearsthat is a long time. I only started using it around 2016 with the 3.0 version.

Impasto RGBA Brushes for Krita

Memileo Impasto Brushes for Krita have been released by Emil Maselli. These RGBA brushes have been in development for some time, the artist has posted updates on the Krita Forum and improved them based on real feedback from Krita users.

Our Paint

Our Paint is a new “hand-made” program for digital painting by the same developer that worked on Grease Pencil in Blender, Wu Yiming.

Relief Maker

Relief Maker developers have been improving their program for creating Bas Relief’s from 3d models. You can see the list of changes on the releases page. I am on-and-off working on a project which I will use this software for.

Pixel CNC

Pixel CNC has released v1.80b with new features and improvements.

Besides being a program for creating, cutting and visualising designs for CNC machines it is also handy for creating vectors from line work with the trace canvas to paths feature and any designs can be exported as images or 3D models for use in other programs.

Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop released an update which includes a new Adjustment brush tool for making specific area non-destructive edits to images.

Corel Painter

I’ve often wondered how the development is going on with “Corel” Painter so I dug around a little and found an idea portal the developers are running. Corel changed ownership to a company called Alludo and there hasn’t been a new version of Painter or many updates for a while. There was a comment on this page that suggests they are focusing on stability and performance updates though.

I got the full working 2023 version of the program on Humble Bundle (legit) for around $20 last year. I wouldn’t pay the full asking price considering how many good and more affordable or free alternatives there are but the 2023 version was good. Most new digital painters are using touch screen tablet based software these days though, something Painter doesn’t as yet support.

Aperiodic Monotile Discovery

For Tesselation art fans there was some interesting news last year that Craig S. Kaplan wrote about on his blog about the discovery of an Aperiodic Monotile by himself and David Smith. Dr Chaim Goodman-Strauss, a University of Arkansas mathematician, and Dr Joseph Myers, a software developer in Cambridge, England also helped in the discovery.

The discovery was celebrated by an event known as “Hatfest” after the shape’s appearance. the 13-sided shape can be arranged in a tile formation such that it never forms a repeating grid.

Interestingly the shape was known of but had been overlooked for a long time. Just shows how important hobbyists can be to the development of maths, art and science.