All of the following tools and resources for Drawing & Painting are available online, most of them for free – though sometimes with limitations (e.g. time, number of downloads etc.).
Resources
Bodies in Motion (Figure Drawing)
Bodies in Motion offers sequences of high resolution images captured at 14–16 frames per second, e.g. for animating key poses or studying the anatomy, form, and gesture of the figure during movement. Free version includes only images with watermark. Free (trial)
Croquis Cafe (Figure Drawing)
The Croquis Cafe is a free artist model resource. They produce weekly video recorded modeling sessions and still photos of models from which to draw and paint.
Free
Draw This (Figure Drawing)
Draw This posts a video session with a live model every Friday evening on Youtube.
Free
Line of Action (Figure Drawing)
Line of Action provides online imagery of figure models posing for drawing exercises. Free
Quickposes (Figure Drawing)
Quickposes offers series of photos for figure drawing sorted by poses and gender. Free
Tools
Clearly the dominant provider of graphics related digital tools is Adobe through its Adobe Creative Cloud services (previously Adobe Creative Suite) including Adobe Fresco, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop etc. Most of the apps are available for free trial, but convert to a pay-by-subscription model after a time limit. (For a limited time during Covid-19, Adobe offered all their licenses for two months for free for students and registered users.)
If you’re not eligible for Adobe’s giveaway and/or if you’re generally looking for alternatives, you may find some below.
Alchemy (Software)
Alchemy is an open source drawing software exploring new ways to sketch, draw, and create on computers. It’s intentionally not for creating finished artwork, but rather a sketching environment that focuses on the very early stages of the creative process. You may a more extensive introduction here.
Free
Krita (Software)
Krita is an open source digital painting tool targeting painters, illustrators, comic artists and animators.
Free
Inkscape (Software)
Inkscape is a free and open source vector graphics editor with a rich set of features that is widely used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagramming and flowcharting. (More information)
Free
Vectr (Software)
Vectr is a free, powerful web and desktop cross-platform graphics software to create vector graphics easily and intuitively.
Free
Tutorials
The Kirk Shop (Figure Drawing)
Kirk Shinmoto covers drawing materials, how to sharpen your pencil, and various exercises to learn figure drawing.
Free
Joy of Painting (Painting)
The complete classic 1980s TV series with Bob Ross teaching painting.
Free
