Kai

This Doberman Pinscher portrait really sold me on a new painting software.

For 26 years I've used Corel Painter for my portraits. About 2 years ago I – foolishly – opted for a new subscription model for Painter. Automatic upgrades sounded good to me.

Unfortunately, it's two years later with not a single upgrade in Painter. I think I got screwed on the deal.

I never thought I'd ditch Painter, but a few months back I looked for alternative painting software. The subscription model angered me. And as much I liked Painter, it suffers from serious bloat and other irritating aspects.

In particular, my digital brushes in Painter don't respond well to the grain of the canvas. Most of the time the stroke looks too smooth, and not enough like painting on canvas.

Frustrated, I kept up the search for something better; something more like traditional oils.

Enter Rebelle.

Rebelle is a relatively young painting application from Escape Motions.

Is it good? Wow! It responds wonderfully to the surface texture! You can see what I'm talking about in the image above the headline. Those dots are the high points of the digital canvas texture. To my mind, THAT's how oil paint should look.

It's taken a while for me to get the hang of how Rebelle works. Adjusting how I digitally paint to take advantage of the application's strengths is the biggest challenge.

I'm not totally there yet, but I painted this portrait of Kai completely in Rebelle. I'm very happy with it, and so is my customer.

For the time being, I'm sticking with Rebelle as my starter. I'll move Painter to the bench until my current subscription runs out. Then Painter is toast.

Kai (11x14 digital painting). Using my new painting software, Rebelle.