Artists with unpopular art programs , show yourself!

[Capybara]

Unfortunately my go-to program is Clip Studio Paint, which is pretty mainstream. So was the program I used before it, Paint Tool Sai/Sai 2. But I do have some experience with this.

- AzPainter 2 is a program I tried before and want to get back into. It's primitive but the tools allow you to make sort of old oekaki-ish type art. I have no idea how else to explain it.

- GIMP. Bad name, okay editor. For several years I used an outdated Mac given to me by family, and I couldn't really run anything good back in the early 2010s... So GIMP was my go-to.

- Colors 3D is REALLY GOOD. The 3DS version, at least. It was the reason I got a 3DS a decade ago, it's a good application and I loved it. If my 2DS could charge, I'd still use it today. I own the Switch version, but despite being better I haven't really broken into it... Especially when the stylus is bent and I'd have to get a new one. Ugh.

- For another art-related 3DS game, Art Academy is decent. I actually quite enjoyed the lessons in the game and they helped me with painting with real media, ironically.

- I dabbled in Artrage for awhile back when I used a Mac, albeit a trial version. It's a decent digital program that emulates real paint.

- For a modern "real media emulation" program, Rebelle 7 fits the bill. It's very good on a technical level, but I personally didn't like it.

- Dotpict is a decent free pixel art editor for mobile.

[atari]

I've used just about every program I can get my hands on, i see it as a sort of taste test for them!
For programs I have used with any consistency we start with the great mspaint! I use it just about as much as I use clip studio paint and have always for about 10 years now. It's definitely unpopular though not unknown. To be honest I think it's a decently competent program and I actually enjoy its simplicity, helps me focus on the art itself.

Going along with this is Pencil2d an open source animation program that's basically the mspaint equivalent for animation XD !!! You can only animate on an 800 by 600 canvas, if there's pen pressure sensitivity I can't seem to get it to work, and it's got some really basic brush features. I adore it though because it just let's you animate the second you open the program! There are other free alternatives that are far better in many ways, but it's simplicity attracts me yet again.

I own the animation program rough animator, it's a semi-obscure payed animation program. It's on both Ipad AND desktop but you can definitely tell it was mainly programmed for the former. I rarely see it talked about when mentioning programs for animation but I find it pretty good!

Medibang paint is also a lot more niche (at least on desktop) and is a more illustration / manga focused sister program to firealpaca. I did quite a few illustrations and digital paintings in it. Its blending was really nice to be honest.

I loved seeing mentions of Krita, Gimp, and the like because I remember starting my art infancy on those before going to sai, firealpaca, sai2, and more! 
Kind regards, Atari @839.14

[AY38910]

Does MS Paint count?
If not, what about Moebius?

[WynterSkies]

I used to use Clip Studio Paint, but the license I had with my original drawing tablet ran out, so now I use Rebelle 6! My husband bought it for me and I like it a lot! It's got good "paper" looking canvases, and I really like their watercolor features and paintbrush textures 

[Malice]

I usually use Krita, but there was this one time I was on Animal Jam for the nostalgia and I remembered that they had a paint program! You couldn't erase which is crazy to me, but I managed to get this done before I got bored and I didn't know how to save, so it only exists as a screenshot now... As you can see I fully abused the blending mode hah:ok:

[xwindows]

I found it surprising that with few months passed by in this thread, no one have came to mention the art program I'm regularly using yet. It's relatively known in libre software scene, but it's not usually heard of in the art circle outside. So now, it's my turn...

Most digital illustrations I have been making in the last decade, are made as SVG vector graphics under Inkscape (1), which is libre software. My drawing hardware being a run-off-the-mill wired optical mouse was one of the reasons that led me to choose vector graphics and Inkscape in the beginning.

• In retrospect, my decision to choose libre software over proprietary Adobe Illustrator early on (2)(3) has proven to be the best decision I have ever made in my artistic journey; considering that Adobe "creative clown" abominations are now available only for lease, require Internet, and feed you to art-laundering machines' chop-shop by default.
  
  • And this is also one of the reasons that I could gradually, nonchalantly, and completely phase out my Microsoft Windows usage over the years: a process which I completed just before the end of 2010s; so I have never needed to inflict myself with a spyware-disguised-as-an-OS named Windows 10 (or Windows 11, for that matter).
• Another bonus point is SVG --a vector format that Inkscape uses natively-- is a long-standing libre web standard that's now widely-adopted; meaning things I saved from Inkscape can be viewed directly on modern and off-modern web browser that everybody have. No such luck with EPS-based `*.ai` files you saved from Adobe Illustrator!

Other than that, at some point in the past, I also wrote my own software so I could sketch things (B/W raster) on my not-Android not-iOS resistive-touch PDA phone at my leisure; but I no longer use that now, because my PDA phone stopped working several years ago.

P.S. I also used to do pixel art with Microsoft Paint 4.x/5.x back in my Windows days. I wished that I could use GNU GIMP for that, but it doesn't have drawing tools suitable for it. In my view, GIMP is only usable for digital raster art task if one has a graphics tablet and use brush tool like a painter. KDE KolourPaint (and to less extent, mtPaint) is a more proper analog of Microsoft Paint, but I have not seriously explored its use for pixel artwork yet.

Don't get me wrong, I still use GNU GIMP on semi-regular basis; but only for photo and general image editing. As already said, It is rather Inkscape that I actually use for drawing.


(1) And since I'm also oldschool, I use tested-and-true version 0.48. (While I run GNU/Linux pretty much exclusively nowadays, I will note here that Inkscape version before 1.x also works on Windows version as early as XP)

(2) Done purely for Stallman reasons; as I have already known about libre software scene, and have been using GNU/Linux as a side OS for several years at that point. (My first few months with Inkscape were even done exclusively under GNU/Linux bootup as well)

(3) Back at the time before I started teaching myself to draw digitally, one of my feet had already been dragged into the quicksand of Adobe's empire by my educational institution (read: high school), because they taught Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia/Adobe Flash. Teaching kids to use proprietary software is like teaching them to smoke-- fostering dependency on a specific product that deteriorate their digital rights, personal autonomy, and social unity at large.