What was your first art program?

[puf]

my very first was ms paint on windows xp, i was 7 years old and it was 2004 !! it is very dear to my heart. ♡
the only "editing" i managed to make on it was write text on top of images, but i did had fun with it, heh
i liked taking screenshots of people's blog layouts, erase their text,
then writing on the blank spaces pretending it was my blog ..
( i did had a blog of my own, but i liked playing pretend because people's layouts were pretty )

the next one was a software that came in a cd when my mom bought a digital camera
sadly i can't remember the name of it ( but i remember it had a picture of a smiling woman in a yellow background when loading )
this one was all about filters, so i would layer 10 filters on top of each other and end up with very compressed anime girl images lol

fun fact : i never used kidpix, actually i only ever heard of it recently !
it looks like it was a lot of fun, but i'm from brazil and here it just wasn't a thing

[Rubbereon]

MS Paint just like everybody else, besides it my second ever drawing app was paint.net, but I ditched it for gimp since I moved to Linux or at least I use Linux for as long as I can. 

[Dan Q]

Well it wasn't MS Paint for me... because that didn't exist yet! Its predecessor PC Paintbrush did, but I didn't have that...

...so my first graphics software, assuming C/PM LOGO doesn't count as graphics software but a programming language, will have been: Gem Paint:

That screenshot is a much later version than I had though. Much fancier! Also, when I first used it I only had a CGA monitor so I could only use four colours at a time (from a theoretical palette of 16), so dithering was essential.

But it was pretty magical!

[knifex]

I started on MS Paint, as soon as I got access to a computer, but I didnt draw digitally much until 2013, where I learned the Right Click Eraser Trick.

Spoiler

< 2010    < 2013

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I switched to Paint Tool Sai around 2014! It was a cracked version my dad found for me and my sister, after we both got Wacom Bamboo Pads for our bdays.

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< 2014    < 2019

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Last but not least, I turned to Procreate in 2021, as I recieved an Ipad for my 5yr anniversary with my bf. I've stuck with it ever since!

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< 2021 < 2026

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Added samples of my art for each program under spoilers, if ur curious!

[cyberdreamz]

One of my earliest memories is drawing a stickman party in MS Paint on my dad's laptop. The WinXP version. So that's my first ever art program I guess!
He also had Photoshop installed, so a little later I started drawing in it too. For a while I used both paint and photoshop interchangeably, usually making the lineart and flat colors in paint and then adding shading or glowing effects in photoshop

Really old cat drawing

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You can see a little bit of shading on its head and paw here. This is the only picture from that time that I've found but there are more somewhere on the web I'm sure.

I also drew a lot of stuff on a website called Toonator. It had its own flash-based drawing space. Unfortunately the site is gone now and all of my old art and animations are gone with it as well.

Here's one screenshot I found

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Then in 2014-2015 I downloaded a trial version of Paint tool SAI on my tiny netbook and it's been my program of choice since then.

Art from 2015 and 2016

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Well, I use SAI2 right now to be more specific.

Art from last month!

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I tried using other programs but SAI is what I'm most comfortable with. It's simple and fast, and I like its brush engine - I'd rather make brushes myself rather than install them from online. I also use Krita when I need to draw something for uni since it has an android version, but I personally don't like how drawing in it feels, so I don't use it for personal art. It's SAI2 on my laptop and Ibis Paint on my tablet forever or untill I get sick of them

[kieraoona]

I don't remember the paint program I used on the Commodore 64 or Amiga, but the first vector program I used in high school was Corel Draw 3, then MS Paint, then Photoshop 5, and these days I use a few programs, mostly GIMP

[Noah_S]

PC Paintbrush

I had that, on a Windows 3.1. Predating Windows 95. First thing I remember drawing is pixel art of a dog.

[foxmosis]

Ya’know, I was gonna say MS Paint because that makes the most sense, and like it’s not inaccurate, but reading this thread reminded me of KidPix!  Not that I really forgot about it but I think I kind of blurred the timeline in my head.  I’m pretty sure the first art program I ever used was KidPix on an iMac G3 in the school computer lab.  I don’t really have any computer memories before that point, and then I probably started using MS Paint on the family computer.  Which lead to downloading Sonic sprites off the internet and editing them in that program.  Later I fiddled around with Photoshop a bit but really Gimp became my art program of choice for a bit.  But I didn’t really start making digital art until I got Paint Tool SAI, and now I’m using Clip Studio Paint.  That was a fun little trip down memory lane.

Although, shout out to Mario Paint!  That was absolutely the first digital format I used to make art.  That’s still an outstanding game.

[Hamandcheesecarp46]

If i remember correctly the earliest art program I used was tux paint on the PC! I can't recall what I drew specifically at the time. Most likely birds or dragons since I was really obsessed with drawing them around the same time when using tux paint and kept filling my school notebooks with them. I did enjoy getting to put stamps together in Tux Paint, and just getting to hear the fun sounds that came along with it, and playing around with the magic too!

[kieraoona]

Ya’know, I was gonna say MS Paint because that makes the most sense, and like it’s not inaccurate, but reading this thread reminded me of KidPix! 

Although, shout out to Mario Paint!  That was absolutely the first digital format I used to make art.  That’s still an outstanding game.

Oh man, Kidpix and Mario Paint.  Now that takes me back.  I've used those too, and totally forgot, lol

[Dynaknights]

Technically, my first art program was probably MS Paint (either that or GIMP or maybe KidPix). However, I'm going to be cheeky and say it was DeviantArt's on-site drawing program from the 2010s, since I never did much with MS Paint beyond messing with the tools.

Next, I remember I used Piskel -- an online pixel art drawing program -- so much in my tweens. I was just rawdogging it with my shitty little Chromebook and its equally shitty trackpad. Awful, but my finished pieces were surprisingly decent for my unfortunate circumstances. There's a period where I used FireAlpaca, AutoDesk Sketchbook, and then Medibang Paint for my 'professional' art I wanted to show to people on social media (mostly -- gags -- Amino). Nasty stuff, but some okay-ish programs for what they were.

Now, I use Krita!

[Mayonaka]

obviously my first art program was MS Paint. we'd use it in elementary school for assignments and such.

the first time i started drawing in my own time though, i used Picsart Color on my phone. Picsart has since turned into an AI first platform, though the tells were kind of always there.

for drawing on my computer, i first used JSPaint and Adobe Flash, and then switched to Krita around '23 for something a bit more refined, and i've used that ever since.

[Mayonaka]

oh my god i forgot about SCRATCH!!!! it's like all i had in the early 2020s. here's some old art i found digging around:

trigger warning for old niche fandom art

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[Assorted Amblings]

Krita :-)

[devils]

2007s Photoshop with a mouse on an iMac. My dad used to be a designer and let me play around on his computers a lot, and I had just learned about digital art.

I wasn't very good at it though ahahahah.