What was your first art program?

[dwinterwolf]

I didn't even have to scroll down very far on the first page to see MS Paint be brought up, as I expected, since that came built-in with plenty of Windows versions - interestingly, most of the ones I see cite the XP version, but for me it would have either been Vista or Win7 (based on me remembering a memory where I remembered we got a new computer in 2009-2010, but I didn't remember too many UI changes, so I can only assume we used to have a Vista PC before moving to 7 during a family PC upgrade... heck, my dad held onto his Vista laptop for quite a long time before jumping straight to Windows 10)! I have a pretty distinct memory of taking pictures of Skye from the internet and creating a PowerPoint presentation of her with them, including a special art piece where she was flying in a blizzard (a.k.a I cropped an image of her flying and went wild with the brushes in MS Paint), and a brief recollection of something I drew completely on my own called something along the lines of "the island where everything happened", with what I believe to be a giraffe thinking to himself about how funny this island was - alas, I believe that and all my other works were lost after we upgraded that decade-old computer to Windows 10, which is a shame. After that, it would have been the Painting minigame in Animal Jam (now called Animal Jam Classic) from when I played in 2015-2016, which was arguably worse in every way, LOL!

The thing that pushed me onto other software was my joint birthday-Christmas present being a shiny new Wacom graphics tablet in 2020, and that purchase came with 2 free years of Clip Studio Paint Pro (1.x), and while that was a hugely steep learning curve, jumping straight from Microsoft Paint Windows 7 edition (and some limited experience with Paint 3D, which I thought was kind of mid outside of the fact that you could colour in 3D models), I'm definitely glad I made the move. I kind of miss the complete lack of anti-aliasing, but that can easily be achieved in more professional programs, so I don't mind too much. And heck, I have Tux Paint on my computer with the full stamp DLC now, and that's been quite a lot of fun 

[mongju]

Ibis Paint X! A lot of my first artworks on there were amateur Gacha Life edits, though I later started making more rendered original art.
I stuck with Ibis Paint despite some flaws (ads, mainly. So many ads) until a school friend introduced Procreate to me, and I've been using Procreate since then.
I also use Tuxpaint sometimes for quick or intentionally shitty doodles.

[takomo]

My very first art program was MS Paintbrush. Not Paint, Paintbrush. I'm feeling old now haha

My first serious, fully featured art program was Photoshop CS3, which my dad somehow got from the art department at his job. I saved up for a good couple of months to get a Wacom pen tablet, since back then they still had the patent on the pen that you didn't have to charge. Totally worth the wait though, changed my life :3

[Xyphien]

For me it was Paint technically. I remember being on a windows 98 computer at my grandfathers house (late 90s early 2000s) and we played on Paint (As well as the pinball game). Outside of playing on it and not actually using it for it's purpose the first actual program I used was Flash and also Photoshop CS2. I'm not sure which one I used first but they were in the same exact era for me and it's when I started getting into making games, websites, graphics etc. (around 2009)

[hunterirving]

Back in the day I used MS Paint (Windows 98) a LOT. I remember using it to make a choose your own adventure-style Pokémon game, where each scene was a folder with a bitmap and a text file, plus several more folders you could navigate into to make decisions (stuff like RUN, ATTACK, THROW POKéBALL, etc).

But the very first art program I used was MacPaint on an old Macintosh (maybe an SE 1/20? hard to tell from the photo), a handmedown that had been my Dad's computer in college. Here I am showing off one of my (1-bit black and white) creations:



These days, I'm building my own art/animation tool called animus, which takes inspiration from KidPix, Flipnote Studio, iScribble, and Mario Paint

[lakes]

I think MSPaint if we're counting stuff I barely used. But you could argue my 1st "real" art program was Fire Alpaca. The main reason I switched was the ads. But it still holds a special place in my heart.

[CrispySeaBreeze]

MS Paint for me. Some of my first drawings on there were scribbles with the closed areas filled in random colors with the bucket tool. I thought they were really good too XD I felt like they could be on a wall like abstract museum paintings. When I got older and got a drawing tablet, I used Firealpaca a lot! It was free and easy to use, and I made a bunch of good stuff on there. My time with Firealpaca was when I started getting serious about art   

[hyperchromatic]

the og ms paint was my very first... right after my parents bought a family computer for the first time i went ham on it LOL

other than that tho... i think the first program i used when i started to get serious about art was firealpaca!