Escape Motions

We're a small studio of creatives and coders dedicated to develop innovative visual tools - Flame Painter, Rebelle and Amberlight.   

[escapemotions]

Very Merry Christmas and Cheers to a Happy 2020!

One more year passed away. And a new beginning is here to start. 

Thank you all for being part of our successful 2019!  

From everyone here at Escape Motions, we wish you the most beautiful and blessed Christmas season filled with love, happiness, and laughter. Health & Success are knocking at your door-step. Greet them and be happy for the year ahead. 

Happy New Year!

See you in 2020 with a lot of new ideas and energy. :)

Warm wishes, Peter, Michal, Miro, Lubo, Anton, Pavol, Jarko, Palino, Andrea & Veronika

[escapemotions]

Thanksgiving Artwork Contest: The Winners

We would like to thank everyone who joined our Thanksgiving Artwork Contest this year. There are many things to be thankful for and we are truly honored that so many of you decided to share them with us and other users through your art. Let’s reveal the winning artworks of the #IAmThankful artwork contest:

1st place: ‘What I Am Thankful’ For by Junkyard Sam 

“It's 2019 and I am thankful for family, turkey dinner, and Rebelle 3! This Thanksgiving holiday I'm teaching my boys how to draw in Rebelle. They've watched me for years but they're finally old enough to draw on the Cintiq. They're going to love Rebelle!”

Prize: $200 USD Amazon eGift card and $200 USD credit at Escape Motions shop

2nd place: ‘Thankful For Drawing Tools’ by Gynux

“I'm thankful for all the great tools that have been invented so we can "put on paper" what's on our mind :) These tools have increased my passion for drawing and allowed me to make a living out of it! So yeah... pretty thankful! ;) This one has been inked with my favorite Copic Multiliner and colored with Rebelle 3.”

Prize: $100 USD credit at Escape Motions shop

3rd place: ‘Thanksgiving’ by MaryProki

“I'm thankful for the people and events that make me happy. In this illustration, I tried to express my valuable people who were with me and helped me grow. I am also grateful to the events that led me to realize that I was am and be an artist, and therefore I also devote part of the gratitude to teachers and developers for creative programs, including Escape Motions. Thanks for the opportunity to realize their creative skills in digital.”

Prize: $100 USD credit at Escape Motions shop

Honorable Mentions

Our panel of judges, which included members of Escape Motions and members of the art department of the university UKF Nitra, chose the winning entries based on the strength of their emotive elements, expression of the thanksgiving topic and technical excellence. Besides the three winners we would like to reward 2 more artworks with Honorable Mention:

Honorable Mention: ‘Lasagne Night’ by Jane Smith

“My two dogs, Monty and Napoleon, were great connoisseurs of good food. They were such a handful but so much fun and heaps of inspiration - I\'ll always be thankful for them.”

Honorable Mention: ‘Untitled / Sin Titulo’ by RoberLuis

“The powerful 1932 hurricane is the worst natural catastrophe seen in Cuba. This meteorological event has the sad merit of being the only one in history that has wiped a Cuban people, Santa Cruz del Sur, off the face of the earth. Here they are family homes in Santa Cruz del Sur, Cuba that survived the 1932 hurricane and the passage of time. Giving thanks for my wonderful family.”

Congratulations to our winners! To see all of the contest entries, click here.

And that’s a wrap on our first Thanksgiving Artwork Contest! Thank you to everyone who participated, we wish you a happy Thanksgiving, no matter where in the world you currently are :) And as a final word, let us express how thankful we are for you, our dear artists. You are the reason we do what we do and thanks to you we can do what we love - develop creative software and make this world around us a more creative place. THANK YOU!

With love, Your Escape Motions Team

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Rebelle 3.1.8 Update is Out

Today we’re releasing a new update to Rebelle 3 - version 3.1.8 - containing four important bug fixes that will improve your creative workflow. This update is available for download from your Community profile and is free for all Rebelle 3 users.

What’s fixed in Rebelle 3.1.8:

Bug with pen rotation - Sometimes the pen rotation mistakenly changed with canvas rotation in older versions. This resulted in different outcomes when different rotation was set in the Navigator panel, e.g. horizontal stroke painted when the canvas was not rotated looked different than when the canvas was rotated at 90 degrees.

Pixelation / Artifacts - This troublesome issue has been reported by a few artists: when painting and switching between layers, a strange pixelation appeared. Unfortunately, it was also saved in the final work. The only way of removing it from the image was to repaint the affected areas. See the example of the pixelation below:

Color switch after saving - Another strange bug that might appear in some cases was a change of colors in the image after re-opening it in Rebelle. All is fixed in the latest update.

A diacritic - The diacritic in layer names was not saved properly from time to time. After reopening the file in Rebelle, the layers could have odd symbols instead of the diacritical marks.

To get the latest 3.1.8 update, log in to your Community profile and go to My Profile > Purchases. Definitely let us know how you like working with the update via Rebelle’s menu Help > Send Feeback.

Happy painting! Your Escape Motions Team

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NOTE: There might still be issues with Rebelle where you experience unusual lag on macOS. This was first introduced in the 3.1.6 version. The workaround is to use a 3.1.5 update where the painting process is seamless. We believe the issue behind this is in the Qt-platform itself (which we use for building Rebelle). Right now, there is no workaround for our development team to fix this, so we’re waiting for the solution from Qt creators. Please excuse this inconvenience.

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Artwork “The Hunter” by Simon Lovell - Rebelle Featured Artists | escapemotions.com/featured-artists/simon-lovell

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Artwork Contest: What Are You Thankful For?

The month of November puts Thanksgiving front and center. There are lots of things to be thankful for: a place to call home, a job that fulfills, good health, and all of the people who helped achieve these things, your family, friends. Since the holidays are around the corner, we feel it’s a good time to express what or who you're most thankful for. Show it in your artworks and get a chance to win $200 Amazon gift card and $200 credit at Escape Motions shop.

Open to everyone

This contest is open to everyone from across the world. Thanksgiving Day may not be celebrated everywhere or on the same day, but we encourage anyone who would like to show their gratitude to enter this contest. Saying ‘Thank you’ does not know any boundaries :)

How to enter the Contest

Publish artwork fully or partially created in Rebelle, Flame Painter, Amberlight or Inspirit software to the Escape Motions Community gallery with hashtag: #IAmThankful The topic of the contest is “What I Am Thankful For”. Each entrant may publish a maximum of four (4) artworks to the contest. The entry may be a painting, an illustration, a photo manipulation or an abstract composition. Your imagination is the only limit here. Using third party software is allowed but the use of our software must be obvious in the final image.

When uploading your entry, please don’t forget to write a description of the picture to let us know what the image depicts, what or who you are thankful for and why. You can submit your entries in the following ways: - Publish directly from the software and add a tag #IAmThankful, or - Upload your artwork from your Community account and add a tag #IAmThankful

Uploading artworks to Contest Gallery

You can start uploading your entries from today, November 15th, 2019 (contest starts). We will accept all entries submitted by November 27th, 2019 23:59 GMT (contest ends). We will announce the winners on the U.S. Thanksgiving Day, November 28th, 2019.

To publish your entry from Rebelle, Flame Painter or Amberlight software, go from the menu File or Community > Publish. Set Picture name, Description add #IAmThankful hashtag to Tags and click "Publish" button. It is not possible to publish directly from Inspirit. In order to enter the contest with Inspirit work, the entrant needs to upload it directly through his Community account and add #IAmThankful hashtag to Tags.

Judging

Three winners will be selected internally by us in the Escape Motions team. We will judge all submitted art pieces based on quality, personality, and originality.

Prizes

The main prize for the 1st place is a $200 USD Amazon eGift Card and a $200 USD credit to be used at Escape Motions shop. Moreover, we’ll choose winners of the second and the third place who will each get $100 USD credit to be spent at Escape Motions shop.

Rules

We believe this blog covers the most important information on how to join the contest. You can also review the full rules here: https://escapemotions.com/thanksgiving-contest-rules

...or if you have any questions, feel free to ask us at info[at]escapemotions.com

Happy “thanks-painting” :-) Your Escape Motions Team

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Photo by Karolina Badzmierowska on Unsplash

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Amazing 5 Paper Sets for Rebelle Have Been Released!

Today we’re releasing five brand new sets of extraordinary papers to accompany your creative time with Rebelle. They are based on the real-world papers used by traditional artists. The new paper sets include classic cold pressed papers, but also exotic papers like mulberry, coconut or papers made from straw. We did our little magic to turn them into a digital form to make them behave incredibly realistically. 

Handmade Spread – Recycled Papers

The papers in this set were created by manually spreading of recycled paper mass onto sieves or linen. The unrepeatability of the production process ensures that each paper is original with unique visual characteristics. These ultra-realistic digital papers are suitable for watercolors, acrylics, ink or pastel drawing. The unique textures in this original paper collection will make your artwork stand out!

Mulberry, Coconut & Straw – Experimental Papers

This exotic assortment includes paper from coarse coconut fiber, mulberry paper and a combination of fine mulberry fibers and pressed straw. The wild edges of these materials will complete your work beautifully. The papers are suitable for courageous experimenters with watercolor, ink and any dry technique. If you like the frottage technique, this set is for you!

Cold Pressed Pure Cotton – 100% Cotton Papers

Pure cotton paper is one of the finest materials used in the world of watercolor painting. This set offers three cold-pressed papers with the beautifully distributed grain. The edges that seem to bubble over a paper form imitate a tear-off from a watercolor sketchbook. Papers are excellent for any wet technique. Just grab the brush and make your first stroke!

Exotic Crumpled – Wrinkled Paper Texture 

This set is based on the old tradition of refining paper by its scrunching. The papers were created by the additional crumpling of paper made from exotic Lokta bush, noble mulberry, and fine cotton. Surfaces are a unique combination of material characteristics, creasing, and layering. These watercolor painting papers allow you to create works of unusual appearance in a variety of wet and dry techniques.

Cold Pressed Mix – Watercolor Papers

There are never enough high-quality cold-pressed papers! This set includes a paper with a fine, horizontally structured surface on which every detail will stand out, a paper with a regular texture and a typical watercolor paper with a medium rough random grain. If you want to study different watercolor techniques, pencil and ink drawing, you need to give this set a try.

How We Create Papers for Rebelle

The ultra-realistic papers are an absolute gem. When creating papers, we look for a suitable contrast in texture to capture the characteristics of the fibers, which creates a unique paper structure every time. Papers are not a simple copy of reality. They are new textured images created with respect to the original pattern and behave realistically like real papers while painting in the Rebelle.

The new, as well as the rest of the paper sets, are available from our website for $9.99 USD each. Every set contains three different papers.

We wish you many creative moments with the new papers :-) Your Escape Motions Team

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These papers and canvases are exclusive assets for Rebelle software (version 3.0 and newer). They were created by Lubomir Zabadal, an expert for traditional art media and assistant professor at UKF University, Slovakia.

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3 Types of Flame Painter 4’s Multi-brushes That Will Speed Up Your Workflow

For the past few decades, the virtual environment and use of technological elements have become a very advantageous instrument for anyone working in the creative field. Having a productive workflow is crucial for artist’s creative process in today’s saturated market. We all know these approaching deadlines when the time seems to evaporate before our eyes.

With Flame Painter 4’s particle multi-brushes, creating and perfecting your digital work has never been more effective. This unique feature nowhere to be found in other software allows for a great variety in a single stroke without having to draw all the individual elements each time. This can save you hours of time doing it another way!

Although the possibilities of how brushes can look and behave are endless, we’ve divided them into 3 categories based on what results you can expect:

Draw & Paint Brushes – fundamentals of your paintings

Flame Painter’s Draw and Paint Brushes mimic similar visual effects of real-world brushes but give your art something extra. Such a magical brush can imitate various painting and graphic techniques. Calligraphy brushes, pencil, ink, airbrush or various pen variations are here for your creative outbursts. Just soak them in different colors or shapes and the wild painting process can start.

Photo Effects Brushes – a magical touch to your photographs

Are you a photographer or a graphic designer and spend a lot of time combining different tools to achieve the desired photographic effect in your work? Struggle no more! Just use one of the Flame Painter’s Photo Effects Brushes and start creating. With only a few moves you will get a cloudy sky, campfire, forest stand, snow, rain, various plants, and much more. At your fingertips, you have a variety of lighting and optical effects ideal for changing the atmosphere of your photos. You can be sure that the inspiration will strike, just create!

Graphic Brushes – catchy effects on your graphic designs

Would you like your graphics to be less technical work and more creative visual discovery? Reach for Flame Painter’s Graphic Brushes! Experiment with surfaces, lines, patterns by combining different shapes or even paint with whole images. Different particle systems with numerous variables, such as gradients, textures, shapes, strokes, or stroke sequences are at your disposal to play with. However, you don’t need to examine all of this! Just choose the right graphic brush and you’ll have your designs, presentations, backgrounds, flyers or posters ready in no time.

At last, here’s our advice for busy artists: Get inspired by the brushes that are added by your fellow Flame Painter artists to online Brush Library every day!

What brush do you enjoy the most in the latest Flame Painter 4 version? What do you miss? We’d love to hear from you!

Your EM team  

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Images by borjo & ps_zeus

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Download Free Flame Painter Backgrounds

What’s better than a good design? A free good design! With Flame Painter 4, we have created eight unique backgrounds you can download and use in any way you want - either as a wallpaper for your computer or phone or as a basis for your next projects. Your imagination is the only limit.

You will find both JPGs and FPAs files in the download package, so if you own Flame Painter 4 you can edit the files according to your needs. Most of the designs have been created in vector layers so you are able to edit color or paths of the vector strokes. The backgrounds are royalty-free, available for commercial use and with no attribution required. However, if you use them in your project, you are very welcome to credit Flame Painter 4 and thus help us spread the word about this powerful software. 

1. Behind the Scenes - Download

2. Stars Collide - Download

3. The Vessel - Download

4. Swirl - Download

5. Luminous - Download

6. The Roots - Download

7. Trinity - Download

8. Energizer - Download

Download all eight backgrounds in JPG and FPA file formats from this link. 

We hope you enjoy the backgrounds as much as possible :) Your Escape Motions Team

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Flame Painter 4.1 Update Released

Today we are releasing a new version of Flame Painter 4 which brings several useful features including a straight line, ruler and perspective tools and also comes with many fixes and changes. The update is available for download from your Community profile or directly from the software and is free for all Flame Painter 4 users.

What’s new in Flame Painter 4.1:

1. Straight line, Ruler & Perspective tools - The next Flame Painter version brings new possibilities for drawing straight lines and perspectives.

The fastest way to paint a straight line now is to press a [Shift] key, set the starting point, press the mouse button or a pen to set the ending point and naturally draw the line between the points.

You can paint the straight lines also with the new Ruler tool. You can lock the control points if you don’t wish to move the ruler, or paint with a freehand, so the lines will not be so strict and artificial when painting.

In addition, the new Perspective tool acts as an assistant for drawing perspectives. You are able to select from one point, two or three-point perspective. You can also lock vanishing control points, lock the horizon or also paint with a freehand.

You can find the new Ruler and Perspective tools under the “Edit menu” in Flame Painter 4.1. You can activate them via shortcuts as well - use Shift+R for Ruler and Shift+P for Perspective.

2. Import Brushes via the “File” Menu - This option has been added under the “File menu” in 4.1 version. It allows you to select multiple PNG brushes from your computer which you previously downloaded from the online Brushes library and import them to Flame Painter 4 quickly and easily. The brushes will be installed to the Brushes folder as well as the Brushes panel to their particular particle system. 

3. Filter brushes via “Brushes” panel - Select if Paint, Graphic, Effect or All brushes should be displayed in the Brushes panel using the new icons we’ve added. Here you can also select to use palette and blend mode from the currently selected brush:

In the previous versions, these options were buried under the panel’s menu.

4. Quickly increase or reduce the number of vertices of a vector path - Double or reduce the number of vertices on the vector path by half in “Edit Vector Layer” Properties panel. You may find these new buttons very useful especially when you have a vector stroke with a lot of vertices. Reducing them by half with each click will help you edit the path hassle-free. If you’re not satisfied with the result, you can use the Undo feature.

5. "Spacing" and "Spacing Jitter" added in 'Shape Profile' - There is quite an arsenal of parameters you can adjust to create the perfect brushstroke. The 4.1 update lets you do even more - we’ve added “Spacing” and “Spacing Jitter” for a sequence. This way you can set the spacing and its jitter between the individual sequences of the shape profile. Here you can also use the new button “Influenced by speed” which will help you create various spacing results based on the speed you paint with:

( A ) - Spacing = 200, no Jitter, ( B ) - Spacing = 200, Spacing Jitter = 90, ( C ) - Spacing Influenced by Speed

6. UI Translations - Version 4.1 is available in English and three additional languages: German, Spanish, and Slovak. If you’d like to help us with the translations of Flame Painter 4 into your native language, be sure to send us an email at info [at] escapemotions.com.

Further changes and fixes:

- Fixed: After PSD export layers were locked after opening the file in Photoshop; - Fixed: In Vector Layer Editor, when changing Particles parameter in Elastic/Ribbon Particle System, Init Curve could break; - Fixed: In Vector Layer Editor, sometimes after transforming the vector layer, Init Curve Transform could be incorrect; - Fixed: In Vector Layer Editor, undo for Edit Tool was not always working; - Fixed: Sometimes the drawing with Brush tool did not work after switching from Transform tool; - Other minor bug fixes.

You can download the Flame Painter 4.1. update the following ways: - from your Community account (go to ‘My profile’ > ‘Purchases’ tab), - from Flame Painter's Download page, or - directly from Flame Painter 4 menu: Help > Update to 4.1.

Definitely let us know how you like working with the update via Flame Painter’s menu: Help > Send Feeback.

Happy painting! Your Escape Motions Team

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Color Palettes of the Fortune 500, You Never Thought Of

Took a look around at your surroundings, we’re sure you could spot color or two. Actually, it might be harder to find a lack of colors in most places. Colors are so ingrained in our culture, that we subconsciously choose colors in situations like when we get dressed in the morning or buy a new bedspread for our bed. 

Even after our purchase, we may bring it home and wonder why we don’t like that color with the room paint or we aren’t quite feeling right about that bright shirt with our skin complexion. Since colors are all around us, it can be difficult to step away and realize how color can be consciously used when you’re going through a rebrand or an important project. 

That’s why Bold Web Design made the Color Palette tool that takes a look at the color palettes for the Fortune 500. It was made for inspiration and education when designers are stuck on color choices in their next project. 

When talking about color, it’s natural to attach them to emotions. In fact, in marketing colors are used all the time to evoke a certain feeling. Think about when painting a new room in a house, you choose the color carefully. Light greens are associated with calming, so you may paint your master bedroom that color. Other colors like purple or red are extremely daring - you tend to not see these as much, except for maybe a feature wall. 

Yet, you may see purple in a daycare as it sparks playfulness. Think: Barnie is purple! Black and white is a classic color combination that can be seen as sleek or powerful, especially if it’s opposed to the use of color. 

For example, companies tend to have a colorful color palette, but brands like Apple stray away from this, showing their power in the industry. Speaking of brands, let’s take a look at a few color palettes below. 

Ally has a pretty creative color palette for being a financial services company, as their main color is purple. Let’s dive deeper.  Purple can be associated with luxury, a term that many would like to hear when dealing with their finances. On the color wheel, purple, blue and orange are all next to each other. These colors subtly complement each other without making a harsh contrast. 

You may need your sunglasses for this one. Chemours chose an extremely bright color palette composed of oranges, peaches, pinks, and reds. Similar to Ally, this brand is choosing colors that are very similar to each other.  Oranges project warmth and optimism - a tactic the company could be using to associate positive feelings with their company. This overall color palette brings an air of optimism to their company perception. 

When you have a large consumer pool like Newell, you need to appeal to a lot of different people. Newell’s color palette does just that. This is a great mix of many different colors and spans all over the color wheel.  With a few complementary colors, these colors create much more of a statement against each other. These colors also seem to have a cool tone, which could be compared to the sophistication they have within the consumer industry and their ability to stay on top of trends. 

When thinking of your credit card, the last thing you’re paying attention to is the company colors. Yet, Mastercard seems to have a different approach.  While they do have green in their color palette which is commonly associated with health and wealth, they also have a bright orlay of oranges that represent warmth and optimism. While that may not be what most think of when diving into their finances, it’s a good reassures. This considered, Mastercard chose to only stay on one half of the color wheel. 

Utilities are the last thing you’d think of when looking at the color wheel. In fact, you may not think of any colors but the basic neutrals like grey and black. Edison International took a different approach though. They seemed to replicate nature in their color palette.  Dark green with the contrast of yellow could easily represent the sun and grass. Purple is definitely the pop of color, a complementary color from yellow on the color wheel. 

Conclusion

When it comes to colors, we all may have a bit of a blind spot. We grow up with colors all around us, and although we learn colors in school, generally it’s just to remember the names and maybe the color wheel basics. 

Yet, try changing the colors you generally wear for a day. Wear a yellow top if you normally wear black and see if it brightens your mood a bit. Paint your room and see if it changes how other colors look next to your walls. The options with colors are endless. Use them to their full potential. 

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This blog is a guest post written by Debbie Morgan. About the author: Debbie Morgan is a writer that loves adding a witty analogy to any concept. With experience in the design and marketing industry, she’s seen her fair share of designing do’s and don’ts but loves to bring color to her explanations of these helpful concepts.

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10 Amazing Features of Flame Painter 4 You May Not Know About

Even though you may use the latest Flame Painter 4 every day, you may not have found all of its secrets. In fact, the recently released upgrade has a few tricks up its sleeve that you probably are not aware of. In this blog, we’d like to share with you some tips so you can take full advantage of the recent version.

1. Use artificial pressure of mouse - If you don’t own a graphics tablet with a pressure-sensitive pen, don’t worry! You can still achieve similar results of stroke fading with your mouse thanks to the feature we’ve implemented to Flame Painter. Set the ‘Fade’ value for Mouse pressure in the Brush Creator panel for each brush. Open the panel via Window menu or with the button at the bottom of the Properties panel. Go to the ‘Shape’ section of the panel, then select ‘Stroke’. Here you can set the Fade value for Mouse pressure from 0 to 10. Zero means no pressure, while 10 is the highest artificial mouse pressure possible.

If you would like to use you can use artificial pressure even when Fade is set to ‘0’, just enable 'Always use minimal pressure for stroke fading’ option under Preferences > Tools:

This is especially handy when you use a custom brush that has a Fade value set to 0. This way you will still be able to achieve results with a mouse as if they were painted with a pressure-sensitive pen.

2. Set ‘Smoothing’ options - Various smoothing options for your brush strokes are at your disposal in Flame Painter 4. The Position Smoothing lets you set the smoothing of cursor position for both mouse and pen. When set to ‘Max’ value, the cursor will follow more smoothly and you can paint beautiful calligraphic lines.  The Pen Pressure Smoothing enables you to set the smoothing of pressure for tablet pen. When set to ‘Max’ value, the pressure transitions in the stroke will be smoother.  And finally, the Pen Sensitivity Smoothing gives you the option to set the smoothing of pressure sensitivity curve for tablet pen. When set to ‘Soft’ less pressure is required, when set to ‘Firm’ more pressure is required.

Each of these settings can be found in a separate pop-up panel of Properties panel or directly in the Preferences.

3. Explore ‘White’ or ‘Black to Alpha’ Filters - These two features are quite hidden in the Filter menu. Have you ever wondered what they are good for? Just like in Rebelle, these two “filters” remove black or white background from the current layer. Meaning, if you have a design or a photograph with a white or black you can easily remove it with one click in Flame Painter and add your own creative background layer:

4. Have fun with tiling on a vector layer - Tiling has been part of Flame Painter for some time, but to version 4 we even made it possible to tile the vector layers. You are able to create some fantastic designs with this option and if you’re not 100% satisfied with any of the brush settings, easily change it and the vector paths will adjust:

Enable tiling from within the ‘Filters’ top menu in Flame Painter 4.

5. Experiment with ‘Lock Transparency’ - Lock all transparent pixels of a layer with this simple function. This way, you can re-design your already painted strokes or import custom shapes and designs and overlay them with Flame Painter’s brushes loaded with a texture:

Lock Transparency is available in the Layers panel, next to Lock Layer button.

6. Import custom images to Brush Creator panel - Brush Creator panel in Flame Painter gives you immerse possibilities for your brush creations. One of them is the import of custom shapes. You can either create the shapes in a third-party program or download some from the internet. Another option is to create them directly in Flame Painter 4. With the function ‘Set Image from Layer/Selection’, you are able to quickly load the image to your currently selected brush, just like on the video below:

7. Raise the quality of your strokes - There are many ways of improving the quality of painted strokes. For bitmap layers, set the Detail of the brush to higher values in Brush Creator panel. In addition, turn on the Antialiasing (AA) to diminish jagged lines and smooth the painted lines. For vector layers, use the HiRes Renderer via Layer menu. This is a polygonal renderer which fills the space between dots and makes the picture smoother without the appearance of Moire artifacts. Also, if you save your work in JPGs, don’t forget to turn the JPEG quality to the maximum in the Preferences panel.

( A ) - Detail 1, no AA | ( B ) - Detail 1, with AA | ( C ) - Detail 4, with AA

8. Extend canvas with ‘Safe Boundary’ - If you’re new to Flame Painter you can easily overlook this simple yet effective feature. Safe boundary creates a boundary around your file’s borders which serves as an extended canvas. If you need to move your design a little to the left, right, up or down, you can! Because your design is already being painted on the safe boundary. Just go to Preferences and set the ‘Safe Boundary’ option to visible. Here you can also set its size and opacity which will be applied to the next new file you’ll create.

9. Use palette and blending from brush - This option is accessible from the Brushes panel. When active, the palette - either color, gradient or an image, and the blending mode is used from the brush currently selected in Brushes panel. If you would like to use the palette you created in the Palette panel and the blending mode in Properties, just deactivate the button. Afterward, all brushes will use the same palette and blending mode. This can be useful when you need a particular color but you’re not sure which brush to use:

10. Pick colors outside Flame Painter - To be fair, this is not Flame Painter’s feature but it may be very useful for all of you who follow a specific color manual. You can pick color also outside of Flame Painter - via the System color palette. Just click on the actual color in Palette panel of the software to open the system color palette. Window users can select “Pick Screen Color” while macOS users can select the pick color tool here.

Have you found these tips useful? What other features you like to use in Flame Painter that other users may not know about? Do you have any tips or tricks for other users for working with the software? Let us know in the comments.

Your Escape Motions Team

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Credits: Flower Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

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New Papers for Rebelle 3 Available

Six completely new papers sets for Rebelle 3 have been deliberately chosen, prepared and are now ready to inspire you! These papers have been turned into digital form based on the real-world papers and behave like them when painting in Rebelle - incredibly realistically. The newly released papers include Bamboo Soft, Handmade Craft, Hot Pressed Gentle, Machine-made Line, Yucca & Kapok and Cold Pressed Versatile.

Bamboo Soft

The papers in this set combine the density of bamboo and the delicacy of Kozo bark fibers. The result is a paper with a soft yet distinctive effect allowing various types of painting and drawing. They can also be used to imitate traditional methods of manual printing such as a color woodcut.

Handmade Craft

The Handmade Craft package was made by a papermaking craftsman as the only original. It contains 2 papers from a unique pulp blend and one hemp paper hand-smoothed with a stone. Papers provide a great variety of visual effects. Watercolors, charcoal, pastel, pencil, and acrylics stand out perfectly on them.

Hot Pressed Gentle

This series is an interpretation of the hot-pressed watercolor papers made from 100% cotton. These papers allow a calm and gentle flow of inks and colors. The soft surface lets the details excel in your drawing or painting.

Machine-made Line

If you require painting or a drawing with a clear, linear effect, this series of papers is a perfect choice for you. The horizontal or vertical layout of the paper surface gives your art a distinctive expression. The papers are suitable for watercolors, acrylics, pencils, and pastel.

Yucca & Kapok

The exotic Yucca, combined with the soft Kapok, gives your painting the vast watercolor and ink flow variations. When touched with a pencil or pen, the varied aspects of the surface are revealed. Experience the adventure with this original set!

Cold Pressed Versatile

This set of papers features cold-pressed papers that can be used for any dry or wet technique. Watercolors spread beautifully, whereas pastel and pencil strokes are naturally captured on a paper structure. The pen will also look exquisitely. Nothing can stop you from experimenting!

The new, as well as the rest of the paper sets for Rebelle 3, are available from our website for $9.99 USD each. Every set contains three different papers.

The ultra-realistic papers for Rebelle 3 are an absolute gem. When creating papers, we look for a suitable light to capture the uniqueness of the fibers, then merge them in the compositing software, creating a unique shape every time. Papers are not a mechanical copy of reality. They are new images created with respect to the original pattern and behave realistically like real papers while painting in the Rebelle.

Your Escape Motions Team These papers and canvases are exclusive assets for Rebelle software (version 3.0 and newer). They were created by Lubomir Zabadal, an expert for traditional art media and assistant professor at UKF University, Slovakia.

[escapemotions]

Meet Flame Painter 4 - a new generation of digital art

Today we are proud to announce the release of Flame Painter 4, a new edition of a standalone paint and particle effects package for Windows and macOS. This game-changing version charges up the possibilities of digital painting while allowing artists to enhance designs and photographs with captivating life-like organic brushes.

“It’s an incredible journey! Despite seeing it grow from the first line of code, this new version of Flame Painter surpassed even my own expectations of what it is capable of. Your imagination is the only limit while exploring its possibilities.” says the founder and head behind Flame Painter, Peter Blaškovič. “With Flame Painter 4, a new version of this successful art package, creating and perfecting your digital work has never been more effective.”

Flame Painter 4 Key Features

• Particle Systems - The software supports a range of simulation types - Flame, Follow, Ribbon, Liner, Elastic and Fuzzy. The package comes with 3 default systems (Flame, Follow, Ribbon) users know from previous versions. Additionally, the new specially designed systems (Liner, Elastic and Fuzzy) are introduced as add-ons to match your specific workflow needs. We prepared more than 250 brush presets for you to experiment with. 

• Particle Brushes - Flame Painter’s organic brushes are a unique solution nowhere to be found in other software on the market. Flowing, lashing, neon, dots, or even tentacle-like brushstrokes create attention-grabbing effects on your designs. Flame Painter 4 is shipped with hundreds of new brushes.

• Brush Creator - Ideal for creating and customizing the brush designs, the advanced Brush Creator with a wealth of adjustable parameters is at your disposal. With newly introduced variables, the range of possibilities of how the brush can look and behave is really limitless.

• Import of Vector Paths -  Import an SVG file - either to one layer as a bitmap or to multiple layers as a vector which can be further edited according to your needs. Switch between brushes, edit the brush in Brush Creator or select different colors or gradients to match your specific design.

• Editable Vector Layers - Within a click, the vector brush strokes can be modified to achieve desired results. Flame Painter 4 also lets you import your own vector paths and have the particle brush effects follow them.

• Symmetry Tool - Create beautiful symmetrical artwork with any brush using only a few paint strokes with your mouse or tablet pen. Follow your artistic intuition and choose different colors or gradients to produce a fascinating scene. 

Watch the preview of main Flame Painter 4 features

• Advanced Palette Panel - The improved Palette panel gives you many new options for your work. You are able to choose any Color from the Palette which can be displayed as RGB, HSL, HSV, or HSLuv - a special mode which preserves color brightness. Moreover, you can choose from the default list or create own beautiful Gradient transitions for your brush preset and apply them on the stroke, lines or dots. Lastly, you can apply the palette from an Image - this option lets you import your own images.

• Canvas Size - Flame Painter 4 includes new tools to accelerate your creative workflow. Resize of the canvas has been designed to be very easy and interactive - resize by using the control points, or by entering the desired size of a new canvas in the edit boxes.

• Advanced Pick Color Tool - You are able to pick colors from the current layer or all layers with the new Pick Color tool. You can see in detail the previous color, color under your cursor and the newly selected color.  

• Selections - Other new tools shipped with Flame Painter 4 include a Selection tool for selecting a specific area of the canvas and performing operations on this selected area. There are various types of selection tool available: rectangular, elliptical, polygonal, freehand and Magic wand. 

• Improved Fill Tool - Fill tool enables you to fill not only the whole layer with the selected color or gradient but also the already painted strokes with alpha channel.

• New Filters - Professional color filters under the Filter menu allow you to make desired adjustments to your painting or design, with a help of Brightness, Contrast, Hue, Saturation, Lightness, Color Balance and other color filters. Moreover, ‘Black to alpha’ and’ White to alpha’ are very useful, especially when you import a picture with a background you want to get rid of.

• Photoshop Plug-in - Although Flame Painter works as a standalone application, a complimentary Photoshop plug-in ‘Flame Painter Connect’ is available. This handy tool gives you the possibility of exchanging layers between Flame Painter and Photoshop, making your creative process seamless and easy. Flame Painter Connect for Flame Painter 4 is compatible with Photoshop CC 2015 and higher.

• Extensive Brush Library - Browse hundreds of free brushes in the online brush library created by the developers as well as users and choose the ones which fit your design.

• Multi-touch Support - Flame Painter has complete support for multitouch gestures for Wacom, Microsoft or alternative tablet and trackpad devices, including Astropad application.

How to Buy

As of today, Flame Painter 4 is available from our website for the full price of $89.99 USD: https://www.escapemotions.com/shop/ Flame Painter 4 comes in one edition only. It is a follow-up of Flame Painter 3 Professional edition and there will be no Personal edition available.

How to Upgrade

All existing owners of older Flame Painter desktop versions are eligible for more than 50% discount - the upgrade price is $39.99 USD.

Users can upgrade their Flame Painter license directly through the application’s menu: Help > Upgrade to Flame Painter 4 or from our Upgrade page or from our shop https://www.escapemotions.com/shop/. We’ve also sent out newsletters to our subscribers - check your Inbox to find yours.

Upgrading is optional and the upgrade discount will always be available. You can continue using your older Flame Painter version for as long as you like.

Users who purchased Flame Painter 3 within the last three months, i.e. from March 1st, 2019 are eligible for a free upgrade. Log in to your Community profile to download the latest version.

Additional Particle Systems with 120 brush presets + more free brushes available for download on online Brush library.

We’ve also released three particle systems Liner, Fuzzy and Elastic on our website as add-ons for Flame Painter 4. They can be purchased for $19.99 USD each. All three particle systems are bundled together for an introductory price of $39.99 USD.

Get the particle systems from https://www.escapemotions.com/shop/ 

Altogether they include 120 brush presets for immediate use, but this is not a final number. We prepared for you even more free brushes available as an instant download from the online Brush library. Particle systems allow you to further create an unlimited spectrum of new brushes in the Brush Creator.

These particle systems are also a part of the new Flame Painter in a special preview mode and you will be able to test all their controls and visual options on a special “preview” layer.

Make sure you purchase the particle system from the same email address you are registered for Flame Painter 4 with. To load them, just restart the software.

New Registration System

Please note Flame Painter 4 no longer supports registration keys. After you purchase you will be asked to create a Community profile - unique username and password. After you confirm your email address by clicking on the link you receive, you will be able to register your Flame Painter 4 with your email address or username and password. If you own Rebelle 3, you already have a Community account - all you need to do is log in to Flame Painter 4 with your details.

We've been working on this Flame Painter version for over 18 months. We've put everything into it, so sweat and tears of momentary misery and happiness are included. :-) We truly hope you enjoy this new version and all the possibilities it gives you. Let us know how you like it by dropping us an email or via Send feedback option in the Help menu. 

...and most importantly - have fun and stay creative! :-) Your Escape Motions Team

[escapemotions]

Flame Painter 4: New Key Features

Soon to be released Flame Painter 4, a new edition of a standalone paint and particle effects package will include amazing new brushes, particle systems, and advanced Brush Creator panel. In today’s blog, we’d like to introduce the next big improvements that will make you enjoy working with Flame Painter more than before, including Import of vector paths, Symmetry tool, Canvas Size & Transform tool, Navigator panel, Filters menu and more.

Import Vector Paths

Groundbreaking feature for the next Flame Painter release is the import of an SVG file - either to one layer as a bitmap or to multiple layers as a vector which can be further edited according to your needs. Switch between brushes, edit the brush in Brush Creator or select different colors or gradients to match your specific design. The brush strokes will be applied to the imported vector paths automatically. This will make designing your project extra fun and speed your workflow up. Well, as long as you don’t lose track of time while trying all the amazing possibilities that exist :-)

Symmetry Tool

Flame Painter 4 will feature a new tool for creating symmetrical designs. It will be super easy to create beautiful symmetrical artwork with any brush using only a few paint strokes with your mouse or tablet pen. Follow your artistic intuition and choose different colors or gradients to produce a fascinating scene. And to enjoy this tool more, paint the shapes on a vector layer and watch the design update while switching between various brush presets, particle systems, colors or gradients.

Advanced Palette Panel

The advanced Palette panel in Flame Painter 4 will give you many new options for your work. You will be able to choose any Color from the Palette which can be displayed as RGB, HSL, HSV, or HSLuv. Moreover, you can choose from default list or create own beautiful Gradient transitions for your brush preset and apply them on the stroke, lines or dots, based on what engine your brush preset was created with. Finally, set how many times the gradient should repeat on the stroke and in what direction - either on length (horizontally) or width (vertically).

( A ) - Single Color, ( B ) - Gradient on Length, ( C ) - Gradient on Width, ( D ) - Gradient on Dots

Lastly, you can choose to apply the palette from an Image - this option lets you import your own images. The image will be mapped on the stroke, lines or dots and can also be repeated on both length and width of your strokes.

Canvas Size Tool

Previous Flame Painter versions were missing a few tools which forced artists to switch to Photoshop repeatedly in order to get things done. One of these was a tool for resizing the image. Luckily, Flame Painter 4 will introduce Canvas size - a new tool that will serve for cropping, scaling and resizing your work. Resize of the canvas in Flame Painter 4 has been designed to be very easy and interactive - resize by using the control points, or by entering the desired size of a new canvas in the edit boxes. You will also be able to resize the image and change its DPI accordingly. Size of your canvas in Flame Painter depends only on your computer’s memory.

Pick Color Tool

Another new tool we’ve implemented to Flame Painter is the Pick Color tool. Now you can pick colors either from your photograph to match a specific palette or from your current layer or all layers. You will also be able to set a sample size here.

Selection Tool

The next convenient feature in Flame Painter 4 that will make your switch to PS less regularly will be Selections. These are going to help you select a specific area of the canvas and perform operations on this selected area. There will be various types of selection tool available: rectangular, elliptical, polygonal and freehand. 

We’re also adding the Magic Wand that will create selections based on the tone and color of the pixels. You can specify the Tolerance, Antialiasing, Contiguous selection, or Use Alpha channel. Tolerance determines the color range of selected pixels, Antialiasing creates a smoother-edged selection, Contiguous selects only adjacent areas using the same colors and Use Alpha determines the alpha channel of selected pixels from the background.

Filter Menu

Besides Tile, Glow, and Blur, our development team has implemented standard color adjustments settings to Flame Painter 4 under the Filter menu. The new filters include:

- Brightness / Contrast, Hue / Saturation / Lightness - Color Balance, Color Filter, Colorize - Desaturate, Invert - Black to Alpha, White to Alpha

You will find the last set of filters ‘Black to alpha’ and’ White to alpha’ very useful, especially when you import a picture with a background you want to get rid of.

Improved Fill Tool

The improved Fill tool in Flame Painter 4 will be able to fill not only the whole layer with the selected color or gradient but also the already painted strokes. Internally the stroke will be selected with a magic wand tool according to its color, then chosen palette will be applied on this stroke with one click.

Improved Transform Tool

We’ve improved the Flame Painter 3′s Transform tool to the new version - it now enables you to move, scale and resize the selected layer or layers. We’ve also added the possibility to rotate layers or selections and flip them horizontally or vertically using one single click or shortcut.

Photoshop Plugin 

Flame Painter 4 will feature an updated Photoshop plugin - Flame Painter Connect - for exchanging layers. Export layers back-and-forth between Flame Painter and Photoshop quickly and easily. 

Other New Features

• Navigator panel to quickly change the view of your artwork using a thumbnail display.

• Drag & drop to easily drag & drop brushes, gradients, images or files directly from the web browser or file manager.

• “New Artwork” window with multiple default size presets available and the possibility to save custom presets in centimeters, inches or pixels with custom DPI.

• Lock in Layers panel in order to lock a layer to prevent it from any unwanted changes, and lock transparent pixels of a layer.

• Preferences panel to set the General, Tools, Tablet and custom Keyboard shortcuts preferences.

Pricing & Availability

Flame Painter 4 will be available on our website next week for the full price of $89.99 USD. All existing owners of Flame Painter are eligible for more than 50% discount - regular upgrade price will be $39.99 USD. Users who purchased Flame Painter 3 within the last three months, i.e. from March 1st, 2019 will be eligible for a free upgrade.

Moreover, with the release of Flame Painter 4, we’ll also release three particle systems Liner, Fuzzy and Elastic as add-ons on our website. The particle systems can be purchased for $19.99 USD each. All three particle systems will be bundled together for an introductory price of $39.99 USD.

Next week, we will send out newsletters with more information on how to upgrade - definitely check your Inbox so you won’t miss it! By the time, let us know in the comments what new features you’re looking forward to the most and we’ll pick another winner who’ll get a free copy of Flame Painter 4!

Your Escape Motions Team

[escapemotions]

Flame Painter 4: Introducing New Particle Systems

Our last blog post announced the upcoming release of Flame Painter 4, a new edition of a standalone paint and particle effects package which will feature fantastic innovations including new particle systems, fresh sets of amazingly creative brushes and unlimited brush customization possibilities. In today’s blog, we are going to talk about the particle systems in more detail and introduce their benefits for the usability in the new version.

A particle system is like the backbone of Flame Painter - a simulation type that defines the brush stroke appearance, its behavior, the way the brush moves as well as many other important parameters. The upcoming Flame Painter 4 will support a range of these particle simulations. The package will come with three different systems that users know from previous versions: Flame, Follow and Ribbon. Additionally, the new specially designed systems will be introduced as add-ons to match your specific workflow needs: Liner, Fuzzy and Elastic.

Flame | Follow | Ribbon

Despite being part of Flame Painter for a long time, the already known Flame, Follow and Ribbon particle systems are coming to version 4 in a completely different way of implementation. We’ve effectively rewritten their code to make them more versatile and complex.

As you already know, the new version will feature a Brush Creator which now includes many more new controls and sliders. Some controls like Noise, Chaos, Focus, Center or Speed are known from the older Flame versions. We added other new useful sliders as well as a separate 'Shape’ option which will serve for defining the shape of the stroke as a Fill, Line or Dotted Line.

• Fill evenly stretches the structure throughout the entire stroke. It also lets you use an image texture that will be repeated on the stroke.

• Line consists of multiple lines which create a complex stroke. You can define the shape profile of lines, their width, width jitter or length to achieve a perfect preset for your design. Line Shape also lets you use an image texture.

• Dotted Line allows you to create strokes consisting of dots - set spacing, scatter or opacity jitter of the dots to create perfect bokeh effects, raindrops, snowflakes or flare effect.

Flame Particle System

This is the classic flame particle system for creating diverse effects from realistic fire to random arrangements of particles, light streaks, sparkles and much more.

Follow Particle System

In Follow Particle system the stroke follows the cursor more precisely and is suitable for more detailed paint strokes as well as lines of abstract flares, bokeh effects, orbits or textured brush presets.

Ribbon Particle System

The elegant particle system for creating beautiful design effects. Ribbon’s stroke spreads a bit wider creating flowing, tamed strokes perfect for designing abstract waves, ribbon-like effects that flow with the direction of your stroke.

Liner | Fuzzy | Elastic

The other three particle systems are Liner, Fuzzy and Elastic, which are going to be released as add-ons for download on our website. They will be part of the new Flame Painter version in a special preview mode and users will be able to test all their controls and visual options on a special “preview” layer.

Liner Particle System

The liner particle system has a thin flat brush profile with a defined width. You can draw precise lines which may consist of different shapes. It’s a perfect brush particle system for creating defined lines, trails, streaks, and line surfaces. You are also able to create amazing painting brushes, classic lines or different-shaped brushes.

Fuzzy Particle System

A string-based, winding particle system that can stretch its particles along the path perfect for creating effortlessly-looking brushes for painting clusters of abstract as well as specific particles.

Elastic Particle System

Versatile particle system with an elastic brush cursor perfect for adding depth to your presets, creating soft-body effects with various elastic behavior. 

The rewritten Flame, Follow and Ribbon as well as the new particle systems Liner, Fuzzy and Elastic will broaden the horizon of possibilities for your images projects and enable you to create much more various results with the life-like Flame Painter brushes. Such a variety of particle systems is a unique solution nowhere to be found in other software on the market. Flowing, lashing, neon, dots, or even tentacle-like brush strokes will create attention-grabbing effects on your designs. The particle systems of Flame Painter 4 will surely become useful tools to your arsenal of the creative bag of tricks.

What brushes and particle systems are you looking forward to making in the new Flame Painter? Let us know in the comments! This Thursday we’ll be talking about other new features that are planned for Flame Painter 4, make sure you don’t miss it. :)

Your Escape Motions Team

[escapemotions]

10 Years of Flame Painter

Believe it or not, it has been ten years since the first line of Flame Painter’s code was written! It was in 2009 when the founder of Escape Motions, Peter Blaškovič, created the original flame algorithm within his 'I am an Artist' experimental project. He believed that "Everyone can be an artist, we just need the tools which become the inspiration for creativity". Today we still follow this vision and are proud to announce that we are about to enter a brand new stage of Flame Painter’s story.

Pioneer in procedural art: Flame Painter’s very first version in 2009 (top) vs. Flame Painter 4 (bottom).

It is with great pleasure to share with you all, that after long months of development we present Flame Painter 4 - the new game-changing software which allows you to paint and design with real organic brushes. The new version puts an incredibly broad range of creative tools at your fingertips while making adding special effects to your designs a breeze. Flame Painter 4 will feature new Particle Systems, the state-of-the-art technology which allows creating an unlimited spectrum of particle brushes, ranging from classic light effects to structured patterns, textured shapes or even natural painting brushes. Particle systems will open a whole new world of possibilities nowhere to be found in other software. The upcoming version will also bring fresh sets of brushes which will give you the power to customize every parameter via the new Brush Creator panel. Each and every one of the brush presets in Flame Painter is a piece of art and you are the creator invited to play your own game with custom artistic brushes.

New Particle Systems

Particle systems are the foundation of Flame Painter and define the main characteristic and behavior of the individual brushes. Each system consists of an effective set of settings and sliders to help enhance your stroke to perfection. Choose from various particle systems to paint an original piece of artwork, or generate abstract imagery within a design project. A great variety of particle systems is a unique solution nowhere to be found in other software on the market. With this incredibly broad range of organic tools, you are the creator.

There will be six particle systems available: - Flame, Follow and Ribbon are systems well-known from the previous Flame Painter version; - Liner, Elastic and Fuzzy are new systems, which will be released as add-on’s available from our website.

New Brushes

Flame Painter’s brushes are truly alive; when you paint with the mouse or pressure pen, you can feel the natural behavior of each brush shape.

While Flame Painter 4 will come with a default set of brushes, they only scratch the surface of what's possible. If you would like to use ready-made brushes, just easily browse hundreds of free presets in the online Brush library and choose the ones which fit your need. The particle brushes in Flame Painter can be divided into three categories:

• Draw & Paint Brushes – Perfect for the fundamentals of your painting, the standard drawing, and painting tools are always on hand for your creative workflow.

• Graphic Brushes – Within only a few brushstrokes, you can achieve interesting effects for posters, backgrounds or create original patterns on your graphic designs.

• Photo Effect Brushes – Varied effects, ranging from lightning strikes to fire, smoke, bokeh, and sparkles are ready to enhance your next digital masterpiece. Take advantage of what’s possible only in the digital world - paint your art with another painting or photograph.

Never mind the basic colors. You can use included gradients, create your own color transitions from the scratch, or generate one from an image. You can even import a colored texture and use it as a particle brush. In the end, you can share your brush with other users and make the world a more creative place. Brushes will be added with a tag so anyone in need for a perfect graphic brush will search within the respective brush library.

If you love to experiment and have extra fun with brushes, with included Brush Creator you can create an unlimited number of brush styles by adjusting various options and parameters. For example, add a little noisiness. Modify jitter, add softness, chaos or other known and unknown parameters from the previous Flame Painter versions. Set any of the parameters to adjust to pressure sensitivity of your pen. This all is a great way to create amazing effects and add instant sparkle, depth, and richness to your paintings, designs or photographs.

Unlimited Brush Customization

We’ve simplified the Properties panel where some of the most useful settings remain, like the brush size, blending mode or opacity. The rest of the settings have been moved to a new fully-equipped Brush Creator panel.

Here you can choose your Particle System, where you set the brush behavior and Shape, which includes visual settings concerning the stroke texture, pattern, and opacity. Brushes have three different stroke types available:

•  Fill - the typical shape already known from the older versions. •  Lines - this is a liner brush from Flame Painter 3, extended by the possibility of the setting the stroke width, length and creating different sequences. •  Dotted Line - which enables you to create brushes with different image shapes.

Moreover, every stroke type can have its own texture which defines the opacity of the shape. Instead of spending hours searching for the perfect brush online, save your precious time and easily create your brush design with Flame Painter. The range of possibilities, how the brush can look and behave is really limitless.

With so many options and complex tools, Flame Painter 4 remains simple and easy to use with the ability to produce top-notch effects. “I am proud we created such a powerful tool. This new version of Flame Painter has surpassed even our own expectations. It is a must-have tool for all professional CG artists, graphic designers, and photographers but also for anyone thinking of dipping their toes into the world of digital art for the first time.” says Peter Blaškovič. 

Get ready to unlock your creative potential, Flame Painter 4 will be here soon to change your artistic life.

Stay tuned for another feature announcement coming next week! By the time let us know in the comments how excited you are to play with the new version, we’ll pick one lucky winner who’ll get a free copy of Flame Painter 4! :)

Your Escape Motions Team

[escapemotions]

New Color Sets webpage for Your Color Inspiration

We're launching a dedicated website for color sets for you to use in Rebelle! 

We believe the beauty of colors deserves to be celebrated. Therefore we decided to provide you, our color-loving community on a constant look-out for some inspiration, such encouraging place. ♡

Importing your favorite color set from this webpage to Rebelle is very simple:

- Drag & drop Rebelle color set directly into your Color Set panel. - Or download a .png file and save it to the following directory: Windows: C:\Users\you\AppData\Local\Escape Motions\Rebelle 3\Colors MacOS: user/Library/Application Support/Escape Motions/Rebelle 3/Colors

For exporting and sharing your color sets for fellow Rebelle artists, go to Rebelle menu > Help > Show Library Folder, open "Colors" folder with a list of color sets and upload your color set to Community forum.

The most popular color sets will be hand-picked to Color Set web page. So if your love for colors is overflowing, hit up Rebelle, create a palette from your choice and spread the love.

Let's take a look at what's possible with color sets in Rebelle

✓ Did you know that you can create a color set from any image? Simply import an image to Rebelle, and the software will use the hues in your reference photo or painting to create a unique palette. You can also choose how many colors (4,9,16 or 25) your palette will have.

✓ Another handy feature that our accomplished dev team implemented is a possibility to create a color set from last used colors. You can stay focused on your art with no need to remember what specific color you applied in your previous stroke.

✓ A possibility to create a color set from a text file is a nowhere-to-be-found feature for true color lovers.  The format of a text file should be two columns divided by a tabulator key: The first column consists of the hexa format of the color - RGB channel (e.g red: #FF0000). The second column is optional and consists of the names of the colors.

For example, Pantone® C color set has been created for you from a text file, so that you could take advantage of color names directly in the Color Set panel.

We encourage you to learn more about Color sets in User Manual or in a video tutorial on Youtube.

Color inspiration

Pinterest

Pinterest is not only full of chocolate lava cakes and DIY craft ideas. It is a great source where you can always find ideas to spark inspiration.

Our Rebelle featured artist Julia Lubgane finds some interesting textures and color combinations and shows how useful Pinterest can be:

Pinterest can be a huge time-waster, as well as an endless repository of idea-generating goodness. If you don’t want to get stuck, read this resourceful article by CreativeBloq on who to follow on this popular social platform.

Online tools There are many handy tools with beautiful color combinations for your inspiration. We’ve picked some of the best ones out there:

Color Hunt is a free and open platform for color inspiration with thousands of trendy hand-picked color palettes. 👍

Canva - Known for its nifty photo editing tool, Canva also provides useful resources such as font combinations, logo maker or color palette ideas for stunning color combinations.

Colormind - This AI-powered color palette generator surprises with perfectly matching color combinations. The list is almost infinite as datasets are added each day.

ColorLisa - Get inspired by old masters and choose from a curated list of inspiring color palettes based on their famous works of art for your own creations.

COLOURlovers is a creative community where people can create and share colors, palettes and patterns, discuss the latest trends and explore colorful articles.

May your search for the perfect palette for your next project be successful! <3

Your Escape Motions Team

[escapemotions]

Rebelle 3.1.5 Update Is Out

Today we are releasing a new update to Rebelle 3. This version features fixes to some unfriendly bugs which could appear during your work in previous Rebelle versions and also brings a few useful changes. The update is available for download from your Community profile and is free for all Rebelle 3 users.

What’s changed and fixed in Rebelle 3.1.5:

• Color Filters - We have rewritten the code for all color filters so now it’s easier to get results you expect. Filters now look a lot more natural and pleasant. 

• Unpleasant bug with Grid in Color panel - Some users experienced a strange behavior when a Grid appeared out of nowhere on the color palette and switched with every click which made it impossible to choose a color. This was caused by an accidental internal touch event that activated “scroll” on the palette (which was another way of turning the grid on). We decided to solve this issue by adding a “Lock” option in the Color panel menu - this option will lock your palette and thus prevent it from any unwanted changes.

• Rough time with tool-tips - We were looking for the best place to show tooltips in Rebelle. In the previous version, we moved them to the top of each tool. But we found out that if you wanted to click on the tool above you had to wait for the tooltip to disappear which could take a few precious milliseconds of your creative time. In version 3.1.5 the tooltips still appear at the top of each tool but disappear immediately. If you don’t want any tooltips, you can turn them off completely in Preferences > General.

• Memory warning - During a long painting session, you could see the warning about the limited number of undo steps numerous times on your canvas:

We believe it is important to warn you about this kind of limitations, but we also understand this may interrupt your painting process. So we decided to include a checkbox in Preferences with which you can turn off the warning for good. The checkbox is available in Preferences > General > Memory.

• Touch actions - We’ve added the possibility to turn off single-touch and multi-touch actions separately. This can be quite useful when you want to use a touch of your finger to blend your painting but don’t want an accidental tap with the second finger or your palm to trigger moving or zooming of the canvas. Or you don’t need a single-touch at all and just want to use two fingers for canvas transformations.

Other Changes:

• Support for fonts for Chinese, Japanese and Korean language added.  • Import of more asset files at once added.  • Drag & drop of multiple assets at once added - Add papers, color sets, and brushes. • ‘Invert pen tilt’ option added - when Wacom devices use Ink, the tilt may go the opposite direction. 

Other Fixes:

• Color Palette: RGB’s Green value was larger by 1 than in the System color palette. • Color Palette: Sliders in Circle mode now display correct HSV values. • New Artwork Dialog: Lock Ratio icon now resizes correctly. • ‘Snap to Canvas’ option now works correctly for ‘Resize Image/Canvas’. • UI scaling fixed for New Artwork window, Demo window and Wacom/Ink dialog. • Other minor bug fixes.

To get the latest update, log in to your Community profile and go to My Profile > Purchases. Definitely let us know how you like working with the update via Rebelle’s menu Help > Send Feeback.

Happy painting! Your Escape Motions Team

Cover Image by Hal - Rebelle Featured Artist | escapemotions.com/featured-artists/hal