I was lucky enough to be given the chance to review this wonderful paint program!

What is Project Dogwaffle?

This program was started in 1997, by Dan Ritchie, as a work around to the shortcomings of the established "big guns" tools used in the professional community. Dogwaffle has powerful user-defined custom and animated brushes, full tablet support, layers, artist guides, powerful color gradients, fractal particle brushes, and great text tools. It also has special FX for sky, snow, wet paint, and even effects used commonly in 3D CG such as lens flares, as well as full Alpha support with direct painting on Alpha.

This program is perfect for the hobbyist who likes to explore colors and shapes, and equally useful for web artists, game content creators, cartoonists, and designers, as well as in digital photography and traditional animation. It is loaded with fast, or realtime filters, for color enhancing in digital photos and animations, special effects, and many built-in natural media brushes. Project Dogwaffle almost lets you paint the natural way, without the mess.

What is new in 3.7?

This program amazed me at the ease of use. Along with the AVI tutorials, it was easy to understand what the tools did and how to use them. I am just a beginner as far as doing this kind of art. I am used to using Poser and Bryce to create my art, as I am all thumbs when it comes to painting by hand (I just can't seem to get my hands to move as they should, or my mind to work with my hands, lol). However, using the tutorials that are available in AVI format, I was able to produce the small painting below. It isn't artist quality, but for a beginner I don't think I did too bad.

 

 

Then I continued on to create this vine brush, which was easy to make following the tutorial.

 

 

From there, I did a short animation which was also easy after watching the tutorial on how to create it.

Sandy Dogwaffle Animation (mpeg)

All in all, I would have to give a "Thumbs Up" on this program as one of the easiest to learn for a beginner. It is very reasonably priced and has many great features and tutorials. There is also a community forum on their site for sharing brushes and such. I would highly recommend this to beginners and professionals alike.

Please visit their website for more information.

Be sure to check out Dogwaffle in the Renderosity Marketplace!

 

Castle Views is a featured column with Staff Columnist Sandra Castle [SndCastie]. Wherein, she reveals interesting books, artists, and software dealing with 3d graphics, through reviews, interviews, and general articles.