How do you create computer art?

Avoid anime and manga! You basically just need a scanner, if you’re going to work with real world media, or a digital media program such as gimp, photoshop, illustrator, corel draw, etc. Mouse or tablet, it’s a matter of practice and preference.

Have I misinterpreted your question?

Beta Orionis- do you know how much a basic scanner cost

If you have a scanner, you can scan your drawings into the computer. I know there are some free image editing programs out there (will post later), but I mostly use photoshop and illustrator to digitize my drawings and make them prettier. If you do not have a scanner, you can also take pictures if you are going to digitize/vectorize anyway.

If you are in a financial position, the Wacom Cintiq is a thing of beauty. It allows you to use a stylus directly on a screen that shows what you are drawing. This is much better than other tablets, where you have to kind of guess? I dunno,..never really liked them much. Tablet is not absolutely necessary anyway though. I always use my mouse, and with pretty good results. The pen tool is like one of my best friends.

@madmax303 They exist for as little as $60 when refurbished or used, but decent ones run at least $150 if not a few hundred dollars.

It’s likely that your local library may have a computer center that includes a scanner though. Or maybe your school does? Explore all options before running out to purchase one.

<edit> as @bagelface said, there are free programs.
One that I’ve been told is comparable to Photoshop can be found at paint.net

personally i love paint.net. it’s free, its helpful, you can download tons of plugins on their forums, and it’s a very effective program if you’re not looking forward to buying a software.

Search out GIMP. Free, open source, and tons of tutorials on how to get started.

i just got a new laptop so i ger kind of weird about downloading a lot of stuff so it doesnt junk up my computer when it is older. if i download paint.net, will it take up a lot on my laptop or jack it up later on?

Is paint.net also good for manga/amine??

@madmax303 I’ve never used it, so others will have to correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that paint.net is much smaller than (or at least comparable to) any commercial program, so it can’t hurt any more that those. It is, however, windows based, so if you have some other operating system, as @Grisaille said, you should look into GIMP.

@Beta_Orionis i have windows 7 so it should be okay right??

@madmax303 Yep! That’s the recommended version of windows!

@Beta_Orionis well i guess i will try it

Thanks for all the help everyone. I will see what works for me!!:):):)

@madmax303 Yep! Let us know how it works out!

Daw. @madmax303, you’re so thankful.

I like this thread.

Okay i have another question. It gives me a list of things that i could download documentation, plugins,bottons, and logo which should i use??

@madmax303 hmm. Those all seem like reasonable components, but you may want to hold off for the response of someone who has used it before. :(

I have fun using Word’s drawing tool bar. I’ve made Christmas cards, program covers and created images just because I enjoyed it. It isn’t sophisticated, but friends have enjoyed my efforts.