Greetings from a total graphics newbie

First of all, let me be totally honest: I cannot draw or paint. Like, anything. When I was a child, the only drawings which were even remotely recognizable to anyone else, were cars, drawn from the side. You know, two wheels, the bodywork, the radio antenna sticking out etc.

I am in other ways quite artistic, as I have always loved music in all its forms and varieties. Moreover, I am a professional dance teacher, so yes, I have gotten to enjoy my share of the arts. Just not drawing or painting. I have always been a bit envious to those who can. Sometimes I have been playing around with the idea of taking an arts class and learning how to do oil paintings and such. Just haven't gotten the nerve to actually do it.

The same goes for computer graphics, where I really suck. I mean, the big way.

Enter Verve, which I just recently found. Oh wow.

I am still a newbie when it comes to this program, but all of a sudden, the brilliant fluid dynamics approach took me to producing my first trials of "abstract paintings" in, like, 30 minutes. I am quite frankly flabbergasted at how easy it is to create something out of a vague idea, something which actually remotely resembles something other than the result of the two-year-old myself doodling with crayons.

Verve continuously encourages me to play around with the different parameters and watch as the results are formed in front of my eyes. This brilliant piece of software gives me an immense feeling of achievement. To me, it is like the Fruity Loops of drawing; and endless source of artistic innovation.

Let me take the opportunity to thank you Taron for coming up with such a brilliant piece of software. And free - I would have been willing to actually pay for such a tool! (I might very well end up doing it, since this has left me craving a decent tablet. Drawing with your mouse can only take you so far...)

So, lots of kudos to you, Taron, and I hope this posting does its little job in motivating you to continue developing this magnificent tool.

[Taron]

Thank you, Etsija, leaves me a bit speechless, just out of gratefulness alone, you'd share all that with me and all of us. That's a payment, for sure, a treasure for me!

I'll have to slow down for a moment with the development, but I'm utterly energized to resume it more intensely again, once I can. Your verbal dance into my heart makes it one of the happiest imperatives I've ever known.

Let me know, if you have any wishes or suggestions about Verve, and don't hold back to share your explorations and your painting growth!
Thanks, again, for making my day start with such powerful happiness.

You're welcome, Taron!

I would have one request for you: could you add an explanation for the different brushes and their control (parametrising) to your manual? I can only see one sentence where it is said how to change the brush, but nothing on the brushes themselves - and how the different parameters of Verve affect the different brushes.

[Taron]

UH, OH, my goodness, yes, yes, yeees...how could I forget?! Thank you for letting me know!
Excellent...I'll get right on it!

[Taron]

Done!

Umm, is the manual updated, or did you put it somewhere else? I don't seem to find any more info on the brush types 1-8? Well, they are pretty self-explanatory, but nevertheless, it would be good to mention what are the main charasteristics of each brush.

[Taron]

Scroll up, haha! You might still be looking at the "hotkey" section. I made a new section above that deals with the brush interface directly! Those new parameters are not yet hooked to any hotkeys, you know.

[Taron]

...
The brush parameters
Brush size, minimum size for pressure sensitivity and the toggle buttons are the obvious ones. But there's more...
Blending - turns on and controls the amount of "color averaging" under your brush. This works beautifully together with smudging, as it blends into the stroke the existing colors on the canvas. I like having about 30% of it up, but it does slow down the machine a little bit.
Build-up - controls the amount of material that gets transferred to the canvas as you paint. Similar to but independent from the opacity for color, this shows the mechanics of Verve, as paint medium (like the oil in oil paint, so to say) is independent from color (like color pigment density in the oil). Bonus side effect: If you turn this parameter down to 0%, it only colors existing material on the canvas, making the existing material effectively acting like a positive mask.
BRI.SIZE - stands for Bristle Size and refers to the size of each individual bristle in brushes that have bristles. As I'm adding more complex brushes, I'm trying to keep those parameter sensible to the features of such new brushes, like Brush #8 (fractal turbulence brush). Here the bristle size controls the coverage amount of encountered opaque values in the fractal noise. Currently this value scales with the size of the brush.
BRISTLES - stands for Bristle Count, controlling the amount of bristles in a bristled brush. Here, too, the implementation for complex brushes such as brush #8 tries to stay consistent in logic and thereby scales the fractal noise so that more opaque splotches will be painted within the brush size. Currently this value scales with the size of the brush.

The tiny little buttons all the way on the edge are for the brush selection: "Next" and "Previous" brush.