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Archive republication: This technical review originally appeared in Digital Production 06:2018 and was republished online in June 2021. Features, compatibility, pricing and workflow details reflect the historical software version.
This article originally appeared in DP 06 : 2018.
Escape Motions, the Slovakian studio of creatives and programmers led by Peter Blaškovič, now has a firm fan base for its specialised graphics applications such as Flame Painter, Amberlight and Fluid Painter. On the Escape Motions website, mini-apps and slimmed-down versions of the real graphics applications invite users to experiment online. The paint tool Rebelle has been available in its third version since May of this year (currently 3.1). We have played a little with wet and dry media and are impressed by the quality of the simulation of real painting techniques.
Painting and drawing software has been around since the dawn of the computer. Digital painting with different techniques without expensive paints and canvases – and without the hassle of washing out brushes. Everyone has probably already made the acquaintance of one tool or another. Rebelle 3 is trying to fill a niche in the huge graphics software market. The program promises easy operation and yet realistic-looking results, especially when using watercolours. It also aims to realistically simulate acrylic colours, inks and pastels – on natural-looking painting surfaces.
Flat learning curve – rotated brushes and tilted canvases
Rebelle’s customisable interface appears straightforward at first glance. All programme windows can be scaled and positioned. Windows that lie above the drawing area are hidden as long as they are in the way of the drawing brush. Thanks to self-explanatory icons and labelling, the first attempts with the programme are successful without studying the manual.
Essentially, after starting Rebelle for the first time, the user sees the drawing area with a predefined material structure and colour settings (can be edited at any time). The various tools (brushes for watercolour or acrylic paint, pastels and pencils, nibs or airbrush and eraser) immediately produce a realistic-looking application of paint.
There are complex setting options for customised painting tools in an extra “Brush creator” window. There are tool-specific options for the brush size, pressure sensitivity or amount of colour or water and selection of tool textures. Brushes with a flat shape can react to rotations of the pen (e.g. with the Wacom Pro Pen). When the pen is rotated, the tip of the brush can also be rotated to control the width of the stroke. Directly below the drawing tools you will find tools for blurring or mixing colours and, for example, for applying water to the drawing surface or blowing away liquid paint.
By default, there is a navigator to the right of the drawing area, which can also be used to find your way around large documents, and settings for tilting the canvas – this can be used to influence the flow intensity and direction of liquid colour (watercolour, for example, immediately begins to flow and run in the set tilting direction – nice to look at). In addition to a colour selector, there is also a selection of different colour palettes.
Everything flows
Rebelle has layers with fill options like Photoshop (Rebelle can open and save .psd files).
Rebelle’s special features include the wetting or drying of layers and the ability to animate the flow of wet colour. Clicking on the “Show wetness” button shows how wet a layer is. This can be edited using the water and drying tools. The flow of wet colour depends on various settings. There are visual presets for the behaviour of water-based and acrylic paints as well as the canvas (absorbency, edge darkening, canvas influence). The new drip engine can create realistic-looking drop shapes. The behaviour of these drips is also defined in the visual presettings (drip size and length). Of course, the respective tool settings also affect the flow behaviour, e.g. watercolour, paint and water quantity. The selected canvas material and the way in which the canvas is moistened also play a role, as do the strength and direction of the settings when tilting the canvas. Colour bleeding can also be influenced with the bubble tool. The drops of colour, which are rather undesirable in real painting, produce interesting effects, as the fantasy creatures in the video by Martin Hanschild on the website www.escapemotions.com/products/rebelle show.
It is worth mentioning that the marvellous flow effects can also be applied to imported photos, for example. In their blog on the website, the creators of Rebelle emphasise the seriousness with which they endeavour to create realistic paper materials, for example. They pay particular attention to the reproduction of Japanese paper. The centuries-old tradition of Japanese paper production is described almost reverently – and then it is explained how such paper is imitated in Rebelle. It is impressive how realistic the colour effects look in combination with the drawing materials.
Limit stains – Masking Fluid Layer
The “Masking fluid layer” switch turns a layer into a mask for the colour flow of other layers. Opaque pixels of the masking layer stop the colour flow of layers marked as “Influenced layer” (the small dot behind the layer name). In this way, the colour flow can be limited or controlled. Helpful when colouring sketches and images.
Rebellious little helpers
Rebelle offers some not immediately visible aids for creative design. Basic image editing functions for colour, brightness, colour balance etc. can be found under the “Filters” menu item. In the new version, a reference image can be loaded as a drawing template in a freely positionable and scalable window. In full-screen mode, this can be placed on a second monitor. Rebelle now also allows a preview image to be displayed in such a window. If a layer is marked as a reference layer (the “T” button in the layer menu), the colours of the reference image are automatically transferred to this layer when drawing on layers marked with “Influenced layer”. Rebelle uses partially transparent .png images as drawing templates. Some images are supplied with the programme. However, templates can also be created from image files or layers themselves. Templates can be faded in or out and freely positioned, scaled, rotated or tiled. The current version of Rebelle offers a complete set of selection tools (rectangle, circle, polygon, lasso, magic wand and various Boolean functions for combining or cutting selections). There are options for tolerance, anti-aliasing, adjacent selection or using the alpha channel. Rebelle offers intuitive drawing aids: The Shift key displays a rotatable line tool at the cursor position. Shift R starts a ruler with three control points for moving and rotating the tool. Shift P can be used to draw 1, 2 or 3-point perspectives. The “Free hand” option is interesting for making the straight lines look more natural.
Conclusion
Rebelle 3 does not offer the range of functions of Corel Painter, for example. However, it definitely scores points with its natural painting tools and brushes and its special ability to simulate liquid colour. The amount of natural-looking effects is simply fun. This programme should definitely be worth a test for anyone interested. There are demo versions of all the creative programmes – and numerous mini-apps that can be tried out online.
