Hi,

I recently purchased a copy of ImagineFX magazine (the gothic issue) and was totally blown away by the art. I fancy trying to do a bit of gothic artwork myself and was wondering, what software would be best for me as a newbie to computer artwork? (I have a PC) Any info would be great, thanks! x

Photoshop newbie? Does that mean you have PS?

Anyway, for a complete beginner who wishes to start painting immediately after installing the software then I highly recommend Artrage 2.5. At £25 it's almost perfect and once you are confident you can then look to bigger programmes like Photoshop or Painter, etc. Don't think of Artrage as amateurish, it's a fully functional painting programme that's easy and fast and with a large, active community.

I suggest you to try Painter X, Photoshop CS2 or above and ArtRage.

All of them are available as demos and only trying them you can understand which one works best for you.

I personally use Painter X for the 95% of the time and switch to Photoshop only for some final touches.