-or- computer graphics on a budget
Time has permitted me to toy around with some more Fantastically Fabulous Freeware. And this time around the freeware highlighted can provide some very satisfying results. Yep, today I am going to highlight some amazing, free art programs that just about everyone can use to set free the creative spirit within them.
The GIMP: One of the classics, the GIMP is a free, open source image manipulation program. A bit complicated to just jump into, there is a pretty decent amount of we information to look to including a rather extensive online manual. The installation for the GIMP isn't as simple as many other programs, as it requires the GTK+ 2.2.2 (GIMP toolkit) to be installed first, but the installation instructions at the site are pretty clear. Those who know how to use the GIMP better than I do swear by it and I have read many claim it can do just about anything that Paint Shop Pro (the image editor I am most familiar with) and even Photoshop can do. But I have also read others say that is rubbish. Needless to say, the GIMP is a very powerful program for image editing and can probably accomplish most anything that beginner and even intermediate level folks want to do. I play around with it on a pretty regular basis. Version 2.2.0 is in the works and looks to make some good improvements over the current 2.0.6 stable version.
Art Rage: A program I actually found from a long lost blogger here (The Crusaders--Haven't heard from her for a while), Art Rage is an incredibly organic feeling computerized paint program. This is for making works that feel like they were made with oil paints, chalk, pastels or colored pencils. You can customize the texture of the material you are working on, have paintbrushes, pallet knives, pencils, erasers, etc at your disposal. You can load a picture in the background and trace over it, creating artistic versions of your own photos, etc. Once you click with the paint brush you can only paint so long before you need to "get more paint" by clicking again. And moving back over recent paint will smudge it or blend it, just like the real thing. An elegant program, and one worth checking out.
Inkscape: Vector graphics can be very fun to look at. They have a very specific look and feel to them, and some folks really, really enjoy it (I happen to be one of those folks). Inkscape is a powerful open source scalable vector graphics (SVG) editor. Vector graphics are great because they are resolution independent, meaning that if you have a small vector graphic you can zoom in on it without it ever losing focus or becoming pixellated, which happens to all bitmap, pixel based images. Inkscape 0.40 was just released and it a great tool to play around with. Preset shapes, that are freely deformable by adjusting their nodes, and drawing and ribbon (calligraphy) tracing all give you the power to manipulate the images how you want.
Expression 3: Here is my favorite of the bunch. Expression 3 is really a head above the rest. That probably has to do with the fact that it used to be a retail program that, once the company Creature House, was bought by Microsoft was released in its 3.3 beta form for free. You do need to sign up with a .NET account to download it, but once that is done you are up and running. Expression is also a SVG editor, but it is also much, much more. Expression 3 uses "skeletal strokes" which are artistic brush strokes that still act like vector lines, with nodes and are completely editable after you draw with it. A rich color palate, strokes galore, and your imagination can combine to really make some awesome pieces of vector art. I have a couple pieces I recently finished (I just started working vector editors in any shape and form a couple of weeks ago, so please be kind! 
) that can be seen on my DeviantArt page (click on the "My Deviations" link on my blog), to give you an idea of what vector art is. If you do go look at them take into consideration that both of those ("A Day at the Beach" and "Old Man Bob") were done at a resolution of 640x480, but exported to .png files at a resolution of 1600x1200 without any loss of clarity. Expression 3 is one of my favorite programs and you really need to check it out to get a feel for just how powerful a program it is.
So there you go, 4 100% legally free programs that are sure to set free the artist in you. If you have played around with any of these programs and have some work you would like to show please don't hesitate to link to it here. I would love to see it!