The pros
So far, I've only explored the watercolour function of this program, but am *in love* with just how well it mimics the effect of "real" watercolours. So well in fact, that I've found myself learning in much more detail about traditional watercolour techniques (from the wonderful "Yasmina Creates" on Skillshare.com) in order to be able to use the watercolouring software better.
As you can see from my first attempts, on the left with this watermelon slice, and the doughnut, below...It's *really* like watercolour, right down to being unpredictable in how the colours will mix and run.
Mostly, this is positive and creates deeper and richer colours than any other digital painting software I've used. Which would make it absolutely ideal if you are already a traditional watercolourist and looking to transfer to digital painting for the first time.
The paint also moves across the virtual page reasonably fast, (on a 64-bit Windows PC, anyway) and allows real "wet-on-wet" mixing in a way I've envied from YouTube videos of traditional watercolourists, but never quite been able to replicate before.
In addition, the background"watercolour paper" effect is more convincing (to my eye at least) than in other comparable software I've tried.
If, like me, you started in digital art first, there is a learning curve. But it's fun, and the experience of producing art that feels so authentic is tremendous.
As it was a gift from my hubby, am not certain about the price. But he assures me it was somewhere around the $50 mark (and will vary according to sales tax etc, of course).
The cons
The biggest and only real issue I can find so far is that in order for the paint to move reasonably fast across the page, the document size can really be no more than A5 at 300 dpi (on my PC at least).
This should be large enough for most projects, especially as the export of files is easy. But ideally, I'd like to see it coping well with a standard-size A4 printer page at printable 300dpi resolution.
So...
So I'll be experimenting a lot more with Rebelle in the coming months. Whether it will ever replace ArtRage 4 for me is probably a topic for a separate review and post (as the "pen" function in ArtRage works so very, very well, and ArtRage has no problem with the A4 size).
But for sheer joy, fun, deep colours, and a real sense of "play", right now, I'm certainly loving Rebelle.
