The MotionArtist Animation Graphics Software by Smith Micro is Fun and Challenging!

Thank you to Smith Micro for providing a complimentary product sample for us to base this review upon.  All opinions expressed are my own.

MotionArtist is a recently launched software from Smith Micro that helps artists bring their creations to life. MotionArtist enables users to make videos using photos, text, and other media. These can be used as interactive presentations, comics, and anything else you can dream up. MotionArtist is a software where the sky is the limit for making amazing animations yourself.

We received a download code for MotionArtist and I was thrilled to use this for my 11 year old, Avery, as part of his homeschool art subject. Avery is not much of an artist in the old-fashioned sense, but he is great with technology so I was excited to add this to his widening list of computer art skills. He was very excited to start and had many visions of what he could create using MotionArtist. Sadly, this was harder to use than he’d bargained for so it’s requiring much more time from him than he had expected, but that’s not to say he’s not learning. It will take a while to completely master the software because it does so much but I have no doubt that he will fully grasp it eventually.

His first couple projects were pretty rough and not terribly interesting, but his third turned out pretty good if you ask me. His silly little “BACON” project is just a fluffy little fun thing he worked on for many hours but it gives a very basic concept of what you can accomplish with some practice.

MotionArtist is a very well setup and user-friendly software, but that’s not to say it’s not complicated. I am pretty good with computers myself and it’s hard for me too. If you have a need for this type of software, I have no doubt that MotionArtist would be great for your projects because it can do many different types of animations and is pretty comprehensive.

The "Bacon" Project . . . 


Their website, www.motionartist.smithmicro.com, has tons of information on what you can do as well as samples and tutorials. We haven’t found any bugs or had any trouble with the software, which is great for something so new. Over all, we have been very happy with MotionArtist and look forward to continuing to learn and eventually master it.

Motion Artist can be purchased at www.motionartist.smithmicro.com and on Amazon.com for $59.99.

Finding the Right Tools to Create My Own Clipart and More

I have been dabbling in graphic design for quite a few years now.  I even did blog designs on the side for extra money.  Even though I enjoyed that very much, it was far too time-consuming and I never committed 100% to it as a business.  For example, the design software I used was a free one.

Well, about a month or so ago, I started to recognize that I was missing that creative outlet.  I still do not have time to run a blog design business, but I started warming up to the idea of creating my own clipart.  It is something I can work on as little or as much as my schedule allows.  Still, I would need to have the right image editing program . . . one that would allow me to work with vectors.

Even though I no longer do blog designs for other people, I still have never paid anyone to design my own two blogs.  Since I was turned onto the idea of creating my own clipart, I have been slowly and carefully deciding what web design tools I would need to do everything I want.  I have a review coming up this Fall for a Bamboo drawing tablet that I am extremely excited to master.  The next thing is to decide if I want to purchase software that only pertains to graphics or a suite that is also a powerful photo editor that can also help me with audio production and video production editing for my blog and my YouTube channel.  There are lots of great free photo editing programs out there, but not too much to choose from for free video editors.

What would you do if you absolutely needed to purchase a powerful graphics program no matter what?  Would you make the investment for software that would be a powerful tool in more than one area or continue to use limited free software from here and from there?