Rebelle 3: When Traditional Meets Digital

We are thrilled to announce that a new version of Rebelle is in the making! This version will again come closer to blur the line between traditional and digital painting as it will give the artists an infinite range of expression possibilities packed in a simple interface. Rebelle 3 has made big strides in improving the realism of its world-class watercolor brushes, which can now more accurately mimic all sorts of behavior on different paper surfaces.

Based on the months of studying the watercolors, testing hundreds of various papers, techniques and brushes we are assured that the possibility of uniting the tradition and technology is absolutely amazing. The development team has packed a wide range of features and innovations into Rebelle 3 such as ultra-realistic papers, new visual settings of watercolor behavior, amazingly realistic drips, ability to control them as well as many other new additions which we are going to present step by step in the upcoming blog posts. Here are the first unveiled features of the anticipated Rebelle 3:

Ultra-realistic papers

Watercolour is quite an ‘alive’ medium. It can behave in many different ways according to how it is used. One of the biggest alternations in the behavior of watercolor is due to the surface on which it is applied - the watercolor paper. We tested various real-life papers in order to embrace their common characteristics and differences and figured out how to include such support for various behavior. In the new version, you can use not only textured paper backgrounds, but also an imitation of professional watercolor papers, some of them with deckled - rough and irregular edges, including Hot pressed, Cold pressed, Rough, Japan, Canvases and others.

The hot-pressed paper has a smooth, hard surface and an even texture. It offers a sleek finish and it’s great for mixed media work. One step up is cold-pressed paper - is the most versatile and popular texture, it’s semi-rough surface is suitable for both detailed work and smooth washes. When you glide your brush over it, some of the paint settles on it while skipping the indentations of the grainy texture, leaving them blank. This creates beautifully textured brush strokes. Rough paper has a pronounced texture that’s good for washes and creates expressive brushstrokes that can provide a lot of character and emotion to a painting. You can use traditional Washi - japan paper, canvases and other materials too. No type of paper is inherently better than the other. It all depends on your needs, your preferred techniques and what look you are going for in your painting. You can get various professional papers on the Rebelle website soon.

Because Rebelle’s papers imitate these characteristics in a digital world, the new version will feature various presets for watercolor behavior based on the underlying paper, so the paper you choose can have a huge bearing on the quality of your work.

Amazing watercolors

To adapt to the new papers, we had to rewrite a watercolor simulation code to be even more realistic than before. In Rebelle 3 you will be able to change the watercolor behavior and other settings via the Visual Settings panel - a new panel with the following possibilities:

- Ability to customize the watercolor behavior - users will be able to manipulate the „Absorbency“ slider which basically represents how fast your watercolor washes dry out. Another setting is „Edge Darkening“ - users can influence how dark the edges of their washes will be. Also, there is a „Canvas Influence“ setting with which you’ll influence the watercolor diffusion.

- Ability to customize acrylics - The „Impasto Depth” available from Rebelle 2 will now be placed in this new Visual settings panel.

- Ability to customize canvas settings - The canvas „Texture Visibility“ setting and „Always show texture on paint“ switch will now be featured in this panel.

New “​DropEngine” 

Many users appealed to the need of better control over drips. You asked we listened - in Rebelle 3 we implemented a new “DropEngine” especially to simulate drips and connected it with our watercolor simulation. Drips behave more naturally now - their appearance is influenced by paper structure, water, stencils and selections. Their movement on paper can be adjusted via the Visual settings panel which will give you more control over the length and size of the drips. 

What is more, the drips are now DPI-aware so Rebelle now creates the same size drips on canvas of 300 dpi like those of a canvas that is 72 dpi.

More realistic Blow tool 

The blow tool in Rebelle 3 realistically blows drips from wet painting just like in real life by using a straw. Use this blowing technique to make interesting watercolor effects, an abstract background, explosions, trees, grass or flowers for your paintings. You can now hold the blow tool above the area you want to create drips from and control the directions it goes by blowing from different angles. The tool blows wet painting on wet areas, on dry areas it creates nice dripping effects. And if you put drops of different colors next to each other, you can make the colors mix together on the canvas making beautiful splatters. This is probably one of the most fun activities you can do. :)

Stay tuned for another feature announcement coming next Thursday! By the time let us know in the comments how excited you are to play with the new version, we’ll pick one lucky winner who’ll get a free copy of Rebelle 3!

Your Escape Motions Team