what free software is out there

So an alternative to buying an adobe licence would be to use other software that is free. Of course this may be difficult as i am used to using this software and it all goes together and works in tune with each other as that is how they are built. But if I didn't need to mix and match then i could use free software. Here are some i have found that might be worth taking a look at.
Serif DrawPlus Starter Edition is free and can be downloaded here: http://www.serif.com/free-graphic-design-software/ It looks really good as it has a lot of features that photoshop does and is supposed to be intuitive to use. It also has an animation component which is very important. Unfortunately this only is available to download on windows and i have a mac. They do supply software for mac but it is not free. HOWEVER £39.99 is a damn good one off price for design software!!It is called Affinity designer and it won apple designer award 2015. It looks very useful and dare i say it may look even better than adobe? It feels like it has photoshop and illustrator in one package. Im not 100% sure if this has animation but there is a free trial so it might be worth looking at. There is also a photo editing version which would be like the equivalent to lightroom.

For 3D there is blender which I have previously used and seems quite easy and now with my knowledge of Maya I might get along a bit better with it. I think i would like to give it a go to keep my abilities up. However i don't think you can import existing puppets like Moom into it. 

Pencil 2D is a software that is for more frame by frame traditional animation like i am currently doing rather than flash. This is supposed to be relatively easy to use especially if you have used the adobe suite before.

So there are definitely things out there that i could use including many more than this. It is just a case of whether i feel any of these do a good enough job compared to the adobe suite and how much I am willing to pay. I think it would be good practice to download these things and have a look at them at least for future reference for example if i really need to do something on a tight budget or if i won't be making money out of what i am making.

loop de loop

So I have finished my animation, coloured it and put a background on. The line work is still a little rough so if i get chance i will fix this. but looks good from far away xD I was really pleased with how the movement turned out on this as i didn't rotoscope it. This shows that my animation has come a long way over the past year as i wouldn't have even attempted this last year. 
Now just to wait until loop de loop puts up its new website and is open for submission. I understand there may be some guidelines to come but i will just edit to that if needs be.
I also still have the black and white one if i decide i don't like these bright colours.

Tattoo

I have been asked to design a tattoo. This might be difficult as it is more realistic. It also has to cover an existing tattoo and create part of a half sleeve. The theme is spartans featuring King Leonidas in his helmet.
This is how i started off, then the bottom left corner came second and we both preferred this close up idea.

So i  created this, i started to think more about the background too as it is creating a sleeve this will help with the wraparound.

This shield would be wrapped around the arm 

connecting to leonidus from the previous image.

The client really likes this and he gave me feedback while drawing it. however now i need to think logistically about how this wraps around the arm and more importantly how we are going to cover this existing tattoo. I think there needs to be something with  a lot of lines over this as a block colour might show this through.

Loop de loop

So this time the loop de loop theme is tumble. I didn't really have an idea for this but i googled tumble and a lot of things came up that i had not thought of. One of which was tumble as in gymnastics. This is something i have always been interested in and wanted to try and animate so i thought i would give this a go. Now rotoscoping would have been easier but i have already done this before and i wanted to see if i could do it just with a bit of reference as it would be something to be more proud of. I went on you tube and found this video which i chose i snipet of at around 13 seconds in.

I like this move and i can create like a tick tock to make it loop.

This is what i have so far just to mark out the moves:

I think i am going to use some extra bits to make it look more interesting like paint splashing from the feet when she kicks or something. maybe some cool colours. I also thought about making the girl a colour silhouette but I'm not sure about that.

how much is adobe suit going to cost after uni and why i have to have it legally

So If i want to continue using the Adobe softwares when I leave uni and start using them for commercial work then I will have to get a proper licence. There are a few options of costs here. I can pay for a years worth monthly for £45.73 a month or I can pay 68.60 a month as and when I need it. This sounds more expensive but actually if you only need it for 6 months total out of the year then that would be £411.60 instead of £548.78… but that means that paying for the whole year actually works out cheeper as your only paying 137.18 more for the extra 6 months. I think when I leave I will do it on a monthly basis until I get work coming in where I need to have the software for more than a couple of months of the year. When this happens i will pay for the year but monthly. I will only be able to afford this though when I have a steady job.