Fandom Entanglement

Sherman Gallifreyan actually has a translator, if you’d like to try it (http://www.shermansplanet.com/gallifreyan) as a download for either Mac or PC. However! It’s a bit buggy, though, so you might want to draw stuff on your own. :) 

I would definitely used a vector-based graphics program. Raster-based programs, like Photoshop, give you non-smooth curves or are just really messy in their attempts to balance vector and raster information. Actually, as an example, MS Paint is raster-based. If you draw a circle with Paint and zoom in, you see all the little edges of the pixels as it tries to approximate the curves. So, your best bet is a vector-based program!

If you want a full program:

Inkscape (linkylinky!) -Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw and some of the other big names in graphic design. I don’t know how to use it, but I hear it’s awesome. It’s also available for several platforms: Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. This is a program you can use for extensive graphic design, and from the galleries of projects created with it, it seems pretty robust and relatively easy to use. There are also a good number of tutorials to help you learn. 

If you’re going to do something quick, though:

Aviary (linky!) - This is a whole suite of graphics programs that are free(!), in-browser(!) and surprisingly powerful. Their vector editor is called Raven and creating circles and lines is *ridiculously* easy. Just open up the editor and click on the ‘spiro path’ wiggly line at the corner. It should give you an option to choose circles/ellipses instead. There’s a little window in the other corner that allows you to choose to not have a fill. 

Doing that will give you the outlines of circles, and if you hold down the shift key while you draw, they will be perfect circles. Click on the pen tool (that looks like a fountain pen nib) and that will give you straight lines. The pen tool does complete paths, so you’ll have to click at your beginning, click at your end, and then click at your beginning again for it to close the path. Very easy.

However, working with Aviary requires you to sign up for their site in order to save, which has pros and cons. The cons are it adds a little Aviary logo to the bottom of your picture. As a pro, it hosts your images and allows you store and publish it, as well as view it full size without the watermark so you can save it to your computer and upload it to tumblr yourself. 

My practice image that took me about 60 seconds and doesn’t say anything, but it looks pretty good:

Gallifreyan practice.egg by desiderii on Aviary

There are other options, like FatPaint and a couple more, but these two seemed to be the ones that will get you writing Gallifreyan as swiftly and easily as possible. 

(Linky to my Gallifreyan Master-Post in case you need it: Here!)

Hopefully this helps! :) 

EDIT: (Made on 9/24/2012)

Well, damn. So Aviary is no longer supported. (Tragic!) However, I have found a sufficiently acceptable replacement. 

Google Docs (No really!) (Or I guess it’s also called Google Drive now?) Using the same techniques of ‘arcs’ and… you know what? I’m just going to post a new tutorial called ‘How to Draw Gallifreyan in Google Docs’. :) I’ll update this post when I finish it.