#krita tutorial

Some krita tips and tools I use on the daily :] (click on the images to read)

I've been seeing a lot of people migrating from ibis to krita so I made a little tutorial on the main features <3

Part 1: Touch Interface Notes Part 2: Simplifying the Interface for a Tablet

BRUSH RECOMMENDATIONS:

The default brushes have some really nice sets, and are very easy to tune to your hand and feel via the Brush Editor settings. I was delighted to find that many of the basic brushes can be switched from a round to square head (Brush Editor-> Brush Tip -> Shape -> Square). Most other drawing programs, I have to make my own square head tip, and edit it in!

A particular shout-out to the watercolour brushes, which are some of the more natural feeling digital watercolours I’ve used not backed by a fluid dynamics system (and the sad trade-off with fluid dynamic systems is that they make my computers run like a potato). Krita’s default watercolour set run pretty well even with the larger brushes (I've been generally working on 300dpi files).

I also really like the Sketching Chrome Pen (under the default Ink set), which feels like pleasantly goopy ink/biro or a dry felt tip depending on how fast or what angle you draw with it, very fun to noodle around with.

However, if you want more brushes, here are some more commonly recommended ones and my impressions:

Concept Art and Illustration v2 by Pyteo

A good set for people coming from Photoshop, clean and focused for digital art. They run light and easy. Also a good pack if you find the default brush icons in Krita a bit distracting as interface elements – this set’s icons are plain grey and white, and blend in much better if you have the Brush Presets Docker always showing.

From Ramon Miranda, who created a lot (maybe all?) of the default brushes in Krita (and has many helpful Youtube videos for the official Krita channel):

CharcoalKA Sketch v2 Ink Brushes for Inktober RGBA-Wet (Brushes in video’s description)

His sets look very much like real media - I like the charcoal ones in particular. Fascinating to see images on the Krita forums of him using real media to make them too.

Memileo Impasto Brushes

I mainly use the first brush of this set to be honest, but it feels amazingly like blending real paint. The others can look a bit too much like what they're built on – a render from Blender – when applied at full strength, but provide ample scope for textural interest if you can blend them back a bit. Not a diss to this creator’s work – it seems inherently very difficult to avoid that computer rendered look when in the end, it is a computer rendering it. I don’t think even Rebelle or Adobe Fresco always avoid it, and the focus of those programs is a lot more on getting that analogue media look. I'd say I enjoy painting with this set as a digital acrylics/oils in Krita about just as much.

Rakurri Brush Set v2

I saw this one get recommended a lot as a beginner set on reddit, but I think of it more as a fun set to play with when you maybe need some inspiration, and are tired of your usual workhorse brushes. There are a lot of unique quirky brushes in it, that I think won’t necessarily enter everyday use for me, but have some cool effects – I really like the rainbow and liquid smeary brushes. I mainly don’t recommend it as a starter set because some of the brushes do run a little heavier; the orange tipped bristle ones in particular made my tablet lag.

Basics: What is where.

Gimmicks.

Specific advice on specific tools.

Basics: What is where.

Upon opening the program this is what you're met with. First of all, must comment: The layout is HEAVILY editable so you can just drag menus anywhere you want, even leave them floating amidst the sheet you're drawing on.

You can create custom art templates, I have two o'mine here as both have my signature background color.

As well, you can edit the custom document settings, as in what size you want it, what resolution, even the initial content of the image. As well you can create from clipboard: Just copy some image from your browser and Krita will recognize it (useful for making meme edits lol).

Now, once you have your file, I will show you what is where.

Brushes:

Brushes are easy to edit and there are tons of free bundles to download online. I myself only got one bundle, Jackpack (bit hard to find now due to original source being lost, it is still available but bit tricky to come by).

There. Are. Tons.

Some of these are my custom brushes for calligraphy in neography, you might even guess which ones. You can edit existing brushes, make new ones from the ones you've edited without changing the original, and all sorts of stuff (more below in the third chapter).

There are numerous packages of brushes once you enter Krita, but only one/two are available when you first open it. To unlock them all, click here:

And make sure all bundles are dark gray in color (example of both dark and light below).

Now Tools Options: those will pop up depending on what tool you're using.

Symmetry: Fun stuff. You can drag the lines depending on how you need them and then center them back to the center of the screen if needed.

Gradients and Textures also have their tools options, you can play with those to get the feeling what they can do (more in third chapter).

The Filters tab is useful too. Blurring, motion blurring, color mapping, artistic filters and all that: Quite fun.

Gimmicks.

Krita allows you to customize your workspace freely. Floating menus, tabs, anything you want. It has quite many drivers at that-

To access the workspace templates, go to Window and choose Workspace.

Krita allows for copy-pasting any image onto the sheet. Though, for me it sometimes crashes if I accidentally copy-paste text into it without choosing the Text tool first.

The software allows for both raster and vector work. It is basically Photoshop sharpened to be used by artists primarily.

There are some interesting mechanics regarding the Eraser (default bind E).

You can use it with any brush, allowing for textured erasure/quick work. Good for sketching.

You can use it on gradients (given there's a transparent point on the gradient preset).

There's a Multibrush tool:

People say Krita is good for animation but my brain can't wrap around it yet honestly @~@.

The keybinds:

B - Brush tool.

E - Erase tool option.

M - Mirror (useful for checking accuracy from a new angle).

Ctrl - Color pick (when used with brush or other color-using tools).

Shift+L.Mouse+drag - Changes the size of the brush by dragging left and right.

Ctrl+E - Merge layer with the one below.

Ctrl+G - Group selected layers.

Ctrl+A - Select whole sheet.

Ctrl+Shift+A - Deselect everything.

F - Bucket tool.

G - Gradient tool.

Ctrl+S - Save document.

Ctrl+Shift+S - Save As document.

Ctrl+N - New document.

Ctrl+O - Open document (will be seen in a new tab on top of the sheet).

Ctrl+C - Copy selected layer or selection.

Ctrl+X - Cut selected layer or selection.

Ctrl+V - Paste copied/cut layer or selection.

Q - Multibrush tool.

R.Mouse - Interesting thing: Opens up a quick selector for brushes and colors you've already used in the piece.

1 - Zoom 100%.

2 - Zoom to fit the piece vertically.

3 - Zoom to fit the piece horizontally.

4, 5, 6 - Turn 15 degrees (4 and 6) or undo the turning whatsoever (5).

Ctrl+I - Negative filter applied to layer.

Ctrl+U - Color editing on the layer.

Ctrl+Y - Soft proofing mode (for color mistakes and stuff like that, mostly annoying for me tbh).

Ctrl+T - Transform selection/layer.

Ctrl+R - Square select tool.

Ctrl+J - Lasso select tool.

Honestly you can just hover your mouse over tools and see their shortcut binds, as well. Or edit them in Settings.

Specific advice on specific tools.

Brush:

Brush editor is a great tool for making custom brushes, and it even has a sratchpad to test them out. Lots of settings, but no need to be afraid; Most of them you might never use on purpose.

Use Brush Smoothing for great and pretty lines in lining pieces or making calligraphy.

Gradient:

The four icons to the right top are:

Mirror gradient.

Arrange by lightness value.

Arrange by color value.

Space the stops evenly.

Click the gradient to add a new stop. The three things to the left are:

Make the stop use Primary Color.

Make the stop use Secondary Color.

and it looks pretty good so far! no one told me how cool filter layers are?? I'm gonna use these all the time now.

while I'm out of energy creatively, I do these little tests with the fonts I have + random backgrounds I draw under the tests to have a bg.

Fonts listed here: