krita

Krita is a free, open-source, and my current favourite software for creating digital art and animations.

brushes

On top of the default brushes included in Krita, I also have brush sets from the following artists:

workflow

screenshot of Krita, showing my usual setup
setup

I think my typical workflow when creating art on Krita is pretty simple. I always start with three layers:

  1. background: usually just a solid colour
  2. values: where I begin the sketch
  3. chroma: a layer set with color blending mode for when I want to add colour to the sketch

Depending on what I’m drawing, I could have additional layers. Usually when I’m "cleaning up" sketches, I’d do it on another layer just in case I want to change my mind later. Don’t rely on Undo as it can only go so far back in history.

The same thing happens when I want to draw an alternate version of what I already have on the canvas. In the image below, you can see how the original value layer looks different from the one on top of it (which is the version I went with in the end).

screenshot of Krita, showing a painting with a different version in the layer beneath
working with layers

colours

I usually source colours from photos, either by me or images I collected from the internet. For pixel art, I use this shell script to generate a handful of colours from an image source:

#!/usr/bin/env sh
convert "$1" -geometry 8x8 -colors 16 -unique-colors -scale 4000% ~/Pictures/palettes/"$1"-palette.png

animations

animation workspace in Krita
animation

The workflow is the same for animations. Lots of layers, usually just one animated object per layer.

resources

Krita Artists
community forum
Tutorial: an Illustration from A to Z with Krita by David Revoy
excellent resource on not only an overview of some of Krita's features but digital painting process as well