Book Image

Draw and Paint Better with Krita

By : Wesley Gardner
Book Image

Draw and Paint Better with Krita

By: Wesley Gardner

Overview of this book

Krita is a free, open-source digital painting program with industry-leading functionality and a creative suite of tools able to bring any visual idea to life. It allows for a fast, clean approach to creating digital art, without the hassle of pay-to-play or subscription license fees, but just like all other art software, it takes time and effort to learn it. This book provides a comprehensive look into functional tools, visual problem-solving, and leading painting techniques using Krita to unleash your inner artist. You’ll learn the functionality and tools of Krita for creating digital and print-quality work as well as explore manipulation toolsets, custom brush creation, overviews of color spaces, and layer management. As you progress, you’ll get to grips with ‘key styles’ needed to make professional-grade digital art, through techniques such as photobashing, 3D paint-overs, and more traditional painting methods, along with covering how Krita handles these workflows. Next, you’ll work through a few step-by-step art pieces using the skills and tools learned throughout the book. By the end of this Krita book, you’ll have a solid understanding of the Krita work environment and be able to bring your artistic visions to life with a myriad of leading industry-standard techniques.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Intro to Krita and Digital Art Terminology Review
6
Part 2: Methods of Visual Communication within Krita
11
Part 3: Projects Unleashing Your Inner Artist with Krita

Taking notes

While at our core we are artists, I would argue that our primary job is as a communicator. Surely, painting is visual communication, but you should never overlook the sheer power of words to convey an idea. For every one of my clients that require preliminary sketches or "value passes" (such as card art, tabletop roleplaying game art, and concept art jobs), I always send in a draft with notes not only in an email but also embedded in the art file itself. These can be either handwritten or typed using the Text tool, but no matter the method, I want to make sure that my client can follow my train of thought, or see questions I might have for them directly relating to the piece.

I've heard from a vast number of my art directors that they love that I include notes, as it helps them relay information to their team, and saves everyone time (and about 20 emails) in the process. Saving time saves money for companies, and if you're a skilled artist that also...