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

Finishing touches with edge control

Every step up until this point can be viewed as "setting up" for this final portion of our project. Newer artists, and even some seasoned professionals, seem to doubt themselves when it comes to crossing the finish line on a piece. How do you know when a piece is done? Are there any ways to ensure that your piece is the very best it can be? What are a few things you can do to give yourself a little more peace of mind, feeling confident that you've done everything within your power to make an impactful piece of art?

While I don't believe there's a "one-size-fits-all" magic answer, I can think of two main things to look for while you're pushing to your final phase of completing a piece of art:

  • Control your edges. Make sure there's a variety of hard edges, soft edges, lost edges, and "painterly" edges.
  • Find a focal point and highly render that specific area to give contrast to the...