Scott L Petrovic - Digital Painting with Krita 2.9: Learn All of the Tools to Create Your Next Masterpiece

2016 by Scott Petrovic. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

ISBN-13: 978-0-9968517-1-8

Library of Congress Control Number:
2015915715

Published by:
Louvus Media
P.O. Box 29454
St. Louis, MO 63126-8454
http://www.louvus.com

Cover Art:
Tyson Tan

Editor:
Karen L. Tucker

Reviewers:
Wolthera van Hvell tot Westerflier
David Revoy
Raghukamath

To my parents, Frank and Jill, as well as my siblings, Paul and John.Thank you for all of your support and encouragement throughout my life. I am a product of all of the hard work and love you have given me. I am so blessed to have an amazing family.

While I have spent a great deal of time writing, editing, and receiving feedback, there are bound to be errors in this material. If you find errors, or have any other feedback, contact scott@louvus.com.

Boudewijn Rempt. You have spent over 10 years of your life making Krita what it is today. Your direction, perseverance, and attitude is the reason Krita has become a tool that so many people are proud to use.

Wolthera van Hvell tot Westerflier. Thank you for spending so much time answering my questions and assisting me. Not only are you a great community leader, but an excellent artist, programmer, and educator.

David Revoy. Your guidance and artistic influence are embedded into Kritas core. You are an amazing role model, artist, and individual to look up to.

Tyson Tan. You have spent so much time creating the wonderful cover art and assisting the Krita Foundation with all of their projects. I love Kiki.

All of the developers that have contributed to Krita. In an age where many seem to demand money for any contribution, your time and energy are helping the next generation of artists and developers.

The artists featured in this book. This book would be much duller without your creative energy.

Saint Louis Bread Co. (Panera) . Much of my writing was done at one of your locations. It was always a joy to get some food, do some writing, and not have to worry about feeling rushed. Thank you for creating an environment for people like me.

Karen L. Tucker. My wonderful editor. After working through this book with you, I realize how much I still need to learn about the English language.

Introduction

Thank you for lending me your precious time. Krita is an application that is designed for digital artists of all kinds. It has been developed for a number of years and has some truly unique features. It prides itself as being a free, open source application. Unlike many other art applications, Kritas direction isnt influenced by stockholders and business people focusing on the bottom dollar. Krita is an application that has been nurtured by the artistic community and continues to improve at a dizzying pace.

There are quite a few art education books on the market about digital painting but few about Krita. While there are resources online and Wiki articles, they are written by various authors and can be difficult to wade through.

This past year, I have immersed myself in the Krita community: forums, the Krita chat room, YouTube videos, and social media. The goal was to educate myself on what Krita has to offer. There is a lot of helpful content on the Internet, but it is spread out and at times not accurate. This makes it difficult to find current information.

This book hopes to bring all of the knowledge I have learned under one roof. I hope to share everything I know about the application. After spending so much time with Krita, I believe it has the potential to disrupt the entire graphics industry. Also, a portion of the profits from this book will go toward the Krita Foundation. Your purchase is making Krita better for everyone.

Each chapter covers a different area in the application. You can read this book from cover to cover, but it isnt designed for this type of consumption. The table of contents is a quick way to skim and find an area you are interested in. If you have never used Krita before, the first few chapters will be valuable for navigating your way around. From there, this book will serve as a good reference when you need to learn more about a specific concept.

Best of luck on your future artistic endeavors,

Scott Petrovic

Downloading and Installing

The safest place to download Krita is from the project website krita.org. When you visit the download page, you will notice that there are different versions of Krita that you can work with. Each version has a different audience in mind. You will probably want Krita Desktop since that works with desktop and laptop computers. This book contains information up through Krita 2.9.7.3.

Krita.org: The latest news is presented in a blog format. You can subscribe to the mailing list if youre interested in hearing about new releases.

• Krita Desktop Optimized for nontouch screen devices. This is the version that most people use.
• Krita Gemini Optimized for devices that can switch between touch screen and nontouch screen. This is only available for purchase on the Steam platform.
• Krita Studio Commercial version that has paid support. Priority will be given for bug fixes and new features. There are no extra features in this version. The primary operating system for this is CentOS.

Make sure to download the correct version for your operating system. If you are on a 64-bit operating system, make sure to download the 64-bit version.

Warning for Mac OSX Users

If you are on Mac OSX, you will find some of the features missing or not working correctly. While Krita works well on Windows and Linux, it is not fully functional on a Macintosh. Even though it is not supported, I have heard good things from the community about it working.

If you are on Windows and download an MSI file, it will have an installer that will guide you through the process. There is also a portable version of Krita that doesnt need an installer file. This means that there is no installation process. You can navigate to the bin (binary) folder. In this case, you can launch the application by clicking on krita.exe. This is nice if you want to run Krita from a USB stick or otherwise make it portable.

Common Issues

There are some common issues that occasionally happen when trying to run Krita. The most common issue has to do with the canvas. The pen pressure might not work, or the canvas might appear black. A common solution is to disable OpenGL. This is done from the main menu Settings > Configure Krita > Display tab . To disable it, uncheck the OpenGL checkbox. OpenGL is a graphics technology that Krita uses. OpenGL is used for canvas rotation and zooming functions. This problem is more common with older computers. Updating your graphics driver fixes this issue many times.