I'm not an artist myself but I follow David Revoy, who [0] uses Krita and other open-source software extensively for his Pepper & Carrot comic [1]. His blog [0] is full of posts about how he does his work using open-source tools.
There are plenty of fantastic artists who use Krita but I find him interesting because of how dedicated he is to using open-source software for all his work.
The review mentions that the screen is a bit small for all of Krita and suggests that using something like a big iPad probably provides a better experience.
As this is only about Android I thought of promoting my take on this problem. In fact I released a small program I use to take handwritten notes via iPad on my Linux system just a few weeks ago. It works on both Android and iOS and basically turns these devices into graphic tablets. You can take a look at: https://github.com/H-M-H/Weylus
I love Krita. Actually, my kids love it so much. I've had a Wacom tablet for years and thanks to Krita my kids are expanding their artistic skills rapidly.
I wish the people behind it all the best!
I wish more parents bought their kids drawing tablets. Kids try out all kinds of things, but it's hard to try out something that you don't have the equipment for. Sure, drawing on paper is a possibility, but it's not quite the same thing as digital art that tends to be much easier to share and get feedback on.
This is basically Wacoms fault - they sat on their patents basically only producing expensive high end devices, preventing others from providing high volume basic but cheap devices. This was the most apparent in the LCD tablet are where until recently was just the high end Wacom made Cintiq that was insanely expensive and nothing else.
I believe that we lost at least one generation of digital artists due to this - not everyone can be productive by a non-LCD tablet and even those have been overpriced.
Thankfully with the main Wacom tablet patents finally gone, the situation seems to be finally recovering, with many new, mostly Chinese, LCD tablet makers and a lot of people using high end Android and Apple tablets for drawing (which are still much much cheaper than what Wacom used to want for a simple LCD tablet display or for what it sells its bulky mobile studio devices these days).
But to this day, we can still see the technical dept caused by Wacom blocking a whole area of HID devices for ~20 years - drivers for non Wacom LCD drawing displays are still a mess and there is a lack of quality drawing software, especially on Android.
So good to se Krita helping to address at least one of these issues. :)
Wacom has been making cheap tablets for ages, I started with a $100 Graphire back around 2000, the specs and name for the low end tablet has changed but you can still get a tablet with a small working area for about US$100. You can get last year’s entry-level tablet for even less; if you have any kind of art friend connections you could probably find one for the cost of shipping.
There has been no lack of cheap non-screen drawing tablets, and I really think that there’s nothing even resembling a whole generation of digital artists who done exist because of the lack of screen tablets. There’s a FUCKTON of pro artists out there who were enabled by a cheap drawing tablet and a pirated copy of (insert art program here).
There have been cheap tablets around for years, many of those work fine. I remember having a Kurta tablet in the late 90s that cost like $60 or so.
For me the gating factor was Linux support: along that axis, there was Wacom (which had it), and everybody else (which didn't). These days, even though the kernel and X drivers are called "wacom", they support all manner of budget tablets under a variety of brand names (though you will want to check to see if a particular model is supported, and how well).
LCD tablets are nice (albeit for a while it was cheaper to simply buy a tablet-based notebook computer than a Cintiq of equivalent size) -- but not having one doesn't prevent you from being proficient at digital art. Using a regular tablet is a great way to get started; the extra precision offered by an integrated LCD display extends your reach and productivity, it doesn't gate being able to produce at all.
From my experience using a non screen tablet makes the learning curve much steeper while a screen tablet feels much more natural due to people being used to seeing what they are drawing from writing and drawing on paper.
I have seen this one some festivals where they set up a couple Wacom LCD tablet devices for people to draw on - there was a lot of interest and basically everyone was able to start drawing in a couple minutes. Seeing what you are drawing on the screen and not in front of you basically throws all the muscle memory people have from paper drawing and writing out of the window.
The leading brand is quite expensive (at least here in Germany), especially when it comes to reasonable sizes (A4/letter). I've been putting this off for years.
Finally - a few months ago - I aquired something remarkable cheaper, a chinese Gaomon M106K. It turned out, it is not cheap at all in the other sense of the word. Good quality and support at least for my use case (a bit different, handwritten formulas and sometimes some sketched diagrams). But my youngest kids use it for painting with Krita too.
That's what I thought as well, but my experience contradicts that. Wacom is expensive, but it still leads in terms of sensitivity and accuracy. The pressure levels and other specs don't tell the full story.
On both my iPad Pro (2017) and an open-box Huion H610 Pro (pretty old) I saw stairstepping behavior when drawing a straight line with a ruler on a diagonal. It wasn't very pronounced on the iPad, but it was still there. If you draw the stroke quickly, the smoothing kicks in and straightens it. I'm pretty sure this is a normal side effect of the tech used to identify the grid coordinate of the stylus. But the wobbling was notably bad on the Huion. https://imgur.com/a/iPNZzrY
When I got a Wacom Intuos Pro PTH660 (Amazon renewed), the same test without smoothing showed a perfectly straight line, even when drawing quite slowly.
I don't know why the Wacom is better. Maybe it's got a higher resolution grid for detecting the pen location. Or maybe it's just got better tuned drivers. It's also much easier to freehand accurate lines and ellipses on the Wacom.
You generally can't trust the reviews of Wacom alternatives on YouTube. As reported by Aaron Rutten, most of the companies are not looking for fair and unbiased reviews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twy5Wo8m284&t=337
I got lucky years ago running into sales for a bluetooth version of the Wacom tablet (540WL) and the wireless option does somehow "sets you free" while drawing... But they are expensive, yes.
Actual pros replace them with cintiq or similar and are always larger than A4. I've never seen a full time designer move down size, because you lose fidelity at the same zoom level and are constantly fiddling with zoom which is a source of major frustration
Of course you want cintiq as big as possible but not tablet. With A4 you get to a point where you have to move a lot around the table with hand in front of you while you are looking straight at your screen its just akward. You dont have space for keyboard etc.
I can corroborate this. A full size tablet is not always ideal. Display tablets like Cintiqs benefit from larger size because you are drawing 1:1 on a screen. The size allows for comfortable viewing as well as full arm movements on a surface that resembles a drafting table. However, traditional graphics tablets require you to draw on a separate surface while looking up at a monitor. The screen is mapped to the tablet surface, so to move the 10 inches on a 27" monitor to reach a button, you might instead only move your pen tip 1 or 2 inches. In this case, it's often easier to draw using small movements, and zoom in and out as required to work on structure or detail.
Using a large tablet is like using a mouse with the sensitivity turned down. It quickly becomes frustrating having to move your arm around so much to manage the interface, especially when you don't have a direct connection between what you're looking at and touching.
The difference is why someone might use a steno pad or moleskin journal rather than a full-size legal pad.
I'm doing this for my A4-sized tablet too. At times. I still have the option (and I'm using it) for the full tablet area. I don't have this for the postcard-sized scribblers.
I do! This doesn't make sense to me. I have a Galaxy Note 12.2, and it's great, but bigger would be better (it's not quite A4). I also have a 12"×9" Wacom Intuos, 12" Surface Pro, 15" Surface Book 2 from work. All of those would be even better bigger (but the work laptop wouldn't fit in my backpack any more). I have a small Wacom tablet too, and it's too small to be very useful.
Yeah, I am a pro artist and I have played with screen tablets and I do not like the way they make me hunch over my work surface and ruin my back, I really like that I can have my screen at the proper height above my desk and my tablet at the most comfortable place on my desk. No slouching, no achy spine, no ending up with nose prints on the screen because I hunch closer instead of using the zoom capabilities.
Devices like the Galaxy Tab S6 are basically a very powerful Android tablet with low latency high precision pen input (also does pressure and tilt detectio) via the supplied S pen (uses basically the same battery free technology as Wacom tablets).
As I mentioned, I have two graphics tablets (i.e. without screens), both Wacom, one large and one small. The small one is not very useful, and the larger one (~A4 drawing area) would be even more useful a bit bigger.
True i havent tried them all. Ocassionaly somebody around has some wierd brand and it has never been really good. But it might just be certain feeling wacoms have that is something acquired and might not mean it's better.
It's possibly it's something the Wacom drivers is doing (smoothing, etc). There's a game called osu! where lots of people play with graphics tablets, and a lot of people use cheaper chinese (Gaomon) tablets, with open source drivers that let you emulate the smoothing of Wacom drivers.
Super interesting never heard of this. I thought its software because hardware could be copied. Also the big difference are usually other things than movement/pointing its pressure and tilt where Wacom is pretty great.
what kind of price are we taking about? because a second hand surface pro 3 is probably cheap these days and could be used for a lot more than a wacom tablet, playing music, watching videos etc
Not for a Wacom with form factor >= A4. These have easily a price tag in the higher three-digit Euro range (and even more). Things like the A5 (!) Bamboo slate _start_ at 100 EU.
@parent
Of course - I also switched for ebooks from a dedicated reader to a tablet. But I'm still missing the ability for reading in the full sun, power for two weeks w/o charging, easiness on the eyes.
Similar - but harder to tolerate - things apply to a painting tablet. You cannot replace it simply by a multi-function device without losing quite a lot functionality.
I am constantly amazed at what they are able to do with it. I was just a minute ago explaining to my younger daughter the concept of layers and the first thing she did with it was to separate an object to which she wanted to apply a special filter. Without even thinking about it.
This takes me back to when I was 12 and discovered layers in Photoshop 6. Having always been frustrated with my drawings being all matted together in Paint/ClarisWorks/etc, layers blew my mind and hooked me on the concept of digital art.
Layers are a great example of how simple tools can act as a multiplier for creativity and inspiration.
I lost my PC graphics virginity with Corel DRAW (I don't remember the version). Man, it was so inspiring... I could never get used to Adobe Illustrator afterwards, it just did not seem logic after working with Corel Draw for years.
They've recently published a revamped version with Mac compatibility and I bought it just for the sake of good old times, although I'm far from doing any graphic work anymore.
>Unlike the Windows and Steam store, we don’t ask for money for Krita in the store, since it’s the only way people can install Krita on those devices, but you can buy a supporter badge from within Krita to support development.
I wish more free software projects would do that. You can download Krita for free but if you want to support the project you can buy it from Steam or Windows Store.
If you know about the project you can donate the money to them directly to avoid Steam/Windows taking a cut, but for lots of people who dont want to worry about updating their software it gives you something in return for the donation.
I completely agree with you on this. I was considering GIMP as the only relevant substitute for Adobe until I've played a bit with Krita. Really amazing piece of work.
To be fair, GIMP considers itself also an image processing software, not (or only partially) a painting program. At least, it emphasizes this aspect and it shows (yes it mentions also artistic usage).
I'm using it this way as a tool (being a software writer in this industry), but the tasks belonging to it and those for Krita have a virtually empty intersection.
You're absolutely correct, but you know how these things go: people look up FOSS Photoshop (or more likely "free photoshop alternative") on a search engine and GIMP is the first hit and when the tools for drawing aren't as sophisticated, users will say "GIMP sux" because it doesn't match their expectations if they're a drawer even if it's a perfectly adequate image processor.
Rebelle is also quite nice. They even have an HSLuv based color picker. Super underrated software only a handful of digital painting pros know about ;)
Clip Studio Paint and Affinity are also well-regarded, though not FOSS. CSP in particular has great support and advanced tools like posable maquettes and perspective rulers.
While we (Krita) don't have 3D support yet, but we do have perspective and other kinds of rulers (assistants) support. There are lots of other features too like wrap around mode for seamless tile creation etc.
For the record, I have all 3 installed. :) I find that they're useful for different purposes and that it's helpful to be able to tap into two feature sets and support communities.
Awesome news. This part caught my attention though:
>Unlike the Windows and Steam store, we don’t ask for money for Krita in the store, since it’s the only way people can install Krita on those devices, but you can buy a supporter badge from within Krita to support development.
I don't know about the Windows store because I don't use Windows, but doesn't the Steam store allow you to put up free tools? Godot Engine is available for free on Steam, IIRC.
On desktop they went with free installers from their website and paid versions if you want the convenience of a store. That’s a way to support the project.
Yes, what they mean is that on windows you can get krita for free outside of the windows store or steam. While on Android most users are stuck with the Google Play store because it's very difficult to use another store.
>On Android using a different store or sideload is easy.
Asking users to use developer mode is not easy, and a huge barrier to entry that most would just not bother and download something else from the Play Store instead.
Developer mode has never been required on Android. App sources are managed by regular settings (Android 8+). Before that, there was a single switch for all non-Play-Store sources.
1. User downloads an .apk using a browser
2. User tries to open it
3. Android prompts the user to allow the browser as a trusted source
This is not a great substitute for installing through an app store because the app will not update automatically.
This is, however, a great thing to have.
A better substitute would be using F-Droid. By the way, some free software apps are not gratis on the Play Store but are on F-Droid.
It can still be confusing to manage two app stores for some people, while installing an app from a downloaded executable is usual on Windows, so Krita probably did the right thing.
What you say echoes my experience, I see a lot of apps on the Play store say "pay 1.99 here or get it for free on F-Droid", which is fair. I usually even pay the money even though I have F-Droid installed, just to support the dev.
Good question: why is Krita not on F-Droid? Probably a matter of time and effort, not a technical reason. I guess they sensibly got into the most visible marketplaces first.
You forgot, and the users probably will forget too, to flip the switch back so that the browser is no longer a trusted source. That is, you've now increased the chance of malware being accidentally installed through the browser, since AFAIK Android will not prompt again until the switch is flipped back to "not allowed".
Android won't tell you again that the source is untrusted and will directly show the installation dialog, but it also won't silently install a random APK, so in practice the risk of accidentally installing malware is not that high unless you have very fat fingers.
You can sideload on Chromebooks if you enable developer mode. But enabling developer mode wipes all data on the system and displays a warning message on boot.
So Chromebooks only let you run software that a Google employee approved, unless you wipe your device to enable developer mode (which nobody, after using it for a while and then deciding to develop something, will want to do)? There is no other way to run some test code on it? I didn't know that and it seems strange (even Android is more liberal than that, and that's not a laptop) so genuine question.
I think wiping a Chromebook isn't as problematic as wiping another computer. The OS settings and apps can fully sync, and almost all apps autosync all data to the cloud.
Oh, if it's a funding related thing, then that's fine. The paragraph makes it sound like they can't put Krita up on those stores without requiring a fee.
Thanks a lot as well! Got Galaxy Tab S6 for drawing and the software available on Android has not really been that good when compared to what is available on desktop Linux with Krita, Mypaint and others. :)
Tried it out. Loved it. I have one of those moderately expensive Samsung Chromebooks with its own pen, and the pressure sensitivity stuff works great. I can see myself building an art workflow around my Chromebook with Krita. Previously the only options on Chromebooks or Android were proprietary apps that had ads, including Autodesk Sketchbook which I used to love but they added ads, DeviantArt integration, and nerfed the UX.
So getting an open source, full-featured alternative is fantastic for me.
They have ads on autodesk sketchbook? When I had an android phone I paid for it and they made it free a few months later. Now I am on iphone and even the free apps have much less ads.
It was years ago and I forgot what change they made. It was either ads or "sign up for a free account". Whatever it was, it pissed me off -- and enough others that Autodesk apparently walked it back.
It only stressed to me the need for an open-source solution -- which Krita on Android fills nicely.
I bought a Wacom tablet to use with Krita and have been totally unable to figure out how to make it work. Every tutorial/video out there is for Windows and most of the settings that affect Krita are done in a windows setting area. I use Fedora/Gnome and don't have access to that level of settings (tho there are some settings available through Gnome via libwacom, which itself is awesome).
Anyone using Krita with a Wacom tablet under Linux? How do you draw?
Yes I am using Krita with wacom on Linux. On linux wacom and most other tablets are just plug and play. They just work. krita is just a click away from the software center.
How did you configure Krita? I see almost nothing in the "tablet settings" section besides pressure. When Krita has focus and I draw on the tablet, it does nothing. Every other app treats the tablet like a mouse.
Every other app treating the tablet like a mouse is the normal and desired behaviour. As others said, Wacom tablets on linux should just be plug and play. I literally just plug it in, open krita and start drawing. Big difference from the literally hours I spent on macOS trying to find the right drivers for this older model.
I would add that I did have some issues with the Flatpak version of Krita where the tablet didn't draw as expected. Replacing it with the standard deb from apt repositories fixed that though.
Have you tried it with Krita? It "just works" on all other apps I've tried it with (it behaves like a mouse), but Krita is doing something different. It completely ignores the wacom when focus is on the Krita window.
Aw, it does not work well on mobile phones, because the dialogues are cropped and unscrollable. I am going to keep an eye on it though, some apps like sketchbook are somewhat working but they are limited. Having krita equivalent for the phone would be awesome.
I have yet to find something that works better than medibang for all around doodling on phones and tablets. However, I'm excited to keep an eye on this as well.
AFAIK Ibis Paint targets Android smartphones, possibply even as their main target. They have various helper tools for finger based drawing and even their tutorial videos are dony by hand on a normal size smartphone (eq. not on an Android tablet with precize pen support).
I bought a pen tablet with screen recently, the Gaimon PD1161. Incredibly cheap compared to the Wacom Cintiq, and it works great with Krita (on Windows). My girlfriend uses it all the time now: https://www.youtube.com/user/PapillonMarianne/videos
In the last 6 to 9 months I have been learning Drawing (Pen/Paper), Digital paining (Krita) and 3D modeling (Blender) in my free time.
I must say, I had to try very hard to not explore Photoshop and other 3D tools, It wasn't easy when I see most professionals using Photoshop, 3DS, Maya, etc. From time to time i get frustrated with low quality Youtube's tutorials, numerous times I had to remind myself to have patience, and stick with Krita & Blender.
Now I in love with Blender, and getting used to like Krita with Wacom table.
Wacom. The very, very best is a second hand Wacom Intuos 3, if you can get a few spare pens. That's before Wacome started adding all kinds of smart interpolation curves to the tablet hardware itself. My Intuos 3 is eleven years old and going strong. We got it back then: https://dot.kde.org/2007/11/16/art-tablets-krita
They change the inputs to the painting application in a way that the user cannot influence; the app no longer gets the raw hardware take, but something that's "improved" and "smoothed out". And that's limiting. We can do our own smoothing, thank you very much, and leave the amount to our user's discretion.
Been using Krita for a few weeks, UI looks quite similar to Adobe stuff, it's better than GIMP for out of box drawing if you're a beginner.
I also got a Huion H1060P which works better than I expected.
It's actually got me craving for drawing on paper again too, and it's great because of psychological drawing barriers because this way I can hide all my mistakes on my hard drives. And it's a steep curve, like learning to program.
I wish there was a mode conducive to less control and creativity a la ArtRage. I am not a professional digital artist and all the control that digital drawing platforms have encumbers my creative workflow. Any chance we’ll get this in Krita? In ArtRage for example colors interact more like in real life and don’t need to separate objects in layers but just paint over the way layers naturally happen.
Not a support forum here - but does someone know, if there are ways to resize UI fonts for the Windows Krita application without touching the Windows setting for the whole monitor?
The only way still working for me is an arcane - in fact deprecated for a long time - Qt environment variable (QT_DEVICE_PIXEL_RATIO), that makes a difference for at least a portable Krita installation.
This is a big deal. If you use a display drawing tablet, the likelihood of it having the same resolution as your display monitor are becoming less and less, and if I can't scale krita on its own the UI becomes a mess.
We're really dependent on the Qt framework here. And they've been messing around with hidpi support for ages, and never, ever get it really right. The current state, in 5.15 is still "fractional scaling, well, deal with one pixel gaps between decorations in widgets (like lines).
Why not publish it for phones too? Something to do with UI polishing (widget arrangement, responsiveness)?
I have a phablet (6+ inches, high resolution and DPI) with pressure-sensitive stylus and I'd love to see Krita running on it, even if the UI is not optimized yet.
Yes, the UI isn't exactly the best thing even for tablets, so we refrained from releasing it for phones. Though you could always side load it once we have it in fdroid.
Congratulations, on finally having a tablet version of Krita. I think years ago they planned to make one for Windows Phone but we all know what happened there.
Krita is primarily C++/Qt based. Qt does technically support Android. So any app written in it could work, but nevertheless, it was imperative to tweak Qt code to get Krita useable on Android. :-)
I got my daughter a Huion tablet and a laptop in the Chromebook price range. It did take a bit of work to get everything working for her in Linux, but it works great. She loves it and draws a ton.
I also bought a HP Spectre x360 recently. Krita works really well on it too.
There are plenty of fantastic artists who use Krita but I find him interesting because of how dedicated he is to using open-source software for all his work.
[0]: https://www.davidrevoy.com/
[1]: https://www.peppercarrot.com/