Krita and the Dog

I saw Krita a while back, maybe 1 or more years ago. I think it was actually last December right after I got my XP Pen tablet. I have been using Photoshop 6 or 7 for YEARS. I was using 6 when 7 was released and I switched over a year or two later. So I was still using PS 7 until this week.

All of you young folks and/or digital art geeks are grasping your chests, gasping for air. WHY would anyone continue using an old, old, ancient graphics program for that long??

Well, because it works for me. I'm a simple kind of guy and I want to use my art tools, not learn them. I dislike the learning phase because it makes me feel hobbled.

Anyway... I saw Krita and was drawn to it (pun intended) because it was current, well supported, and open source. So I downloaded the bastard and discovered that my cursor was offset by a mile. I tried to re-calibrate and all the usual tricks. Nothing worked. XP Pen and Krita did not get along. So I let it go and continued with PS 7.

Then recently I happened upon Krita again and decided to give it another whirl. This time I found the right answer online (you have to set your tablet as primary monitor) and WHAM... I'm cooking with fire.

Below is the first finished drawing I have created with Krita. The learning curve is not too steep. A lot of my beloved hotkeys are not the same (though I can modify that if I want). But Krita, so far, has not failed to do all the things that Photoshop 7 was able to do (well... the Save For Web function is PH is fantastic and Krita doesn't have it... grumble). What's more, I like the workspace better, the pre-installed brushes are better, and the whole thing seems to work more smoothly.

Still going to take some time. I had a few functions built into PS 7 that I'll have to work into Krita. For example, when I hit F4 in PS it would expand the current selection by a few pixels, fill the selection with black, then deselect it. I really got used to using that for fills. Also I had a lot of custom brushes in 7 that I already miss. I'll have to brush up on how to make more in Krita.

Straight inks with some halftone using the #5 round brush... a classic.

Added flat colors with some highlights.