Digital painting with Krita 5 for beginners

1. Introduction: Assalamu'alaikum, my name is Widhi Muttaqien. I am an entrepreneur in the creative industry, and also an academic lecturer in design and computer graphics. I teach digital painting, architecture visualization, 3d animation, web design, motion graphics, game development, and many other topics related to computer graphics. "Krita" is a graphic application comparable to Photoshop. But unlike Photoshop, Krita is free and open-source software. So, you don't need to pay anything to download and use it. Another thing that makes Krita different from Photoshop, is that Krita is more focused on digital painting. That is why in Krita, you can find many features related to digital painting that do not exist in Photoshop. If you need software for drawing or creating illustrations, then Krita will make you feel right at home. If you have never used Krita before or even never used any graphic software such as Photoshop, Gimp, and so on. You don't need to worry. Because we will start from the very basics. I have carefully crafted the curriculum for convenience and speed. In sha Allah, you can master Krita quickly but through an easy and enjoyable learning experience. There are a lot of things that you are going to learn in this course. It would be impossible to explain all of them in detail in this short video. But, just for a quick preview, this online course consists of 8 chapters, outside the introduction chapter. In chapter zero or the introduction chapter, you will learn how to set up the drawing tablet. And also various tips to make Krita perform optimally. Then in the first chapter, you will learn the theories and concepts around computer graphics which will be relevant later in the digital painting process. You will learn the difference between raster and vector graphics. Then learn various types of color models that exist in the world, such as RGB and HSV. Then learn the basic concepts behind "bits per channel", "high range images", "hexadecimal" color codes, and so on. In the second chapter, you will start learning the basic features of Krita. From how to work with documents. Understanding the UI and how to tweak it. Then learn the different methods of canvas navigation. In the next chapter, you will learn how to use the "freehand brush tool" and also how to work with color in Krita. From choosing and managing "brush presets". How to use the "pop-up palette". Understanding various parameters related to brush, such as "size", "opacity", "flow", "eraser mode", etc. Then learn how to use the "advanced color selector", "color sampling" technique, how to use the "color palette", and so on. In the fourth chapter, we are going to discuss various tools that are based on the brush engine. We will learn tools like the "line tool", "rectangle tool", "Ellipse tool", "polygon tool", "polyline tool", and so on. In the fifth chapter, you will learn about the selection and layer composition. We will start by discussing the basic selection techniques. Then move on to custom-shaped selection techniques. Then discuss the background layer. Learn the different types of layers available in Krita. Understand various properties related to layers. Learn to make complex compositions using "group layer", "alpha inheritance", "blending mode", etc. In this chapter, we will draw a simple landscape illustration using various tools and features we discussed earlier. In chapter six, you will learn the basic techniques of drawing and coloring in Krita. To practice the techniques, you will create this ax weapon illustration from start to finish. You will start by drawing the sketch. Then learn various techniques for drawing smooth "line arts". Then learn the various types of "assistant tools" available in Krita. You will also learn different approaches of adding base colors to a drawing. One of the techniques is to use the "colorize mask" feature. After that, you will learn how to add shading and highlight colors with a style you often see in superhero comics. In the seventh chapter, you will learn the basics of creating digital paintings with smoother shading colors. You will start by preparing all the brush presets. Then learn to create custom shortcuts for faster workflow. Then we will discuss the basic concepts of shading. Learn how to form any shape we want by manipulating the color gradation on the canvas. Then we move on to learn different shading techniques. After that, we will put into practice the techniques that we learned by making this skull illustration. From drawing the sketch, adding the base color, applying "shading" and "highlight" colors, and finally adding details and textures to the drawing. In the last chapter, we are going to discuss the workflow for creating a non-destructive illustration. We are going to create this tree on the cliff illustration from start to finish using all the techniques we learned before. The benefit of having a non-destructive composition is that it will be easier if we need to make some changes or revisions. In some cases, this kind of workflow becomes very crucial. Such as when you need to create a lot of variations from a single artwork as quickly as possible. So, join the course now! And start creating beautiful artworks using Krita. Wassalamu'alaikum. 2. Project files and other information: Welcome to the course "Digital painting with Krita 5 for beginners". Before we start the lesson, there is some information regarding the course that you need to know. The first is about the project files or exercise files. If you want to follow along with the lessons using the exact files that I'm using, you can download the files through this link. The files are compressed in the ZIP format and organized based on the order and the name of the lesson videos. Next is about the curriculum. I have carefully designed the curriculum so that the lessons come gradually in the correct order. The lesson you get from one level will become the foundation of the upcoming levels. That is why it is very important for you to take this course in order. If you jump around randomly, eventually, you will get confused at some point. Indeed, I may repeat lessons that I think are important. But most of the time I will assume you already understand the lessons from the previous videos, as it will be a waste of time or even impossible to keep repeating everything on each video. The second thing I need to mention regarding the curriculum is that you need to practice. This online course is not just about theory. The majority of the lessons are practical skills. If you really want to benefit from this course, then there is no other way but to practice the lessons as much as you can. Or at minimum, for each lesson video, you need to practice it at least once. For this course, I recorded all the lessons using a PC with Windows 10 operating system. So, please be aware that all the keyboard shortcuts I will be using are for PC computers. If you are on Linux OS, in sha Allah, you will have no problem. As basically, Linux uses the same hardware and keyboard layout as Windows. What might become an issue is if you are using Apple or Mac computers. Because the keyboard layout is a bit different from PC computers. In general, you need to switch the "Ctrl" key on the PC with the "Command" key on the Mac computer. If it still does not work, you can look for the command on the menu. Or you may need to search online for additional information regarding the keyboard shortcuts. You probably already know that Krita is a free and open-source software. You don't need to pay anything to be able to download it and use it. The official website for Krita is "https://krita.org/". For safety or security reasons you should never download Krita from other sources that you don't know. After you open the official website, to download Krita you can click on this button. Or you can also go to the "download" page. The website will automatically detect your operating system and provide the matching installer file. Now, if you need to download Krita for other platforms, you can click on this link. When I recorded this video, which is at the beginning of 2022, the latest Krita available is version 5.02. So almost all the lesson videos I made in this online course are using Krita version 5.02. Please note that there are also some older videos still using Krita version 4. But, don't worry, these videos are still relevant. Visually, the UI looks a bit different. But in terms of function, they are still the same. If you find Krita helpful and you want to support the software development, you can donate through this "donate" link. Or, another way to support Krita is by purchasing it through "Windows Store", "Steam", or "Epic". Now, you may be confused. Buying Krita? But, isn't Krita free software? Yes, Krita is indeed free. Paying Krita through online stores is not actually to purchase it. It is just an alternative method to donate to its software development. And, if you do purchase from one of the online stores, you will still get an added benefit. And that is "automatic updates". Every time there is an update to Krita, the Krita app on your computer will also get updated automatically. Whereas if you download and install Krita manually, you need to check Krita's website periodically to see if there is a new update. The last thing that I need to mention is the copyright issue. Throughout this online course, I may be showing some images or even videos that are created by other people. I use this content merely as references. I never claim that they are mine or made by me. If I can find the owner's name, I will display it on top of the content. Otherwise, I will just put the URL of where I got the image or the video. 3. Drawing tablet setup: In this lesson video, we will cover how to set up the drawing tablet, so it can fit your drawing style and also our digital painting workflow. The term "drawing tablet" that I use here is a general term. It can be in a form of the most common product, which is a digital drawing board and its pen, without any monitor. Or it could be the one that has a monitor or a screen. Or, it could be a laptop that has a touch-sensitive screen. Or, it could also be mobile devices such as the Ipad pro, Galaxy tab, Microsoft Surface, and so on. Essentially, all devices that feature pressure sensors or commonly known as "pressure-sensitive devices" can be categorized as "drawing tablets". I'll just use the term "drawing tablet" throughout this course to make it easier to pronounce. Before we continue, at this point, you may be wondering. Why do we need to use a drawing tablet? Well, if you are serious about computer graphics, especially "digital painting", you need to have a "drawing tablet". To explain this better, I'll just show you the difference between drawing using only the mouse, versus using a drawing tablet. I'm currently using a regular mouse now. Let's say, I select this brush and then make some strokes on the canvas. As we can see, the width of the strokes is always uniform. Now, let me switch to my drawing tablet. Notice how I can now control the width of the brush strokes by applying different pressures to the pen. And not only the brush width, but you can also use the pen pressure to control the opacity or the transparency of the strokes. For this, we need a different brush preset. For example, this one. If I make random strokes like this, we can see varying degrees of opacity, because I applied different pressures on the pen. Another big advantage of using a drawing tablet is the amount of control that we have over the pen. Most of us are much more familiar with writing and drawing using a pen instead of using a mouse. An object that we place at our fingertips is more precise and easier to be controlled compared to something that we hold in our palm. So those are the reasons why you want to invest in a good drawing tablet. Every drawing tablet product usually comes with a companion software or app. You can find and download the software from the manufacturer's website. With the software, you can control various aspects of the drawing tablet. When recording this video, I used a drawing tablet from XP-Pen, which is called the "Deco Pro". And this is the app that you get from XP-Pen to control the product. Since there are so many drawing tablet brands and products on the market, it is unlikely that you are using the exact same drawing tablet that I am using. Therefore, I will try to explain the methods for setting up the drawing tablet as broadly or as general as I can. I hope that you can relate the methods that I'll be showing to the drawing tablet product that you are using. The first setting is for the 2 buttons on the pen. I set the button below to perform the mouse middle-click. And the button above to perform a right-click. I know that this setting is reversed compared to most people or to the product's default setting. I use this setting because when using Krita, I need a button to navigate the canvas more often than to access the "pop-up palette". We will discuss later what a "pop-up palette" is. Basically, with this setting, I can press the lower pen button to navigate the canvas. And press the top button to open the "pop-up palette". The second setting is the "pen pressure sensitivity" curve. I make the center point slightly curved downwards. And I also make this setting 1 step towards "hard". For both of these settings, you should try and experiment for yourself. Because everyone's hand pressure style is different or unique. For me, this is the most comfortable setting to use. Next, for those of you who use a non-monitor drawing tablet, just like mine, you should use the "absolute mode". Because, if you use the "relative mode" the pen tracking method is no different from a mouse. Unless you are forced to use the "relative mode", such as because the size of the drawing tablet is too small. Next, in the "absolute mode", you should use the size ratio of the monitor as the main reference. This is important, especially if you are using an older tablet whose size is still using a 4 by 3 size ratio, while your monitor screen already use a 16 by 9 size ratio. Usually, by using the screen as the reference, there will be areas in the drawing tablet that are not used. But this is not a problem, because the more important thing is that you can access all areas of the screen in the correct ratio. This helps greatly for your hand and eyes coordination. Next, is the "express keys" setting. Almost all drawing tablet software can provide different settings per app. This is the setting for all apps by default. And this is the setting specific to Krita. The drawing table will automatically load the settings when we are using Krita. We can also add settings for other applications by pressing this plus button. For the Krita app, I use this express key to replace Shift. This key is for Ctrl. And this one is for Alt. Then, my drawing tablet also has 2 dials. One is a physical dial and another is a touch dial. For the physical dial, I set it to control the brush size. You can set this manually by assigning the open and close bracket keys. Then for the "touch dial", I set it to adjust the "opacity" of the brush. You can do this by assigning the letter I and O of the keyboard. Now, for those of you, whose drawing tablet doesn't have any express keys, you don't need to worry. Because you can still use keyboard shortcuts together with the drawing tablet. We will discuss all of this in more detail later, in sha Allah. And, if you already have a different setting that you like, and you don't want to follow my settings, that is totally fine. Just use the settings you feel most comfortable with. At least this video explains the settings that I will be using throughout the course, so you don't get curious. 4. Krita performance tips: There were times when Krita is known to be a laggy or slow application. Many people tried Krita, then become disappointed and switched to other graphics applications. However, that situation has completely changed. Currently, Krita's performance is on par with Photoshop, Gimp, or any other graphics application. And in certain aspects, Krita is even better than the others. This is true when you use Krita on computers with decent performance. Now, if you try to run Krita on lower specs computers, Krita can indeed feel heavy. But this is not a problem specific to Krita. This is a common condition that occurs also with other graphics software. If you are planning to buy a computer to run various graphics software, including Krita. If you have a big budget, you can try looking at the graphic workstation category. But with a more limited budget, you can try looking at the gaming category. Generally, gaming computers have high performance due to the presence of "dedicated GPUs", among other factors. So it is more suitable for running graphics software. If you feel that Krita's performance is inadequate when running on your computer. Meanwhile, buying a new computer or upgrading the existing one is not an option. At least, there are several things that you can do to help improve Krita's performance. The first one is setting the "display driver". The second is changing the "scaling mode" setting. The third is by increasing the "memory limit". The fourth is reducing the "FPS limit". The fifth is reducing the image size or "canvas size". And the sixth is by disabling "brush smoothing". Let's discuss all of these, one by one. The first method is to set the "display driver" or the "graphic API" used by Krita. To access it, first, you need to open the "settings" menu. Then select "configure Krita". And then select the "display" category. You'll see the "renderer" setting here. Krita is actually developed to only use "OpenGL" as the "graphic API" to access the GPU. That is why if you are using Linux or MacOS, you will see "OpenGL" as the only option. So, for Linux and MacOS users, there is nothing that you can change here. But, for Windows OS, apart from using "OpenGL", Krita can also use "Direct3D". This is possible because Krita uses an abstraction software called ANGLE. Basically, ANGLE is in charge of converting OpenGL commands into Direct3D versions. Don't worry, you don't need to understand the technical details to make use of it. The point is, if you are using a Windows system, you can choose between using "OpenGL" or "Direct3D". There is also an option called "Auto" where Krita will automatically detect the system, and use the graphic API that is the most suitable. In my personal experience, with the computer that I use, when I set the "graphic API" to OpenGL, there are sometimes lags when making brush strokes on the canvas. This does not happen when I use "Direct3D". With "Direct3D" the brush sweeping process in Krita feels smooth and seamless. That's why I always set this to "Direct3D". However, because there are so many different variations of computer specs, the "OpenGL" setting may be more suitable for your computer. Please try and compare for yourself which one feels smoother on the computer you are using. The second method is to change the type of "scaling mode". This parameter is located directly below the "renderer" parameter. By default, Krita uses the "high-quality filtering" option. When the performance of Krita feels heavy, that is when you try to zoom in and zoom out on the canvas. You can try changing this option to "Bilinear filtering". And if it still feels heavy, you can go even further, by setting this to "Nearest Neighbor". Please keep in mind that all of these options will only affect the appearance of the image when you navigate the canvas. With the lowest setting "Nearest Neighbor", the image on the canvas may look broken for a while when you zoom in or out. But the frame rate will still feel smooth. And you don't have to worry. Although it may look broken, the original data of the image will not be affected by this option. The original image quality will be visible again when the canvas is still. The next setting that might help Krita's performance is the "Memory limit". You can access this setting from the "configure Krita" window as well, but in the "Performance" category. Under the "General" tab, you will see the total amount of RAM of your computer. The computer I'm using now has 16GB of memory installed. And here, we can set the maximum memory that we allow for Krita to use. Because the percentage setting is at 50%, it means that the maximum total RAM that Krita can use on my computer is around 8GB. If the computer you are using has less RAM, you may want to increase this percentage value to 70% or 80% so that Krita can use more RAM. But you should still leave about 2 to 3GB for the operating system. This is so that your computer can run without problems. The next setting is the FPS limit. For this, you can go to the "advanced" tab. You can see that Krita limits the number of frames rendered at 60 frames per second. In case Krita feels sluggish running on your computer. Reducing this FPS value may help lower the stress on your computer. But my advice is, don't use numbers below 30 fps as this will make the displayed image look choppy. In many cases, if the FPS goes too low, it can cause headaches and nausea. I don't have any performance issue on my computer regarding the FPS value, so I'll ignore all the changes by pressing this "cancel" button. One of the causes of Krita's slow performance that often occurs is because the canvas size is too large beyond the computer's capability to process it. It's nice to be able to draw at high resolutions, like 4K, 8K, or even more. Because the larger the size of the image, the more freedom we have in expressing our art. We can create small details without worrying about them looking "pixelated" or jagged. The main question is, can the computer be able to handle it? In terms of memory allocation. You can click on the button below to view the details. In general, the more RAM and the higher the specifications of the computer, the larger the image size that Krtia can handle. We'll cover image size and resolution in more detail in a later lesson. But just for a brief explanation. If you already have made a large image. And halfway through you realize that the size of the image is beyond the limits of your computer's capabilities. You can resize the image by opening the "image" menu. Then select "resize canvas". To prevent your image from being distorted, it is best to enable the "constrain proportions" option here. Or you can also press the chain symbol here. In this condition, we can simply change one of these 2 size values. It can only be the "width" or only the "height". The other size value will automatically change according to the existing size ratio. After you are done, click "OK" to confirm. I don't want to change anything so I just hit cancel. The last performance tip is to disable the "brush smoothing" feature. We haven't discussed the brush tool yet. But we need to mention this a bit in this video, because it correlates with Krita's performance. When you use the brush tool, that is by pressing this icon or by pressing B on the keyboard. In the panel named "tool options" you will see a setting called "Brush smoothing". Basically, this setting will make your brush strokes more stable. So, this can be very useful when you are creating "line arts" or long straight or curved lines. Outside of these scenarios, you should always turn this setting off by selecting the "none" option. If you are sketching or coloring with this option turned on, your computer will work excessively hard to stabilize each brush stroke. Most likely the brush strokes will appear far behind your mouse cursor. You won’t be needing this feature when sketching or coloring as you need the brush strokes to appear instantly. 5. Raster versus Vector: In the computer graphics world, there are many types of image file formats. But in general, they can all be grouped into 2 broad categories, "Raster" and "Vector". First, let's talk about rasters. In general, almost all the images you see on your monitor screen are raster images. Likewise, images that are captured by cameras, scanners, and the like. All of them are raster types. Some examples of raster-type image formats are PNG, JPG, GIF, TIFF, HDR, EXR, and so on. What you need to know about raster images is that they consist of many small squares. When you see an image like this, for example. At first glance, it looks good or smooth. But notice if we zoom in to see the image up close. We begin to see that this image is really just a collection of these small squares. These small squares are known as "pixels". We can consider them as the building blocks of raster images, just like bricks that can make up large buildings. The word "pixel" comes from the abbreviation of "picture element". Each "pixel" contains only one color. Since raster images are basically just a collection of "pixels", their quality depends on the resolution. What I mean by resolution is the number of pixels contained by an image by measuring its width and height. An image with a resolution of 100 x 600 pixels, for example, has 100 columns and 600 rows of pixels. That means a total of 60,000 pixels. High-resolution images can store and display more details, but with the consequence of larger file size. So, basically, the higher the resolution, the better the quality that the image can contain, but the file size will be larger. And vice versa. The lower the resolution, the lower the image quality, but the file size will be smaller. The second type of image is called "vector". We rarely see this type of image directly, because it requires special software to be able to see it. What we usually see are the results of conversion, from vectors to the raster versions of them. Some examples of vector image formats are AI which can be opened with Adobe Illustrator, CDR which can be opened with Corel Draw, DWG which you can open using Autodesk Autocad, and so on. So most vector file formats are proprietary. But, there is one open vector format called "SVG". For this format, you can simply use a web browser to be able to view the file. So, what makes vector graphics different from raster graphics? A vector image is an image made up of points, the curves that connect the points, and the "fill colors" that fill in the area formed by the curves. These points, curves, and fill colors are all stored as mathematical values. Not as a grid of "pixels" like in a raster image. So the implication, in general, vector images have a smaller file size than their raster image versions. Vector images are also independent from resolution. Here, I'm using Adobe Illustrator. Notice as I zoom in to see this vector image as close as possible. We won't see any pixels. We can change the size, or scale vector images to be small or large freely. Without the risk of losing image information. Working with vector images also gives us more flexibility. Why? Because we can re-edit the image easily. Let's say we draw a circle like this in Illustrator. At any time, we can reselect it, change its shape, change its color, and so on. This is something that you can't do easily with pure raster images. At this point, you might be curious. So, why don't we just use vector types for all our images? The answer is that not all types of images are suitable or can be represented by vector methods. Complex images such as photographs, for example, due to their characteristics, will be more suitable to be represented by the raster method. The vector method is more suitable for images that have few colors or have color gradations with certain patterns. For example logos, letterhead designs, cartoon images, and the like. Then, if we look at the demands on computer performance. Since vector images are essentially a collection of mathematical formulas or values, they need to be calculated and rendered in "real-time" to be displayed on the screen. So in general, vector images, especially complex ones, will demand more computer performance compared to the raster version. So, to summarize all the explanations earlier. In terms of resolution, the quality of raster images depends on the resolution, while vectors are not affected by the image resolution. In terms of file size, vector is the winner as it is generally smaller in size compared to raster. In terms of editability, vector graphics are better than raster graphics. In terms of software availability, raster is superior to vector. This is because most vector formats can only be opened by the software that created them. For displaying complex photos or images, raster is better than vector. And lastly, for the demands of computer performance, generally vector requires more processing than raster. Now, what about Krita? Well, Krita was originally developed as a digital painting software based on raster graphics. So it is more similar to Corel Painter, Procreate, or other raster-based digital painting software. But over time, many features for image manipulation and vector editing were added to Krita. This makes Krita become more competitive with Photoshop. Even if we look at its vector features alone, Krita actually has far exceeded Photoshop's capabilities. If you use it correctly, the vector features in Krita can greatly leverage the digital painting or illustration process. With vector features, you can produce high-quality results much faster. Of course, you cannot expect the vector features in Krita to be as complete as those in specialized vector software such as Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape, etc. Krita was never designed for that purpose. 6. RGB and HSV color models: Color is one of the most important aspects of creating beautiful designs and artworks. There are so many color variations in this world. For centuries we as humans have strived to uncover the secrets behind color. Why is this so important to us? Because, by understanding how color works, we can capture it, save it, create a digital version of it, print it, or display it back on the screen with precision, and so on. We need to simplify colors to their basic components or what are commonly known as the "key colors". Using these "key colors" combinations, we can reproduce any color that we want. There are many different ways to approach this. Each of these methods of breaking color apart is what we call a "color model". So again, basically a "color model" is a method or an approach for defining colors using a combination of "key colors" or using a set of parameters. There are so many color models developed to date. But we can group them into 2 main categories, light-based color models and pigment-based color models. The light-based color model uses light to produce the color. All devices that produce light use this color model. For example, computer monitors, smartphone screens, televisions, projectors, etc. Meanwhile, pigment-based color models use inks or paints to produce the color. Everything that is printed or painted, uses this color model. There is also a color model that is not based on the source of the color, but rather on the capture sensor or the visual perception. But we'll cover that in the next lesson. For now, let's discuss the main color models used in Krita, namely RGB and HSV. The first color model is RGB. RGB is a light-based color model. RGB stands for Red, Green, and Blue. By using these 3 "key colors" we can produce any color that we want. If all of the key colors, Red, Green, and Blue, are lit with maximum value. Then the resulting color is White. If none of the RGB colors are turned on, the resulting color is Black. So basically, in the light color model, black means off or no light at all. To see this more clearly, we can use Krita to simulate RGB colors. If we click on this color box. Krita will display a "color selector" window. We haven't discussed the color selection technique yet, but that's not the point of this lesson. We will discuss color selection techniques in more detail later on. For now, just pay attention to the theory. Here we have 3 inputs, or what is commonly known as "channels". So we have a Red channel, Green channel, and Blue channel. The minimum value for each channel is zero, and the maximum value is 255. At this point, you may be wondering. Why do these values max out at only 255? Well, we will discuss this in more depth in the next lesson. For now, if we input 255 for all channels, Red, Green, and Blue. Now we have white as the output color. If we input zero on the Red channel, then we get a Cyan color. If we turn the Red channel back to its maximum value, and now turn off the Green channel. We get this Magenta color. If all channels are lit to the maximum, except the Blue channel, then we will get a Yellow color. The point is, that we can produce any color that we want by adjusting the strength of these three key colors. Although RGB is the true color model of light. As you can see for yourself. Changing the value of RGB channels to select a color is not very intuitive. Unless you have years of experience, choosing a particular color using RGB channels is hard. Most of us will just go on a "trial and error" process which is not convenient. That is why another light-based color model was developed called "HSV". HSV stands for "Hue", "Saturation", and "Value". It is a derivative color model from the RGB color model. That is why if you use the RGB color model in a document, you will automatically be able to access HSV for the color selecting process. What distinguishes it from RGB is that instead of using "key colors", HSV uses parameters related to the color characteristics. So it is much easier to use if we need to choose a certain color compared to using the RGB color model. The first parameter is "Hue" whose value represents the color type. "Hue" is also often referred to as the "color wheel". This is because the color spectrum actually rotates from Red, through all the colors, until it is back to Red again. That is also why the value of Hue is measured in "degrees". From 0 degrees to 360 degrees. Next up is the S letter or "Saturation". "Saturation" controls the strength of the color presence as opposed to greyscale. To see the difference, we can change the "Saturation" field. Or you can also click-and-drag left or right in this box. The further we move it to the right, the more saturated the color will be. While the more we move it to the left, the closer the color to the "grayscale" spectrum. If the "color selector" that you have is in a triangle form. Don't worry, we'll discuss this in a later lesson. For now, let's just focus on color model theory. The last one is the V of the word "Value". Essentially, this value determines how strong a color emits light. To see the difference, you can use this "Value" field. Or you can click-and-drag inside this box up or down. If we set the "Value" to zero. Then the resulting color will be completely dark or in another word "Black". Now, you need to know that the implementation of HSV is not actually uniform across different graphics applications. For example, in Photoshop, the "HSV" color model is called "HSB". The letter "B" is taken from the word "Brightness". Then in Blender 3D software. The S and V values do not range from 0 to 100%, but rather from 0 to 1. So it is not in percentage values. My point is, if you want to copy-paste colors from one application to another. You should avoid using the numbers in the HSV color model. It is easier and safer to use the hexadecimal color code which we will discuss in a future lesson. 7. Other color models: Previously, we discussed the RGB color model and also HSV color model. We have also discussed that based on how color is produced we can divide color models into 2 main categories, light-based and pigment-based. One of the most common pigment-based color models, which is also supported by Krita is CMYK. If you have a color printer, you are likely already familiar with the CMYK color model. Because the inkjet printer color separation is based on this color model. A long time ago, we thought that the basic colors of pigments were Red, Blue, and yellow. Because there are indeed many colors that can be produced by mixing these 3 colors. Some art schools even still teach this concept today. Although you can produce a lot of color variations with Red, Blue, and Yellow paints. You cannot produce all of the colors. Scientists have found that the key colors of pigments are more likely to be CMYK. C is for "Cyan". M is for "Magenta". Y is for "Yellow". And K, well K actually stands for "Key". But because in the printing industry, the most commonly used key color is black, we can safely assume that K is for "Black". We need black because the other colors, which are "Cyan", "Magenta" and "Yellow", when mixed together, can only produce a muddy brown color. They cannot produce a deep black color without the help of dedicated black ink. At this point, you may be wondering. Are there any other pigment-based color models besides CMYK? The answer is yes there are, but they are not directly supported by Krita or other graphics software in general. Some color printers use 6 basic colors. For example, a color model called "CMYK-LcLm". Basically, besides CMYK, there are 2 additional colors. LC stands for "light cyan", and LM stands for "light magenta". There is also a 6-tone pigment-based color model called "Hexachrome" or "CMYKOG". The letter O is for "Orange". And G is for "Green". Then there are also color models that are based on 8 basic colors, for example, "CMYK-LcLmLyLk". Basically, in addition to the standard CMYK colors, this color model also has lighter versions of the CMYK colors. As technology continues to evolve, it's possible that apart from what I mentioned here, there are or there will be more pigment-based color models. The next color model supported by Krita is LAB or "L A B". LAB is not a commonly used color model. This color model is mostly used for color measurements in the real world using a tool called a "spectrophotometer". So this color model is different from RGB and CMYK which are calculated based on the emitter or color producers. The LAB color model is calculated based on the visual perception captured by the sensor. So, it is possible that the colors produced by CMYK and RGB color models, under certain conditions have the same LAB value. Just for insight, I will try to briefly explain how this color model works. LAB stands for Lightness, A channel, and B channel. The L or "Lightness" is identical to the V or "Value" component found in the HSV color model. So basically this L parameter controls how light or how dark the color is. Then, what about channels A and B? Well, they're not actually abbreviations. Channel A controls how green versus how red the color is. So basically, channel A is a color spectrum from green to red. But with the gray color in the middle. Then, channel B is essentially a spectrum also. The difference is that it controls how blue versus how yellow the color is. So the far left side is Blue, and the far right side is Yellow. While the middle point is a gray color. Besides common color models, Krita also supports 2 other not-so-common color models. Namely YCrCb and XYZ. Let's just review them real quick. YCrCb is almost the same as the LAB color model. The Y parameter is for controlling the level of brightness or the strength of light. This is equivalent to the L parameter in the LAB color model. Then, "Cr" stands for "chroma Red" which controls how red versus how green the color is. It's like channel A in the LAB color model. And finally, "Cb" stands for "chroma Blue" which basically controls how blue versus how yellow the color is. So it's similar to channel B in the LAB color model. One interesting fact about this color model is that it is actually widely used by the JPEG compression algorithm. But it works behind the scenes and is rarely used by users directly to choose colors. The last one is the XYZ color model. At first glance, this XYZ color model is almost similar to RGB, but with slight differences. For the Y channel, it's exactly like the Green channel in RGB. The Z channel is almost like the Blue channel in RGB. And the X channel is almost like the Red channel in RGB. This color model is quite old, as it was developed back in 1931. Today, hardly anyone uses this color model anymore. And no other graphics application that I know of supports it besides Krita. When you open Krita and try to create a new document. You can choose a color model in this drop-down list. There are many color models that Krita supports. But you need to remember this. You should always use the RGB color model, which automatically also includes the HSV color model. You do not want to use other color models for many reasons. First, not all features in Krita work well on color models other than RGB. For example, some brushes will behave strangely. Also, not all "blending modes" can be used. The second reason is that some color models, such as CMYK and XYZ, have less color ranges than RGB. And the last reason is the limitation when you need to publish your image. All commonly used image formats support RGB. But only some of them support CMYK. And even fewer support the other color models. If you force Krita to export an image using a unique color model but the image format does not support it, then the RGB color model will be used instead. Now, you may be wondering. What if we intend to print our artwork on paper in the end. Shouldn't we use CMYK from the very start? Now, this is a wrong assumption. It will be easier if you stick with RGB. Because with RGB you can access all the features in Krita without any problems. When your artwork is finished, you can simply send your file to the printing shop in the RGB color model. The staff at the printing shop will take care of the rest. They should be able to convert the file to CMYK easily. 8. Bit per channel: As we discussed earlier, a raster image is essentially a collection of small squares called "pixels". In this lesson, we will take a closer look at the information stored inside a pixel. This is important for us to know as it is related to the settings when we need to save or export an image in Krita or in other graphics software in general. We already know that each pixel can only store a single color. In an image that uses the RGB color model, each pixel must store at least 3 pieces of information. The strength of the red color, the strength of the green color, and lastly, the strength of the blue color. The strength of these three key colors will determine the final color of the pixel. As we have already discussed, the information for these three key colors is commonly referred to as "channels". And so, each pixel will have 3 "channels". Red channel, Green channel, and Blue channel. Now, you need to know that in addition to the three RGB channels, there is also a channel called the "Alpha" channel. In short, the "Alpha" channel is used to determine the level of transparency. So again, the RGB channels are used to determine the color of the pixel. While the Alpha channel is used to determine the opacity of the pixel. All image file formats that support transparency are basically able to store an "Alpha" channel. Some examples of these image formats are PNG, TIFF, TGA, etc. If you want to export an image that has transparency, you need to use these types of image formats. This is important to remember because not all image file formats support transparency. Formats like JPG, BMP, etc, do not support the "alpha" channel and therefore can not store opacity information. You may use these types of image formats if you don't need any transparency on the image. When you open Krita. And then create a new document by clicking on this icon or by pressing Ctrl + N on the keyboard. In addition to the color model, you will also see parameters to set the number of bits per channel. There is an option for an 8-bit integer per channel which is the default. There are also options for 16-bit integer, 16-bit float, and 32-bit float. You need to know that almost all images you see on digital devices only have 8 bits per channel. Until this point, you may be wondering. If almost all images have 8 bits per channel, then what is the point of creating an image above 8-bits per channel? Well, we will discuss this later in the next lesson. For now, let’s focus on 8-bit per channel images. So, what exactly does the bit per channel value mean? This figure shows that for each channel inside a pixel, there are 8 digits or 8 data slots available. For each pixel, there are 8 slots for red, 8 slots for green, and 8 slots for blue. If the image has an "Alpha" channel then there are 8 additional slots for each pixel. Now, computers actually only recognize and can process binary numbers. Or, in other words, computers only know 0 and 1. So each of these slots will be filled in by either number 0 or number 1. For example, like this. This is a random number, just to give you an example. With a configuration like this, we can calculate the total possible values. Because we have 8 slots. And each slot can have 2 possible values, namely 0 and 1. The total number of variations that we can get is 2 to the power of 8. Or equal to 256 variations. So with 8 bits per channel, each channel can have a value anywhere between 1 to 256. But if we start counting from 0 instead of 1, then the value range is between 0 to 255, for each channel. This explanation answers the question that we have in the previous lesson. That is when setting color using RGB values. Each channel is limited to only 255. This is because the image document is using 8 bits per channel. Then, because the "Alpha" channel also gets 8 bits or 8 data slots. The transparency level of each channel also ranges from 0 to 255. At 0 value, a pixel is completely invisible. And at 255 value, the pixel is completely opaque. So to recap. Because each channel has 8 bits of data, an RGB image without transparency will have a total of 8 bits multiplied by 3. Equal to 24 bits per pixel. And an RGB image that has transparency, because it gets another extra 8 bits. The total number of bits per pixel is 32 bits. Although this information seems not very important at the moment. Trust me, if you're into computer graphics, this information will follow you along the way. Especially when you need to save or export image files. Because some graphics applications have unique ways and even unusual ways of displaying image parameters. For example, sometimes they ask if we want to save the image as 24-bit or 32-bit. Or sometimes they only display options in the form of texts "RGB" or "RGB + Alpha", and so on. By now, you have understood that a 24-bit image file is the same as the standard RGB without any transparency. Meanwhile, a 32-bit image file is the same as the standard RGB but with transparency. 9. High-range images: In this lesson video, we are going to discuss "high-range images". From the previous lesson, we already know that the majority of image files in the world have a standard bit depth of 8 bits per channel. So then, what about the other bit-per-channel values such as 16 or 32? Why and when do we need them? To find out the answer, first, we need to discuss the basic concept. In the real world, the brightness level of lights can range from zero to, theoretically, an infinite value. A value of zero means a complete dark situation, where there is no light at all. In this condition, we are practically blind. Because we can't see anything. And the infinite brightness level is just a theory. Because, for us living in this world or planet earth, the brightest thing that we can see is the sun. There is no man-made light that can beat the brightness of the sun. Now, if we need to capture the light information from the real world into an image. Because standard images are limited to only 8 bits per channel, we can only store a fraction of them. The workaround for this condition is to compress the information, like this. This kind of technique is known as "tone mapping". This is a very important technique because it allows us to capture a wider range of light information and store it in an 8-bit per channel image. Although the "tone mapping" technique is very useful, the resulting image file remains limited to 8-bits per channel. So there is a lot of visual information from the real world that gets lost in the process. For most common people, this is not a problem. But for graphics professionals, visual information is very important. To address this challenge, the "high-range image" formats were developed. Some examples of these are HDRI, EXR, high-range PNG, camera RAW files, etc. Essentially, these image formats have a bit depth larger than 8-bits per channel, so they are able to store more visual information. So, how can we create "high-range images''? There are many ways that we can do this. You can create them from scratch using specialized software. But if what you need to do is capture the real-world lighting conditions, then you can utilize a digital camera. For this, the most simple method is to save the picture in the RAW format. Now, you need to know that the RAW formats are not standardized image formats. Meaning that different cameras have different RAW formats. But most of them usually have a bit depth of 14 bits per channel. So they are actually in the "high-range" category. Again, the number varies depending on the camera product. Now, if we want to go higher, let's say up to 32 bits per channel, what we need to do is to take the same picture multiple times with different exposure levels. The resulting images can then be combined and saved into a single "high-range" image with a larger bit depth. You can save the final image in HDRI, or EXR, etc. After you have a high-range image, there are many different ways to make use of it. If you are a 3D artist, you can use a high-range image as a light source inside a 3D software. For example, you can capture the lighting conditions in a certain location in the world. Save the result in the EXR file format. Then you can bring the EXR file inside a 3D software to illuminate a 3D model. For example, a car model. With this method, you can easily make the car model look like it exists in the actual environment where you initially capture the high-range image. If you are a photographer, you might already be using the high-range image feature in your workflow. Just to give an insight for those of you who are not photographer. Originally, during the day when the sun is very bright. If you need to shoot indoors, you have to choose between focusing inside on the interior, or focusing outside on the view beyond the window. If you focus on the interior, the view outside the window will only look white. While, if you focus on the view outside the window, the room will look so dark or almost black. By using the "high-range image" technique, you can combine 2 different exposures so that the area inside the room and the area outside the window are both clearly visible. There are many other use cases of "high-range images", but at least with these 2 examples, you get the idea of why professionals need them. For many others in general, "high-range images" are not very useful. Why? Because almost all "display devices" such as computer monitors, televisions, smartphone screens, projectors, and even the LCD screens behind our digital cameras, all only support RGB 8-bit per channel. So standard display devices will not be able to see the true form of "high-range images". Now, indeed, by the time I recorded this video, there are already monitors and projectors on the market that support or can display "high-range images". Even the Windows operating system already supports it. But the bit depth is only up to 10-bit per channel. And the price of these devices is also still relatively expensive. Therefore not many people use it. Hopefully, the technology in this field continues to improve so that one day we can capture, process, and enjoy "high-range" content more easily. Now, what about Krita? Well, Krita developers and users can be proud. History has recorded that Krita was the first "digital painting" software to support "high-range images". But for this course, we will only be using 8-bit per channel images. This is because, for now, the 8-bit per channel is still the standard in bit depth, or most commonly used by people or devices. Also, all the "digital painting" features at 8-bit per channel can also be applied to image documents with higher bit-per-channel values. 10. Hexadecimal color code: When working with color, you will often see people sharing color information using hexadecimal codes like this. Especially if you are a web designer. Most likely, you are already using this hexadecimal code to define colors in HTML or CSS code. If we open the "color selector" window in Krita. The currently active color will be displayed in a hexadecimal format in this field. Hexadecimal color codes usually start with a "hash mark" symbol like this. In this video, we will cover the data structure that underlies hexadecimal color codes. The goal is that, after this lesson, you can use it more easily to transfer color information across applications, and be able to tweak the numbers directly if needed. The most basic thing that you need to know is that the hexadecimal color code essentially contains RGB data. The code can be divided into 3 parts, each consisting of two digits. The first 2 digits are for the Red channel. The second 2 digits are for the Green channel. And the third 2 digits are for the Blue channel. At this point, you might be wondering. Then why in the "hexadecimal" code, do we have numbers and letters mixed up like this? Remember that in the standard RGB 8-bit per channel, each channel has 8 digits of data. And in each digit there are only 2 possible values, 0 or 1. Now, if we divide these 8-bits into left wing and right wing. We have 4 digits on the left side, and 4 digits on the right side. Because we have 4 slots and each with 2 possible values. We can calculate the maximum number of variations with the formula 2 to the power of 4. Equals 16 variations. So for each wing, we can have value between 1 to 16. But if we start from zero, then we can have a value from 0 to 15. Now, the basic idea is, how can we can write each of these wings with only 1 digit. Not 4 digits like when we use binary. And not 2 digits either like when we use decimal. The answer is to write the value in the hexadecimal system. So what exactly is the "hexadecimal" system? Well, we all know about the decimal system right? We count from 0, 1, 2, 3, until 9. Then, once we get to ten, we're actually doing a loop. It is like we are back to zero, then 11, 12, 13, and so on. So, basically. When we use the decimal system, for every tenth value we repeat the order of counting. This behavior is largely due to the fact that we humans have 10 fingers. Now, let's play with our imagination a bit. Imagine if you encounter an alien race that has 16 fingers instead of 10. How do you think they will count the numbers? Will they be using the decimal system? Most likely not. They will use the hexadecimal system. Essentially, the hexadecimal system repeats the counting sequence not when it reaches ten, but when it reaches 16. If we borrow this numbering system, we only need to use 1 digit to refer to the value on each wing, right or left. But wait, there is still a problem. We don't have symbols for numbers greater than 9. So how can we represent numbers 10, 11, 12 to 15 in hexadecimal? Well, the solution is, we borrow them from the letter symbols. So, if the order of decimal numbers is as follows. 1, 2, 3, 4, until we reach 9, after that we have numbers 10, 11 and so on. In hexadecimal, we use the numbers 1, 2, 3, up to 9. Until this point, the numbers are still the same as the decimal system. But when we reach the value of ten we use the letter A, then letter B for eleven, C for twelve, and so on until F for 15. When we reach the value of 16, then we use the number 10. So, based on the actual value. The number 10 in the hexadecimal system is the same value as the number 16 in the decimal system. So again, to recap. By using the hexadecimal system. For every 1 digit, we can have a minimum value of 0 which is also equal to 0 in the decimal system. And the maximum number of F whose value is equal to 15 in the decimal system. So now, with just 6 digits, we can represent all the color values that exist in the standard RGB 8-bit per channel. Sometimes you can find a hexadecimal color code, but it only consists of 3 digits instead of 6 digits. Codes like this are commonly referred to as "web-safe color". Now, you don't need to be confused. The real color code is actually 6 digits, but shortened, because each 2 digits is a twin. So for example, if you see a code like this 37A. The actual code is 3377AA. Or double 3, double 7, and double A. You should note that, "web-safe" color standards are a legacy of the past when computers still had limited colors and internet speeds were still very slow. Today, almost no one uses it anymore. There are several tips that can be useful when working with hexadecimal color codes. The first is, if all values are 0. Either it's 6 digits like 000000, or just 000 using a web-safe color format. You can be sure that the color is black. As we discussed earlier, in the RGB color model, no lights means a complete dark and it is the same as black. If the code is all letter F. Like FFF or FFFFFF. You can be sure that the color is white. White is the strongest color, because all of its channels are at the maximum values. Furthermore, you can also detect whether a code is a "grayscale" color, if the values for each RGB channel are identical. For example 121212 like this, or 4E4E4E, or CCC. All of these codes are grayscale colors. 11. Creating new documents: In this lesson video, we will cover how to create a new document in Krita and discuss the related parameters. When you run Krita for the first time, you will see something like this. To create a new document, as I mentioned earlier, you can click on this icon. Or press Ctrl + N on the keyboard for the shortcut. Or, the more conventional way is to open the "file" menu. Then select "new" here. Or, when you have no document opened, you can also click on the "new file" link here. Feel free to use any of these methods. If you do one of them correctly, you will see the "create new document" window opened. Let's first cover the area on the left. At the bottom, you will find various document templates. Each of these templates defines various aspects of the document such as the size of the image, as well as the pixel density. But, apart from that, templates can also contain various graphic contents. Essentially, in Krita., a document template is actually just a regular Krita document stored in a special folder. Just to give you an example, if we choose this comic template "European BD template". Then click the "use this template" button. This is the content we get. There are already comic boxes. And you can also see layer structures like this already created. This is for sketching. This is for coloring. And this is for the outline or line artwork. We will discuss more about layers later. Since templates are just regular Krita files, you can easily create your own. For example, if you often need to work with a certain layout. It's a good idea to just save the file containing the basic layout as a template. To do this, simply open the "file" menu. Then select "create template from image". A window will appear. Here you can give the template a name. You can make the new template to be part of an existing group. Or you can also create a new group. Then, by default, Krita will automatically create a "preview" for your new template. But you can also define your own image by pressing this button. For now, I don't need to create a new template. So I just hit "cancel". To close an open document, you can press this x button. Or you can go to the "file" menu, and select "close". You can see that the shortcut is Ctrl + W. If you have many documents open and you want to close them all at once, you can use the command "close all". You can see that the shortcut for this command is Ctrl + Shift + W. Let's press Ctrl + N to reopen the "create new document" window. Now, select the top option "custom document". On the "dimensions" tab, in the "image size" area. You can specify the size and also the pixel density. Apart from setting each value manually, you can also choose from the "presets" listed here. For example, if we select the preset "A3", we get these values. You can change the orientation of the document by pressing these icons. This is for "portrait", and this is for "landscape". If we choose another preset, let's say "texture 1024". These are the values we will get. For now, let's change the "width" value to 1920 pixels. Make sure the units here are set to pixels. Then change the "height" value to 1080 pixels. Next, for the "resolution", we can just leave the value at 100 pixels per inch. You need to know that this "resolution" value determines the pixel density against the real-world measurement. In theory, this value will be relevant when you want to print the image on paper. But in practice, later you are free to adjust the scale when you need to print it. So again, this value is not really that important. What matters is the size values, which are the "width" and the "height". Because these will determine the total number of pixels contained in your document. Alright. Now, the image size we use currently is actually the standard "full HD" screen resolution. Because we will be using this image size continuously throughout this course. It will be a good idea to save it as an "image-size preset". To do that we need to give it a name, for example, "Full HD". Then hit the "save" button here. After we are done. The next time we create a new document, we can click here and select the preset, "Full HD". Next, let's focus on the "color" area. We've covered color models as well as "bits per channel" in-depth in previous lessons. So, for these values, just make sure we're using RGB color model and for bit depth 8-bit per channel. What we haven't covered is this "profile" parameter. This parameter specifies the "ICC profile" that we want to use on the document. For now, just use the default profile provided by Krita. "ICC" stands for "International Color Consortium". Basically, it is a data set that describes the color characteristics of a particular device, both for input and for output. So, the "ICC Profile" is device-specific. This profile is important, because many devices share the same standard color model, in theory. But because the technologies are different from one to other devices. In practice, the "color space" or the range of colors produced by each device can be different. It is impossible to discuss the details of all existing "ICC profile" in this course. But if you want to know more, you can hit the "color space browser" button here. These are all the "ICC profiles" installed on my computer, including those provided by Krita. Just for example, this "ACES" profile has a wider color range than "Adobe RGB". And "Adobe RGB" color range is wider when compared to "Apple RGB", etc. The "ICC profile" does not only exist in the RGB color model. If you change the color model type to CMYK, for example. You can also view the various "ICC profiles" for the CMYK color model installed on your computer. We don't want to change anything here, so just hit "Cancel". Before you click the "create" button, let's first discuss the "content" tab on the right. Basically, this tab controls what content will appear in your new document. You can set the document name here. Then you can also adjust the number of "layers". For now, we use only 1 layer. We can determine whether the layer will be directly filled by a certain color. For now, we use the "default", which is white. And we can also adjust the "opacity" of the layer. For this, we also use the "default" value, which is 100%. If we reduce this value, then the "layer" will become semi-transparent. Now, you need to note that these two parameters only apply to the layer at the bottom. So if we set this to 2, 3, and so on. Only the first or the bottom layer will use these "color" and "opacity" settings. This all applies because we set the "background" parameter to "as raster layer". If you're still confused by all of these, don't worry. In sha Allah, everything will be more clear when we later discuss the background layer and layers in general. For now, just follow all these parameters I'm using. Then click the "create" button to create a new document. 12. Clipboard and file formats: In this lesson video, we will cover how to create a new document from the clipboard and also about the various file formats that Krita supports. So what is a "clipboard"? A clipboard is basically a memory allocated by the operating system when we perform a "copy" or "cut" commands. For Windows and Linux operating systems, we usually use the Ctrl + C shortcut to "copy", and Ctrl + X shortcut to "cut". For Mac OS systems, we usually use the shortcut Command + C for "copy", and Command + X for "cut". If there is image data in the "clipboard", Krita can help us create a new document according to that data. Just for example. I'm currently using Photoshop. If I make a selection like this. Then press Ctrl + C. Or you can also open the "edit" menu and select "copy". What happens is the image data inside this selection gets stored by the operating system in the clipboard. In this condition, if we open Krita. Then press Ctrl + N to open the "create new document" window. You can see this option "create from clipboard". If you click this option. The view on the right is almost similar to the "custom document" view. The difference is that the document size is automatically set to fit the image data in the clipboard. And Krita also provides a preview of the image data in the clipboard. If we click "create", Krita will display the "missing color profile" window. This window will appear if the image we want to copy does not have an "ICC profile". The safest option is to use the default "ICC profile", by selecting the "As Web" option. You can also activate the "remember" checkbox so that Krita always remembers the preference we have set now. So, press the "As web" button. And here is the result. The image in the clipboard is immediately placed on the first layer. So we don't have to bother pressing Ctrl + V to "paste". In this condition, the image data is still in the system memory. So, if you press Ctrl + V. Krita will create a new layer and paste the image there. If you press Ctrl + V again, then Krita will just repeat the process. The last thing that we want to cover in this video is the file formats. Technically, the way you save documents or files in Krita is the same as in other software. You can open the "file" menu, then select "save" if you have saved the file before. The shortcut is also the standard, that is Ctrl + S. Or you can also press this icon. But if you haven't saved the file before, or if you want to save the file with a different name, you can choose the "Save as" command. The "saving as" window will open. If you click on this drop-down list. You can see that there are a lot of file formats supported by Krita. You need to remember that the "Native file" or the original file of Krita is the ".KRA" or "K R A" format. If you want to save your work in Krita, this is the format you should always use. This will ensure that all data and all the features that we use in Krita are maintained. You only want to use other formats when you need to export or publish your work. We are not going to discuss each of the file formats one by one. As that will be too time-consuming and most of them you won't be using anyway. We will briefly discuss only the file formats commonly used by people. The first is the TIFF format. This image format supports layers. So, you can use it when you need to move your existing work in Krita to another graphics software that supports layers. Then you can also use the PSD format. PSD is Adobe Photoshop's native file format. If you ever need to transfer your work in Krita to Photoshop, then this is the format you should use. Again, I need to remind you that, not all the data and features in Krita can be stored if you use image formats other than ".KRA". Saving your work in other formats might sacrifice some data in the process. If you need to publish your image on the internet, there are several most common formats supported by web browsers. They are JPG, PNG, WebP, and GIF. You can use JPG if you don't need any transparency or "alpha" channels. And you can use PNG if you need a transparency feature on the image. As for WebP and GIF, you can use one of them if you need a short animation feature. In general, the WebP format is more modern and has more features than GIF. But, because GIF is older, it has a wider range of compatibility. So, even users who still use very old browsers can still view it. Again, these are the most commonly used image formats today. We cannot discuss each of them in detail in this video. But this information should be enough for now. 13. UI basics: In this lesson video, we will cover the basics of Krita's user interface. After we have a document opened, by default, you will see something like this. If the UI that you see is different from mine. You can reset all the UI settings by going to the "settings" menu. Then select "reset all settings". After that, you can open the "workspace" drop-down list at the top right area. Then select the "default" preset. This will make sure we all have the same UI layout to start with. Alright. Let's first discuss the names of the UI elements in Krita and also their functions. In the top area, we can see the "menu". This is a standard element in almost all desktop software. Then the area below it is called the "toolbar". And the panel on the left is called the "toolbox". So this is the "toolbar", while this one is the "toolbox". The name might be similar, but the function is different. As you can see, in the toolbar, we can access several file operations such as "new", "open", and "save". Then there are also "undo" and "redo" buttons. After that, you can also see various settings for colors, the settings for brush, and so on. As for the "toolbox", it is basically a placeholder for various tools that exist in Krita. We will discuss these tools later gradually. At the center, this large area is called the canvas. In essence, this is the document or the image we currently open. Now, if we have several documents open. We can switch between documents by pressing the tab area above. Then, at the very bottom, we can see the "status bar". If we activate the "brush" tool. We can see the name of the active brush preset here. Then you can also see the color model information, the number of "bits per channel", and also the "ICC profile" of the active document. Over here, you can see the size of the document, and also the amount of memory used. Then, you can access the controls for canvas rotation. And also the controls for zooming in and out of the canvas. Next, on the right side, we have various panels. In Krita, these panels are called "dockers". There are many different types of "dockers" provided by Krita. Some of the dockers that you will see by default are "advanced color selector", "tool options", "layers", and "brush presets". Now, if you open the "settings" menu. Then select the "dockers" sub-menu. You can see all the different dockers available in Krita. And surprisingly, the "toolbox" that we see on the left side is actually a "docker" also. There are two modes directly related to the appearance of Krita's user interface. If you open the "view" menu, you'll see options for "canvas only" mode and "full screen" mode. The "canvas only" mode will hide all UI elements except the canvas area. This can be useful if you want to focus on the image you're working on, and don't want to be distracted by any other things. The shortcut for this mode is the "Tab" key. So, you can press "Tab" to enter "canvas only" mode. And press "Tab" again to return to normal mode. Next up is the "full screen" mode. Basically, this mode will hide the title bar at the top and will also cover the taskbar from the operating system. The shortcut for this mode is "Ctrl + Shift + F". Throughout the course, you'll likely see me using one or both of these modes. Especially the "Full Screen" mode. Just like with other software, Krita's user interface can also be customized. Let's first discuss the 'toolbar' area. It's not recommended that you hide the "toolbar" area, because there are many important settings in it that you will need to access. But if you want to customize it, you can open the "settings" menu, then select "toolbars shown". And just select which sections you want to hide or show. If you select "file" for example, then all the icons associated with the file operations will disappear. And if you turn off the "brushes and stuff" option, the rest will also disappear. This automatically hides the entire "toolbar". Again, we will always need the "toolbar" so we should not hide it. Next, is the "toolbox". You can click-drag this box, to make it float. You can then place it at the bottom if you want. Personally, I prefer to place this "toolbox" at the top, just below the "toolbar". You can push this line up so that all the tool icons are just a single row. Next, for the "status bar". If you want to hide it, you can open the "view" menu, then click on this "status bar" checkbox. Then, to be able to move the dockers on the right side. If the docker is grouped like this. You need to first press the button called "float docker". Until it separates from the other dockers. Only then can you move and or place it in another area. For this "advanced color selector" docker, I prefer it to be on the left side. Now, if the docker is alone like this. You don't need to press the "float docker" button to be able to move it. Just click-drag the "title" area and move it to the location that you want. I prefer this docker to be on the left side also. Just below the "advanced color selector". To adjust the size further, you can drag this line. And also drag this right border. Next, to close the docker that we don't need. We can press the X button to the right of the docker name. For example, I don't think this "brush preset" docker is that important. Because we can also access brush presets with this button. So I prefer to just close the docker. Then, if you want to add a non-default docker. For example, let's say you want to display a docker called "Palette". You can open the "settings" menu, "dockers", and activate this "palette" checkbox. The docker will appear. You can then move and place the docker. For example, we can dock it to the left side. Just above the color selector docker. You can adjust the size again if you want to. So that was the method to customize the UI layout in Krita. Going forward, I will continue to use this layout. Now, you don't need to use this layout if you don't like it. Feel free to use a different layout if you wish. But at least, make sure you have these 4 dockers in your UI layout so that it will be easier for you to follow the lessons. If you already like the UI layout, you can save it as a "workspace preset" by clicking on this icon. Then, type a name for the workspace. For example, I name this one "My UI". Then click the "Save" button. If one day, somehow, someone messes up the Krita UI on your computer. You can easily restore the layout by pressing this icon. And then select the preset "My UI". 14. Advanced UI settings: In this lesson video, we will cover more parameters or features related to Krita's user interface. As with the previous UI settings, you are free to choose whether to follow it or not. At least with this lesson, you'll know where to find them if you need them later in the future. The first thing we want to discuss is the "instant preview mode". You can find this setting in the "view" menu, then select "instant preview mode". The function of this feature is to give the impression of more instant brush feedback when you are using certain brush modes. Especially when you are working with a large image size while in zoomed-out condition. Or if you are using a large brush size. I didn't discuss this feature in the previous lesson on Krita's performance, because this feature doesn't really improve Krita's performance. It just makes Krita feel faster. The way this feature works is that, when you perform a brushstroke, Krita will quickly create a "low-resolution" version of it on the screen. Then behind the scenes, the actual resolution will be calculated and followed. This feature doesn't work for all brush types and It also doesn't work if the zoom level of the canvas is at 100%. Personally, I always enable this option so that the drawing experience in Krita feels smoother in general. Next, let's discuss the color selector display. As you can see, currently, the "Advanced color selector" docker uses a triangular shape. I personally prefer the rectangular shape, because there is more room to choose colors. To set this up, you can click on this small icon. Or, you can also do this via the "settings" menu, then select "configure Krita". Next, choose "color selector settings". What you see here is the same as what you will get if you press this icon. Then, you can click here. And choose the one with the rectangular shape. Next, let's set up the "shade selector". What "shade selector" means are the 3 sliders at the bottom of the color selector. Its function is to shift the active color in a certain direction. You can set your own mode for each of these sliders. Personally, I have never used it as I prefer to directly shift the color in the color selector box. If you want to hide this "shade selector". You can click on this drop-down list. Then select the "do not show" option. The last setting related to the color selector is the "color history". Each time we use a different color, Krita will remember and display those colors on the right side of the color selector, in a vertical layout. For now, I want to change the position of the color history so that it extends horizontally. For this, we can select the "horizontal" option. After you are done, you need to click OK, if you want to save the changes. The next UI feature we want to discuss is the "pop-up palette". You have seen me using this "pop-up palette" feature before. Basically "pop-up palette" is the floating circular panel that appears when we perform right-click. To change the settings, we can open the "settings" menu, then open the "configure krita" window again. But now, let's go to the "pop-up palette" category. There are many parameters that you can tweak here. But for now, I just want to change 2 things. The first is to make the size as small as possible. And the second is to change the shape of the color selector in the "pop-up palette" to a rectangle type also. Alright. Before we click the OK button. Let's take a look at some other UI settings, while this "Configure Krita" window is still open. Let's first open the top category, called "General". Then go to the "cursor" tab. I want a small circle indicator in the middle of the mouse cursor. The goal is to make it easier when later we need to draw a thin line. For that, we can click on this drop-down list. Then select "small circle". Next, let's open the "window" tab. I want to disable the "show on-canvas pop-up messages" option. If you notice, Krita often displays black semi-transparent messages on the upper left side of the canvas. Well, if you feel disturbed by these messages, here is the option to turn it off. Okay. Next, when we enter the "canvas only" mode. You can still see the document tab at the top area. This is a bit annoying because the canvas doesn't completely fill the screen. The workaround for this is to make Krita display multiple documents not as tabs, but as separate windows. To do this, we can click on this drop-down list. Then select "subwindows". The next parameter I want to change is in the "display" category. Inside the "miscellaneous" tab. If you notice, at the border of the canvas area, there is a vertical scrollbar. And also a horizontal scrollbar. Almost no artist or user uses scrollbars to navigate the canvas. I myself have never used it as there are other convenient methods. So it is best to just hide it. To do that, you need to enable the option "Hide canvas scrollbars". Next, when the mouse cursor hovers over a layer, after a while, Krita will display a preview of the contents of that layer. For me, this feature is a bit annoying. To turn it off you can enable this option "hide layer thumbnail popup". When you're done, you can click OK so that Krita saves and applies all the changes. Let's review again the changes that we've just made. You can see that the document now floats as a separate window. You need to press this "maximize" button to enlarge it. And you can press this button to shrink it back down. Indeed this is more troublesome than the previous setting. But the advantage is when we enter the "canvas only" mode, that is by pressing the "Tab" key on the keyboard or through the "view" menu and then choosing "show canvas only". Now, there is no longer a visible "document tab" at the top area. With this, we can achieve a clean "canvas only" mode. Press "Tab" again to return to normal mode. Next, you may also notice that now, in the center of the cursor there is a small circle. Now, please ignore the transparent yellow circle. Because this is not part of Krita. I use a different software to display the yellow circle when recording the video. This is so you can follow the cursor movement more easily. So again, the cursor parts belonging to Krita are this large one which is the brush shape preview, and then this little circle that we just activated. Next, if we right-click to see the pop-up palette. You can see that the color selector in the "pop-up palette" is now square. No triangle anymore. But, now I think this is too small. We can right-click again to close the "pop-up palette". And reopen the "configure Krita" window. Then go to the "pop-up palette" category. To change the size of the color selector, you can right-click on this field. Then type a larger value, for example, 170. Click OK. We can right-click again to double-check the size. Indeed it is now bigger, with the consequence that the brush thumbnails become smaller. But this is fine as we can still see them clearly. You can right-click again to close the "pop-up palette". So those are some of the UI settings that I will be using throughout this course. Again, you don't have to follow these settings if you don't want to. Feel free to use the settings that you find most comfortable. 15. Main navigation methods: In this lesson video, we will cover canvas navigation in Krita. What canvas navigation means is panning the canvas, zooming in, zooming out, and also rotating the canvas. Krita provides various methods for canvas navigation. You can use your mouse, the Spacebar key, the pop-up palette, other keyboard keys, navigation tools, and other UI methods. Now, you need to keep in mind that navigation techniques do not change your image. The image data will not be rotated or resized. The navigation techniques only change the way you view the canvas. Imagine you are holding a camera pointed at a painting on the wall. The navigation technique is similar to you moving the camera, forward, backward, left, right, or rotating the camera. The painting on the wall doesn't change at all, even though on the camera it looks like it is rotating or resizing up or down. To be able to see the navigation technique in action, we should not use a blank canvas like this. It will be difficult for us to detect the changes in this condition. Especially when we are in zoom-in condition. So first, let's open an image file. Any image in your computer will do. You can use the "file" menu. Then select "open". Or, you can also click on this icon in the toolbar. I'll be using an image from one of my old projects. This is a 3D rendering that I created using 3ds Max software. Alright. The first and foremost method is using the mouse. For this, you need a standard mouse that has a scroll-wheel. If you are using a mouse without a scroll-wheel, you can skip to the next method, which is using the Spacebar key. So, to pan, or drag the canvas to the right, left, up, and down. You can press the middle mouse button, then just drag the mouse around. If you are still confused about where the middle mouse button is located. You need to press the scroll-wheel down. You do not turn it around but press it downward. Next, to zoom in and zoom out, you can turn the scroll-wheel forward or backward. Or you may also hold down the Ctrl key and then click-drag with the middle mouse button. Next, to rotate the canvas, you can hold down Shift and then click-drag with the middle mouse button. As you can see, the "middle mouse button" plays a very important role in canvas navigation inside Krita. For those of you Photoshop users, you may be familiar with navigating the canvas using the Spacebar key on the keyboard. The good news is, Krita also supports this method. So the method is as follows. To pan the canvas, press and hold the Spacebar key, then click-drag with the left mouse button. Remember, for the Spacebar method, the click-drag is not with the middle button but with the usual left button. Then to zoom in and zoom out, you can hold down the Spacebar and Ctrl keys together, then just click-drag the mouse back and forth. And finally, to rotate the canvas, you can hold down the Spacebar and Shift keys together, then click-drag with the left mouse button. Now, if you use the mouse or the Spacebar method, you still need to use several other keyboard keys to help adjust the zoom and rotation of the canvas. The first button is the number 5 key. This will reset the canvas rotation to the default orientation. Next, you can use the number 1 key, to reset the zoom level to 100%. And then, the number 2 key is for zooming the canvas automatically so that the entire image is visible within the canvas window. Next, the number 3 key is also for automatic zooming, but this one will fit the image width to the width of the canvas window. At this point, you may be wondering. Why are we discussing the mouse and Spacebar methods first, and not discussing navigation with a drawing tablet? The answer is, because navigating using the drawing tablet is basically just a substitute for the mouse method or the Spacebar method. As I explained in the earlier lesson. I set the lower pen button as the middle mouse button. This is so I can press this button to pan the canvas around. Then with the same technique together with the Ctrl key, I can zoom in and out. And if I use the Shift key instead, I can rotate the canvas. If you prefer the Spacebar method, you can also apply this method with your drawing tablet easily. For this, you don't need to set the lower pen button to the middle mouse button. You can keep assigning it as the right mouse button if you want. So, for the Spacebar method using a drawing tablet. To pan the canvas, just hold down the Spacebar key, then press-drag the pen. Next, to rotate the canvas, hold down Spacebar and Shift keys together, then press-drag the pen in a circular motion. Finally, to zoom in and out the canvas, you can hold down the Spacebar and Ctrl keys together, and then press-drag the pen up or down. Another navigation method that you can use in conjunction with the previous method is to use the "pop-up palette". First, for this method to work, you need to make sure that you are using the Freehand brush tool or any of these tools. The pop-up palette will not appear if you are using the other tools. Then, you can right-click to open the "pop-up palette". To zoom in and out, you can drag this slider right and left. To reset the zoom level to 100%, you can press this button. Next, to rotate the canvas, you can click and drag this white circle. If you want to snap the rotation by 15 degrees, you need to move the mouse cursor over the rail area where this circle rotates. As you can see, if the mouse is not exactly on the rail, the snapping function becomes inactive. But if the cursor is inside the rail, the snapping function becomes active. To revert back to the default orientation, you need to snap this to the very top point. Next, you can use this button to mirror the view. In addition to this button, you can also use the letter M shortcut on the keyboard to mirror the view. Again, I need to remind you that navigation techniques will not alter the image. Navigation is different from transformation. The "mirror view" operation is part of the navigation feature in Krita. Although the image seems reversed horizontally. The actual image data itself does not change at all. Now, you may be wondering. So what is the point of flipping or mirroring the view like this? Well, this can help us to see our artwork differently. Sometimes we can only realize the errors or flaws in our artworks when we see them in the mirror view mode. You can right-click again on the canvas to close the pop-up palette. 16. Alternative navigation methods: In this lesson video, we will continue discussing the various navigation methods in Krita. Indeed, using a mouse or drawing tablet is the most convenient navigation method that you need to prioritize. But certain conditions may force us to use other methods. Maybe we accidentally left our mouse at home, or perhaps our drawing tablet suddenly breaks, and so on. Some alternative navigation methods that you can use are the keyboard, using the tools, scrollbars, status bar, and finally using touch gestures. Let's first discuss the keyboard method. For this method, we actually already discussed some of it in the previous lesson. We have already discussed the number 5 for resetting the canvas rotation. Number 1 to reset the zoom level to 100%. Number 2 to zoom automatically to see the whole image. And the number 3 is for zooming based on the width of the image. What we haven't discussed is that we can also rotate the canvas using the number keys 4 and 6. Number 4 is for rotating the canvas counterclockwise. And number 6 to rotate it clockwise. For rotating the canvas, you can also hold Ctrl and then press the open bracket or close bracket. But it will be easier to just use numbers 4 and 6 because we don't need to press 2 buttons at once. Next, to zoom in, you can press the plus button. And to zoom out you can press the minus button. Next, you can also navigate the canvas using the provided tools. In the toolbox area, you can see these 2 tools. This is the zoom tool and this is the pan tool. If we activate the pan tool. We can pan the canvas around by clicking and dragging like this. And if we activate the zoom tool, we can click to zoom in on the canvas. Or while holding Ctrl, you can click to zoom out of the canvas. One unique feature of the zoom tool is that we can focus the zoom on a certain area by creating a selection box. And that is by clicking and dragging like this, and then release. Another navigation method that uses the interface is with scrollbars for panning. Both vertical and horizontal. Before, we hid the scrollbars in the earlier lesson about UI layout. I'm pretty sure you all understand how to use the scrollbars. So, let's just skip it. The next method is to use the "status bar". We've also hidden this UI element in the previous lesson. But since this method is unique in Krita, we need to discuss it. Of course, we need to display it again. Open the "view" menu, then activate the "show status bar" checkbox. To rotate the canvas you can twist this circle. With this method, by default, the canvas will rotate by 15 degrees. You can also use the up and down arrows if you want the rotation to change by 1 degree. Or you can also type the value directly if you want. You need to know that in Krita, you can hover your mouse over a value slider, then scroll with your mouse to change the value. This can save you time, especially if you are using a mouse. Next is the zoom control feature. You can drag this slider to adjust the zoom level. Or click here to choose from several frequently used zoom values. You can also type in the numbers directly here if you want. And as before, you can hover your mouse cursor over the zoom value slider, and then rotate your mouse scroll-wheel to change the value. Now, for this button. You can ignore it for now. In theory, this button can display the image on the canvas according to its size in the real world based on the density value or the "pixels per inch" value of the document. Unfortunately, in this version of Krita that I'm using, this button doesn't do what it's supposed to do. Hopefully, this will be fixed in the version of Krita that you are using. For now, I don't really need this "status bar" area, so I just hide it again. You don't need to do this if you want to have the status bar at the bottom. The last alternative navigation technique is by using touch gestures. Some drawing tablets and or trackpads have a capacitive surface that supports touch gestures. Some of these gestures are the pinch gesture to zoom in and zoom out. Or panning the canvas using 3 fingers. Or even rotate using 2 fingers. Unfortunately, I don't have any of these devices on the computer I'm using for recording. So I can not show it to you directly. But if you have a device that supports gesture input, there is a setting you might want to pay attention to. If you go to the "settings" menu, then open "configure Krita". In the "General" category, in the "tools" tab. Here, there is an option "enable touch rotation". If this option is off, then Krita will only accept zoom and pan gesture inputs. But if this option is active, then Krita will also detect the rotation gesture. The reason why this option exists is that some devices often cause the canvas to rotate accidentally. If that ever happens to you, you can turn off this option again. 17. Managing brushes: In this lesson video, we will cover the basics of using the freehand brush tool in Krita and how to manage brush presets. To access the freehand brush tool or just "brush tool" for short, you can press this icon, or you can also press the letter B on the keyboard. Then, you can select a brush preset by pressing this button or you can also press the F6 key on the keyboard. Just for example, let's pick this brush. Then, before we draw anything on the canvas. Remember our previous discussion about Krita's performance. If you are not making line art or outlines, you should always turn off the "brush smoothing" feature. Alright. Now, we can make some random strokes on the canvas. This is the result. Let's try another brush preset. And use it to draw some random strokes again on the canvas. As you can see, each brush preset has different characteristics. If you need to know the name of a brush preset, you can hover the mouse cursor above that brush preset for about a second or two. Krita will display the name as well as a larger version of the thumbnail image. In this condition, if we move the cursor over another brush preset, the name and thumbnail will change accordingly. The floating window will be closed once we click to select the brush preset. If you notice, Krita provides a lot of brush presets by default. Plus we can also create "custom brush presets" and even download other people's brush presets. The point is that we need a way to manage these many brush presets. Because if not, a lot of time will be wasted just searching for the brush presets. To manage brush presets, Krita provides at least 3 methods. The first is by using search and filter. Second, by using tags. And the third by utilizing the "pop-up palette". Let's take a look at each of these methods one by one. The first method is to use the search and filter functions. For example, let's say you just want to search for pencil presets. At the bottom of the brush presets panel, you can see the search field. If you type "pencil" here. Krita will only display brush presets that have the word "pencil" in their name. The other brush presets will be hidden. Another example, let's say you want to display only brush presets that can mix or blend colors. You can type the keyword “blend”. Now, only the brush presets capable of blending colors are shown in this list. To reset or clear the filter, just press this X button. And now, all the brush presets are back to being visible in the list. The next brush preset management technique is to use tags. By default, the brush presets provided by Krita are already associated with certain tags. To see all the available tags, you can open this drop-down list. If we choose the "eraser" tag. Now, only the brush presets associated with the "eraser" tag are visible. If we choose "ink", for example. Only brushes associated with the "ink" tag will be displayed. Etc. Next, what if we want to create our own tags? Say, we want to create a new tag named "my brush". For this, we can click on this "tag" drop-down menu. Then click on the "new tag" field. Type in the name you want, for example, "my brush". Then click this plus button, or just press Enter on the keyboard. Now, if we click again on this drop-down list. We can see the "my brush" tag. Of course, the brush list is still empty. This is because we haven't associated any brush preset with this new tag. To associate a brush preset to a tag. First, we need to enable the "All" option here, so we can see all the brush presets available in Krita. Then just right-click on the brush preset that we want. For example, we can choose "pencil 4 soft". After right-clicking, choose the option "assign to tag". And select our tag "my brush". Please keep in mind that a brush preset can be associated with multiple tags. So even though this "pencil 4 soft" brush preset is now linked to the "my brush" tag. Its previous relationship with other tags remains valid. If you right-click again, then select "remove from other tags". We can see that this brush preset is linked to 2 tags, "My brush" and "sketch". Now, in this condition, you don't want to click on any of these tag names, unless you want to break the link to that tag. For now, let's add some more brush presets to the "my brush" tag. Right-click on this "airbrush soft" brush preset, select "assign to tag", and select "my brush" tag. Then we also want to add this brush "basic 5 size opacity". Next, let's add the "Eraser circle" brush to the "my brush" tag. Then brush preset "Basic 5 size". After that, we can also add the "Blender blur" brush preset. Lastly, we can add a brush preset called "Blender smear". After you are done, from now onwards, if you enable the "my brush" tag filter again. You will see all the brush presets that we selected displayed in the list. Next, besides removing a preset from a tag, you can also delete a tag. Keep in mind that, if you delete a tag, the brush presets associated with that tag will not be erased. Only the association with that tag will be removed. To delete a tag, after you activate the tag like this. You can reopen this tag pull menu. And then select "delete this tag". We don't actually want to delete this tag so just click anywhere to close the menu. Until this point, you may be wondering. Why do I choose or tag these brush presets? Well, that is because all these brush-presets are the ones I usually use to create various kinds of digital illustrations. But you don't have to feel dictated. Feel free to experiment and choose your own favorite brush presets. However, you just need to know that I will be using these brushes in future lessons. Tags are not only useful for filtering in the brush preset panel, but they will also be useful when using the "pop-up palette". If you right-click on the canvas to open the "pop-up palette". The brush presets you see here are actually controlled via tags. If you want to use a specific tag in the pop-up palette, just click on this icon. Then select the tag that you want to use. For example, the tag we created earlier, "my brush". Now, all the brush presets that we selected earlier appear in the "pop-up palette". 18. Size, Opacity, and Eraser: In this lesson video, we will cover some basic parameters related to brushes. They are brush size, opacity, and eraser mode. Although these are general parameters, meaning, you can apply them to most brush presets. To make things easier, you might want to use the same brush preset that I am currently using, and that is the "basic 5 size" brush preset. Alright. The first brush parameter is the "brush size". There are at least 5 methods that we can use to change the brush size. Using the sliders in the toolbar, using the pop-up palette, keyboard, mouse, and lastly via the "quick settings docker". The first is with the slider located up here, in the toolbar area. We can set the value by click-dragging like this. Or by clicking directly on a specific point in the slider bar. Or, you can also click on the up and down buttons. Or, as I mentioned earlier. Inside Krita, we can hover the mouse cursor over a slider or a value, and just rotate the mouse scroll-wheel to increase or decrease the value. Or, you can type in the value directly if you want to. For example, we can type here 300, then Enter. You can see that the brush size becomes bigger. If we input a smaller value, let's say 30, and then Enter. We can see the brush size becomes smaller. The second method is via the pop-up palette. If we right-click on the canvas, you can see this little arrow. This arrow button is actually used to open and close the brush parameters. Here, we can find a slider for adjusting the brush size. The next method is with keyboard shortcuts. We can press the open or the close bracket keys. The open "bracket" key is for reducing the brush size. While the close "bracket" key is for increasing the brush size. As we discussed before, I've set the "express dial" in my drawing tablet, to activate the open and close bracket keys. With this, I can quickly change the brush size by rotating the dial. The fourth method is using the mouse. You can hold down the Shift key and then click-drag with the left mouse button right or left. As you can see, the brush size decreases as we move the mouse to the left and increases as we move it to the right. You can easily apply this method using a "drawing tablet". This method can be your primary method of changing the brush size, if your "drawing tablet" has a limited amount of express keys or dials. The last method is to use the "Quick settings docker". We can activate this docker just like we activate other dockers. And that is by opening the "settings" menu. Then "dockers". And then, activate the "Quick settings docker" checkbox. In this docker, inside the "size" tab. You can choose various presets for the brush size. Just for example. This is 4 pixels brush size, this is 10 pixels, and this is 30 pixels. The next brush parameter is the "opacity". Opacity controls how opaque or how transparent a brush is. We can control the opacity much like we control the brush size. First, by using the opacity slider in the toolbar. 100% value means that the brush strokes will be fully opaque. 50% means semi-transparent. And 0% means completely transparent. Or in other words, the brush becomes useless as it will only create invisible strokes. Next, we can also control the opacity using the pop-up palette. We can set the "opacity" of the brush here. The next method is with the keyboard. We can press the letter "i" to reduce the opacity value by 10%. And we can also press the letter "o" to increase the opacity value by 10%. If your drawing tablet has extra unused "express keys" or "express dials". You may want to set them to the letters I and O. Because, with this, you can control the opacity of the brush using your drawing tablet directly. Finally, you can also set the brush opacity via the "Quick settings" docker. For example, this is 50%, this is 10%, etc. Personally, I almost never use this docker, and so I prefer just to close it. You may continue to use it if you want to. The last brush parameter we need to cover is the eraser mode. You need to know that in Krita, there is no special tool for erasing. This is a bit different from other graphic software such as Photoshop, or Gimp, and so on. Most of them have a special tool called the eraser tool. In Krita, we erase using the "freehand brush" tool or any brush-based tools, just like we use it for drawing or coloring. Now, there are 2 approaches for erasing using the brush tool. The first is to turn whatever brush we are using into an eraser by pressing this icon, or by pressing the letter E on the keyboard. This is the "eraser" mode. In this mode, all of the brush's settings and characteristics remain the same. It is just that, it works negatively on the alpha value. In other words, it will reduce the opacity value of the pixels affected by the brush stroke. You can control how strong the erasing effect, using the "opacity" value. If you set the opacity at 100%, this will make the erasing effect at its strongest. Now, when you erase the canvas area and then you see a chess or checker pattern like this. You don't need to panic. This checker pattern is only a visual representation of the transparent condition. Our image doesn't actually contain a chess pattern like this. We will discuss this in more detail later. If you press the letter E again, or press this icon again to turn it off. The brush tool returns to normal mode. Or in other words, it adds brush strokes on the canvas, not erasing them. The second approach is to use the eraser-specific brush presets. When you open the brush presets panel. And make sure that you show all the brush presets by selecting "all" here. You will find Krita's built-in 3 eraser brush presets. Now, if you choose one of these brush presets. Krita will automatically activate the eraser mode. And what is unique about the eraser brushes is that, even though we turn off the eraser mode icon. The brush will always remain in the erasing state. So, let me repeat and conclude this again. In general, all brush presets in Krita can be used in 2 different modes. Either be the "normal" mode or the "eraser" mode. To switch to the "eraser" mode, we need to activate this icon or by pressing the letter E on the keyboard. But it is a bit different for eraser-type brush presets. These brush presets will always be in the eraser mode. The condition of the eraser icon above does not affect these brush presets. 19. Flow and Dirty preset: In this lesson video, we are going to discuss 2 things related to brushes. The first is "flow", and the second is "dirty preset". As before. To avoid confusion, it is better that we use the same brush preset. Currently, I'm using the one called "basic 5 size". If you look closely at the toolbar. On the left side of the "opacity" slider and on the left side of the "size" slider, you can find these little arrows. If you click on one of them. You can see that besides "opacity" and "size", there is a third brush parameter called "flow". We'll go into depth about what "flow" is in a moment. For now, let's focus on how these arrow buttons work. If you click the little arrow in the "opacity", for example. Then click on the plus button to the right of the "flow" slider. Now, it is the "flow" parameter that is being displayed by Krita. While the "opacity" slider is hidden. Likewise, if you click on this little arrow. Then click the plus icon on the right side of the "flow" slider. Now, we have 2 "flow" sliders on the toolbar. Of course, we don't want or need to display the same parameter twice like this. For now, let's set this back to "opacity". And this one back to "size". Alright. So what exactly is "flow"? Basically, "flow" is like "opacity". You can use both of them to control the transparency level of the brush strokes. Although you can turn on both at the same time, most artists prefer to choose only one of the two. At a glance, the end results may look almost the same. But the "flow" and "opacity" are fundamentally different. To make things clear, let's open the "brush editor" window by pressing this button. Or you can also press F5 on the keyboard. This is the window that you need to open if you want to adjust different aspects of the brush preset. You can even create your own brush preset here if you want to. Krita provides lots of brush parameters. These parameters are organized in tabs and categories as you can see on the left side. The parameters of the tab you selected on the left area will appear in the center area. And on the right side, you can draw or doodle to try out the brush preset directly as you change its settings. To clear this area, just press this trash icon. In this video, we're not going to cover all the brush settings. Now, we only want to focus on the difference between "flow" and "opacity". Make sure you go to the "general" category and go to the "brush tips" tab. First, let's change the brush size to 100 pixels so we can see it more clearly. If we make some brush strokes in Krita. What actually happens is that Krita shoots out a bunch of brush tips onto the canvas quickly. Each shot of this brush tip is called a "dab". It's kind of hard to see these dabs visually. This is because Krita determines the spacing between the dabs automatically based on the brush size. If we turn off this "auto" option. And we change the spacing value to 0.8 for example. Then draw another scribble. You can see the reality that a brushstroke is basically created or formed by these brush tips or dabs. So again, this stroke line is called a "stroke". While the points or each of these brush tips is called a "dab". If we open the opacity tab. Then change this "opacity" value to 50%. And create some brush strokes again. This is the result. Alright. Now, let's return the opacity value to 100%. And we open the "flow" tab. Set the value to 50% just like the previous opacity value. If we make another brush stroke here. You can clearly see the difference. If you use "opacity", the level of transparency is applied to the entire stroke. It is like Krita applies the transparency after merging all the dabs belonging to a single stroke. Whereas in the "flow" condition, the transparency level is applied to each individual dab. This behaviour explains why the intersection area between the dabs looks darker. Personally, I prefer the opacity effect as it is easier to predict the outcome. While in the "flow" mode, the results are more difficult to predict. This is because the spacing between the dabs also affects the final transparency level. If we change the brush size via the toolbar or with any other methods, we are actually changing the "diameter" value in the "brush tip" tab. Likewise, if we change the value of "opacity" and or "flow" outside this window, we are actually changing the value of "strength" in each of these tabs. Now, you should note that all changes to the brush preset parameters will be remembered by Krita temporarily. That is as long as you haven't closed Krita. This happens because, by default, we have this option "temporarily save tweaks to presets" active. Just for an example. We're still using the "basic 5 size" brush preset. If we draw some random strokes on the canvas. Like this. Then we choose another brush. For example this one. And then draw some strokes again. And then, we go back to the "basic 5 size" brush preset. And draw yet another random stroke. As you can see, the settings we have in this brush are still the same as the last time we used the brush preset. It does not reset to its defaults. One thing you need to remember is that in Krita, all brush presets that are tweaked or changed from their default conditions are referred to as "dirty presets". If you open the brush presets window. You can see inside the thumbnail of the "basic 5 size" brush preset there is this small pencil icon. This icon indicates that the corresponding brush preset is considered to be a "dirty preset". Or in other words, the settings of this brush preset have changed from the original. Now, what if we want to return the brush preset to its original or default settings? To do this, we can use 2 different approaches. The simplest way is to press the "reload original preset" button on this toolbar. Alternatively, you can also access the same button in the "brush editor" window at the top. The second approach is to turn off this option "temporarily save tweaks to presets". When this option is off, Krita will always reset the brush presets that are not being used. In this condition, there are no more "dirty presets" in Krita. Except for the one you are currently using. I do not recommend you turn this option off. Because, in practice, we will need brush presets that are persistent more often than brush presets that keep resetting themselves. And, if we ever need to reset the brush, we can just press this button. 20. Color selecting basics: In this lesson video, we are going to cover different methods of choosing colors. In Krita, there are at least 8 methods that we can use to choose colors. We can use the "Advanced color selector", using the "foreground" and "background" colors, color history, color list, "pop-up palette", using color-shifting techniques, picking or sampling from the canvas, and lastly, using the "color palette". To select a color using the "Advanced color selector", the first step is to determine the Hue using this color wheel. After that, you can determine the saturation by dragging right or left in this center area. And finally, you can determine the value or the brightness of the color by dragging up or down. If you think that the color selector is too small, you can press the middle mouse button. As you can see, the color selector becomes larger. To return it to its original size, simply hover the mouse away from the color selector area. Now, when using the color selector, normally, you use the left mouse button. This method will change the foreground color, which is this small box. But, you can also use the right mouse button to select the color. This method will change the background color, which is indicated by this small box. So what is the difference between the foreground and background color? The foreground color is the main color used by the brush tool. So this is the color you should always pay attention to. While the background color is just a container to store the second color. The terms "foreground" and "background" are not really accurate. Because these terms are commonly used to indicate depth inside a composition. The foreground is something in front, and the background is something at the back. While these colors have nothing to do with depth at all. These naming conventions were first used by Photoshop, which was then eventually inherited by other graphics applications until now. You can ignore this background color if you want, because the brush tool only cares about the foreground color. But this color can be useful if you frequently go back and forth between using 2 different colors. To swap the foreground and background colors, you can press this small arrow-shaped icon. Or you can also press the letter X on the keyboard for the shortcut. Then, if you notice, here, there is also a black and white icon. This icon is useful for resetting both colors to their defaults. Which are black for the foreground color and white for the background color. The shortcut for this command is the letter D on the keyboard. You can also specify the foreground and background colors directly by pressing the color boxes. This will open a more detailed color selector window as it displays the RGB values, HSV values, as well as the hexadecimal code. We already discussed this color selector window in the earlier lesson so there's no need to discuss it again. For now, suppose we choose this orange color for the foreground color. Click "OK". Then we open the background color. And we choose this green color. Then click "OK" again to confirm. Now we have orange for the foreground color and green for the background color. To quickly fill a layer or selection using the foreground color, you can use the Shift + Backspace shortcut. And to fill using the background color you can press the Backspace key. One thing you have to be careful about when filling color in Krita is the "eraser" mode. This is one of the quirks in Krita that I don't like. You see, if the brush you are using is in "eraser" mode. Pressing Backspace or Shift + Backspace will only delete pixels in the active layer or selection. So, if you want to use these 2 shortcuts, make sure the "eraser" mode icon is turned off. To return the layer to a solid white color, you can press the Delete key. However, this technique only applies to the "background" layer, and does not apply to other layers. We will discuss the background layer in more depth in a later lesson. Every time we choose and use color, Krita will save the color in the "color history", which is this "bar" in the "advanced color selector" docker. If you remember, the "color history" was originally located on the right side vertically. But we have moved it down and made it horizontal. The purpose of the "color history" is to make it easier for us to reuse the colors that we used before. To pick a color from the "color history", you can click using the normal left mouse button. This will change the foreground color. Or you can also click using the right mouse button if you want to change the background color. If the color history becomes too crowded, you can clear it by pressing this button. Alright. Now, what if we accidentally delete or clear the "color history" even though we still need it? Or let's say another scenario, where we open an image file and we want to quickly extract all the colors in the image. In Krita, we can create a color list from the canvas using this button. You can see all these colors appear. Including the white color and other light colors which are the result of mixing with white. If we click on this color for example. Then we apply the color to the canvas with a brush. And then this one for example. Etc. You can see the colors in the color history reappear as we use them. The last technique we want to discuss in this video is the "pop-up palette". If we right-click to open the "pop-up palette". In the center area, you can choose a color just like we chose a color in the "advanced color selector". Next, this circular area is actually the color history. So the "pop-up palette" has its own color history. And this "color history" is independent of the "advanced color selector" docker. You can clear the color history in the "pop-up palette" by pressing this button. Then, the 2 color circles on the top left are the foreground color and the background color. So you can select or swap both colors using the "pop-up palette". 21. Offsetting and Sampling color: In this lesson video, we will cover more advanced techniques for choosing colors. First, we will discuss color offsetting. And then second, color sampling. When coloring or painting, we often need to make a color a bit darker or brighter. We need a darker color when working with shadow areas. And we need a lighter color for highlight areas. We can choose the color manually using the "advanced color selector" or using the other methods we discussed earlier. But a faster way to offset the current color is by using keyboard shortcuts. You can press the letter K to make the active color become darker. And pressing the letter L to make it lighter. Just an example. Suppose we are making a drawing of a rock. Once we are done laying down the base color. We want to shift the color to a darker version. Just press K on the keyboard. As you can see, the color is now darker than before. With this, we can easily add shading areas to the drawing. After that, to make the color lighter we can press L. Now the color is similar to before. Press L again, to make it even brighter. Then we can continue coloring the highlight areas. Personally, I find the color jump distance to dark or to light using these shortcuts is sufficient. It is not too far and not too close either. But, if it doesn't feel right for you, you can set how far or how close the color jumps when you press K or L. To do this, you can open the "settings" menu, then "configure Krita". Then go to the "color selector settings" tab. Now, by default, this panel displays various settings for the "advanced color selector". What we want to access are the shortcuts or the hotkeys for color shifting. For that, you can click on this drop-down list. And select "color hotkeys". As you can see, it turns out that Krita supports a lot of hotkeys for color offsetting. The ones we used earlier, namely the letters K and L, are hotkeys set to the "Value" or "Lightness" characteristic of the color. So what you need to change is this "lightness steps" value. This value is inversely proportional to the color jump distance. At the default value, which is 10 steps. You can imagine that there is a ladder or a stair connecting the lightest color to the darkest color. The stair currently has 10 steps. Every time we press K or L, we go down or go up one step at a time. So, if you want the distance to be smaller, you need to increase the number of these steps. Let's say we increase the value to 40 steps. Click OK. And we can pick the initial basic gray color using the color history. Then make some strokes on the canvas. Now, if we press K. And make another stroke. Press K. And then stroke again. And so on. As you can see, the color jump distance that occurs every time we press K is a lot smaller than before. Feel free to experiment and use the "steps" value that you like the most. Again, personally, I'm quite satisfied with the default value of 10 steps. At this point, you may be wondering. If the shortcuts for changing the color lightness or value are the letters K and L. Then what are the shortcuts for changing the other values? The answer is, there aren't any. At least, not by default. You will have to create your own custom hotkeys for the other color values. I never need them. But if you do need them, the method is as follows. For example, say you want to create hotkeys for saturation. First, go to the "keyboard shortcuts" category. Then just type in the "search" field, "make brush color". Now we can see all the commands related to color shifting. You can see that the letters K and L are already associated with the "darker" and "lighter" commands. Just for example, say you want to use the letter X to increase the color saturation. Just hit this area. Then select "custom". Then click this button. Now, Krita is waiting for you to press a key or key combination on the keyboard. Press the letter X. Now, because the letter X by default is used to swap the foreground and background colors. Krita will need your confirmation. Do you really want to reassign the letter X to the new command? If you click the "reassign" button, then the X key will change its function. Again, this is just an example. I don't really need the shortcut for the color saturation, so I just hit "cancel". At least by now, you know how to do it, in case you ever need it. Now, we will learn how to sample or pick an existing color from the canvas. Previously, we have learned about "color lists". In essence, by pressing this icon, Krita will create a list of all the colors in the image. But very often when drawing, we only need to pick a certain color and don't need to analyze every color on the canvas. For this, we can use the "sampler tool" instead. You can press the tool icon that has the eyedropper symbol. Or you can also press the letter P on the keyboard. But, going back and forth from the "brush" tool to the "sampler" tool is very inconvenient. Due to the importance of the "sampler" tool, Krita provides direct access to the sampler tool while we are using the brush tool. And that is by pressing Ctrl. So again, you don't need to press this icon or even press the letter P on the keyboard. If you are using the "freehand brush" tool, just hold down the Ctrl key, and you are now in the "sampler tool mode". If you release the Ctrl key, the brush tool will be back as usual. While we are holding the Ctrl key, we can sample the color in the canvas in 2 ways. The first is with a click and release. Or the second, you can also click-and-drag. Until you see the exact color you want to pick, then you can release the mouse button. After that, you can release the Ctrl key to return the brush tool to its default state. Now, all of these methods will affect the foreground color. If what you want to change is the background color. The method is similar to the previous one, but you use the right mouse button to click or click-drag. So hold down the Ctrl key. Then, right-click on the color you want to pick. Or click-and-drag using the right mouse button. And release it when you see the color that you want to pick. As you can see, now, it is not the foreground color that changed, but the background color. 22. Color Palette: In this lesson video, we will cover the "color palette". We mentioned earlier about this "Palette" docker, and we even moved it to the top left area. Basically, a color palette is a container where you store and organize your favorite colors. In contrast to the "color history" and "color list" which store colors temporarily. The colors you saved in the color palette stay permanent. Meaning if you close Krita, and then reopen it. The colors you previously saved will still be available. This is possible because Krita saves the color palette into an external file with ".KPL" extension in the "resource folder" automatically. Apart from saving the file in the "resource folder", you can also save the color palette internally inside a Krita document file that uses the ".KRA" extension. We'll discuss "resource folders" more in-depth in the next lesson. For now, let's cover the basics of using the color palette in Krita. The color boxes that you see in the color palette are called "swatches". When you click on one of the swatches, the foreground color will change. Besides being displayed in a grid format, you can also access swatches from this drop-down list. From here, in addition to the colors, you can also see the IDs or the names of the swatches. All of the swatches we see now are part of the color palette called "default". If you want to open another palette, you can click here and just select the palette you want to open. For example, let's open this "animation color set". Or this "concept cookie" for example. Etc. Again, you need to remember that these palettes are saved as files with ".KPL" extension. Since changes to the palette are permanent, it is better not to fiddle with the existing palettes. We can create a new palette so we can freely experiment with it. To create a new palette, you can click on this plus button. We can give this palette a name. For example "My palette". Now, this checkbox is used if we want to save the palette right inside the current document or the ".KRA" file. If we disable this option, then the palette data will be saved externally in Krita's "resource folder" as a ".KPL" file. In this state, the palette will always be available, regardless of what document we open. For now, we don't want to turn on this option. Click OK. And here's our new palette. Currently, it looks empty, even though we can see the boxes or the grid already there. Basically, we can conclude that the palette in Krita not only stores color swatches, but also stores the grids, or the containers, even if they are still empty. To arrange the grid, we can press this icon. Let's say, we want to set the columns to 6. And the number of rows to 2. We can change this value to 6. And change this value to 2. Then click OK. We can see that now the grid size is bigger. From here, we can conclude again, that the size of the swatches can be controlled indirectly through the number of columns. If you set the column to a small number, then the size of each swatch becomes bigger. If you set the column to a large number, the size of the swatches becomes small. Next, to create a new swatch or to fill this empty grid, we can simply select the color we want in the "advanced color selector". Then just click on one of these empty swatches. After that, don't click on the other swatch boxes, as that will create another color swatch, even though the color is still the same. To delete a swatch, you can right-click on the swatch. Then select "remove". In addition to deleting, you can also edit the color further by right-clicking and selecting "edit swatch". You can give it an ID number or a name if you want to. But these are not mandatory. It is fine if we just leave it blank. To change the color, you can press this color box. Then set the color to any color you want. After you are done, click OK to confirm. And click OK again. Furthermore, you can also adjust the position of the swatches by click-dragging. For example, if I click-drag this swatch to another swatch. They will swap positions. You can also do this on an empty grid. For example, I can click-drag this one here. Now, this box is filled. While this one becomes empty. To recap. If we click on an empty grid, we will create a new color swatch. But if we click on existing color swatches. We are picking the color from the swatch to the foreground color. Then, to edit or delete a swatch, you can right-click on that swatch. Then select "edit" or "remove". And lastly, if you want to relocate a color swatch, just click-drag it to a new location. One important feature associated with the color palette is grouping. Inside a palette, you can combine color swatches into groups. For example, let's say we want to create 3 groups in this palette. The first one is called "Trees", the second one is "Grounds", and the last one is "Sky". We can click on this icon again. Then we click the "add a swatch group" button. For the name, let's type "Trees". And we want to set the number of rows to only 2. Click OK. Then, let's create the second group. Name this one "Grounds". For this, we can set the row to only 1. Then click OK. Finally, we can create another group. Name this group "Sky". And as before, we can set this to 1 row only. Click OK. Now, in this drop-down list, we can see the various groups that we just created. We can also see that there is an empty group. If we click OK. Here is the result. As you can see. The ones above have no group associated with them. This is the "Sky" group. This is the "Grounds" group. And this is the "Trees" group. You can adjust the position of the group by click-dragging on their names. For example, we can click-drag the "Sky" group upward. Then click-drag the "grounds" group so that it is above the "Trees" group. And so on. Now, if you want to remove this empty group above. You can click on this icon again. Make sure we are now in the empty group. Then just set the number of rows to zero. Then click OK. Now, all of the swatches that exist in this palette are part of a group. 23. Resource folder: In this lesson video, we will cover Krita's "resource folder". What "resource folder" means is a special folder where Krita stores various data related to its runtime processes. One example of the data stored in the resource folder is the "color palette" we discussed in the previous lesson. Sometimes, we need to access the "resource folder". Just for example. Let's say you just saved a lot of colors for a project into a "color palette". Then, you need to share the palette with your team or coworkers. Now, to determine where the "resource folder" is located, it's a bit tricky. Because the location varies depending on the platform or the OS you are using, and also the settings when you first installed Krita. The easiest and most uniform way to find its location is through the "manage resources" window. First, you need to open the "settings" menu. Then select "manage resources". And then, click this button "open resource folder". The file browser of your operating system will open. If you are using Windows 10, just like me, you will see the “file explorer” window opened. In this folder Krita stores various resources, such as brushes, patterns, workspaces, and so on. For now, we want to take a look at the “color palette”. So open this "palettes" folder. All of these files are the palettes we see inside Krita. This ".KPL" format is Krita's native color palette file. However, you can also find the ".GPL" files here. You don't need to be confused, this is the color palette file native to the Gimp graphic application. So besides the ".KPL" format, Krita also supports several other palette file formats such as Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, Microsoft, and so on. Now, if you remember, before, we created the color palette called "My palette" only once. But why are there several files with “my palette” names here? Some even have numbers behind them. These numbers are used for versioning. Essentially, the file with the largest version number is the most recent. In previous versions of Krita, you can find a button called "Delete backup files". That button will automatically clean up older files and save the most recent file without any version number. Unfortunately, in the version of Krita that I'm using now, the button is temporarily disabled. Maybe the button will be available again in the version of Krita you are using. For now, if you want to share this color palette called "my palette" with your friends. Just copy the file with the largest version number. Or you can clean it manually first, if you want to. And that is by deleting the older files. And just rename the latest file by removing the version number. Then you can send the file to your team or colleagues. Later, your team-mate simply needs to save the file in their Krita "resource folder". Or, the easier method is by opening the "manage resources" window first. And then press this "import" button. Select the palette file. And click "Open". With this, Krita will move the file automatically to the "resource folder". 24. Line tool: Starting from this video and several next videos, we will start discussing various tools in Krita that use the "brush engine". We have already discussed the "freehand brush tool" or just "brush tool" for short. We know that the brush tool has various features like the "brush presets", opacity, size, flow, and so on. Now, what we need to know is that in Krita, not only the brush tool is affected by the brush parameters. There are other tools based on Krita's brush engine. They are all these tools, from the "line tool" to the "multibrush tool". For now, let's focus on the line tool. As the name suggests, we use the line tool to create a line. However, what makes the line tool unique, at least if we compare it with similar tools in other graphics software, is that it can detect the pen pressure along with the line creation. Of course, you need to use a brush preset that makes use of the pen pressure. Because not all brush presets make use of it. For example, let's say we choose this brush "ink 7 brush rough". This brush preset detects the pen pressure to control the brush size, similar to the "basic 5 size" we've been using so far. We can actually tell this at a glance. If you look closely at the thumbnail of this brush preset. We can see the stroke line goes from thick to thin. This is how we know that this brush preset has a dynamic brush size, or in other words, making use of the pen pressure to control the size. Meanwhile, if you look at this "basic 1" brush, you can see that the brush stroke in the thumbnail has the same size from start to finish. This shows that the brush preset does not use the pen pressure to change the size. And if you notice this one, "Basic 2 opacity". We can see the size remains the same, but the opacity changes from opaque to transparent. So, we can tell visually that this brush preset is indeed using the pen pressure. But for controlling the opacity level, not the brush size. For now, we select this brush again "ink 7 brush rough". To close the "brush presets" window, you can press the Esc key on your keyboard. Or you can also right-click or middle-click on this button. Let's go back to discussing the "line tool". Make sure the line tool is active. To create a line, simply click on the starting point. Drag the mouse to the endpoint, and then release the mouse. While you are dragging a line like this, and you apply different pressure on the pen. The resulting line will have varying thicknesses. Where you press hard the line becomes thick. And where you press lightly the line becomes thin. Now, if you want a uniform or consistent line thickness. Apart from using other brush presets, you can also turn off this "use sensor" option. But remember, under this condition, the maximum brush size displayed here will be used throughout the line. So, the resulting size tends to be larger compared to when using the pressure sensor. Because of this, you usually want to reduce the brush size first as needed. With a smaller brush size, if we try again to draw a line. You can see the line thickness is smaller but consistent from end to end. Now, what if we want to make the line straight vertically, or horizontally, or diagonally. For this, we can use the Shift key. Remember, you need to hold down the Shift key while dragging the mouse. Not before the mouse is pressed. So, for example, click the pen first, and then hold it. While we drag the pen or the mouse like this, hold down the Shift key. As you can see, the line we are creating snaps at an angle per 15 degrees. With this, we can easily create vertical lines, or horizontal lines, or other orientation values that snap every 15 degrees. The last technique I want to mention is moving the line while we are creating it. For this, we can use the Alt key. Just an example. We can press and drag like this. Before releasing the pen or the mouse button. If you hold down the Alt key, you can move the line to another location. If you release the Alt key, you can then continue with the line creation process. And, if you hold down the Alt key again, you can move it to another location. And so on. Once you are done, as usual, just release the pen or the mouse button to confirm the line creation. 25. Rectangle and Ellipse: In this lesson video, we will continue discussing the tools that are based on the brush engine. Now we will focus on the "rectangle tool" and then the "Ellipse tool". We discuss both of them together because they are very similar in how they work. Basically, we use the rectangle tool to create rectangular shapes. Again, this tool is also based on Krita's brush engine. So, all the settings we have for the brush tool will also apply to the "rectangle tool". I'm using the brush preset that we used before called "ink 7 brush rough". Let's set the brush size to 5 pixels. To use this tool, just click-drag on the canvas. You can see that the brush stroke looks slightly textured. This is due to the characteristic of the brush preset. If we set the foreground color to blue for example. And the opacity to about 50%. Then, we try to make a rectangular shape again. We can see that the foreground color we choose and also the opacity value affects the rectangle shape. Now, apart from creating only the outline like this, we can also put color in the inner area. The inner area is called the "Fill". If you look at the "tool options" docker. You can see that the "fill" parameter is set to "not filled". We can set the fill area to use the foreground color, background color, or "pattern". For now, because we haven’t discussed "pattern" yet. Let's just try setting this to the background color. So now, we need to define the background color. Remember, you need to press the right mouse button to select the background color. Let me choose this orange color. And here is the result. The fill area is now in orange color. You can make the corner area rounded or curved with these 2 parameters. If the lock icon is active. Changing the X value will also change the Y value. The two values do not have to be the same, but they will affect each other if this lock icon is active. For example, if we type in 20. And then try creating a rectangle again. You can see the corners are not sharp but rounded. If we open the lock icon and then input 40 in the X value. Then create another rectangle. The round corner becomes more elongated horizontally. For now, let's just zero out these two values. Next, if you pay attention. When we click-drag to create a rectangle. The "width", "height" and "ratio" values change automatically according to the shape of the rectangle that we are dragging. Now, if you want to create a rectangle with a certain fixed size, you can input the values. Let's say, for the width we want 500 pixels. And for the height 150 pixels. To prevent the size values from changing, we can press this lock icon. Now, if we try to click and drag on the canvas. Instead of specifying the size, we can only specify the location of the box. Release the mouse to place the rectangle on the canvas. So that is how you use the "rectangle tool" in Krita. Next, for the "ellipse tool". As you can see for yourself. The parameters of this tool are similar to the "rectangle tool". So we don't need to go over everything again. What makes the tool different, is, of course, this one creates ellipse or circle shapes. Just for example. We can also set the "fill" parameter to use the background color. And we want to make it transparent too by setting the opacity value to around 30 percent. Then just click-drag on the canvas, to create an ellipse or circle shape. At this point, you might be wondering. What if we want to make a perfect circle shape? Well, there are 3 approaches to this. First, we can specify the width and height values manually, and then lock the values. However, this technique is only useful if we already know for sure the size we want to create. If we don't know for sure, we can use the second approach. That is, we just leave these two values unlocked. But type in 1 in the "ratio" field, and then lock the value. This "ratio" value is basically the result of dividing the width value by the height value. If we lock this "ratio" at 1. It means that the width and height will always be the same, so the tool will always make a perfect circle. Regardless of the size, big or small. So that was the second approach to creating a perfect circle. Let me unlock this for now. The third approach is to use a keyboard shortcut, which is the Shift key. But you need to remember that you have to hold down the Shift key while dragging. If you hold down the Shift key before pressing the mouse button, it will not work. The second important thing is, if you intend to use this Shift shortcut, make sure the "ratio" value is unlocked. Because if it is locked, pressing the Shift key will actually unlock it. So, we can click-drag first. And in this state, press and hold the Shift key. You can see that the shape is a perfect circle. Alright. Now, we can also use the Shift shortcut for the "rectangle tool". This will create a perfect square shape. And just like with the "ellipse tool", you also need to make sure there are no locked values here. Then, we can click-drag, and then hold Shift. As you can see, the rectangle shape is a perfect square. Next, you can also use the Alt shortcut on the "rectangle tool" and also the "Ellipse tool". Just like with the "line tool" we discussed before, using the Alt key while creating a rectangle or an ellipse enables us to move the shape. For example, if we click-drag like this. While in this state, if we hold down Alt, we can move the shape to another location. The last shortcut is to use the Ctrl key to lock the center point of the shape. We can use this shortcut also on both the "rectangle tool" and the "Ellipse tool". The way this works is like this. When you click-drag to create a rectangle or an ellipse. You will see 2 X symbols. The first X is where we click. While the second X is the center point of the shape we are creating. While you are dragging, holding down Ctrl, will change the center of transformation to the center point or the second X symbol. If you release the Ctrl key, the center of the transformation will change back to the first X symbol. With this technique, we can make the center point of a rectangle shape or a circle shape exactly at a certain location. For example, let's say we want to create a circle whose midpoint is exactly at the corner of this square. Make sure we use the "ellipse tool". Click drag to start creating the shape. Until you see the second X symbol. Keep on dragging, until the center X symbol is exactly at the position we are targeting. In this state, press and hold the Ctrl key. As long as we hold down the Ctrl key. The center point of the circle will always be locked at the location we are targeting. You can also combine this shortcut with the previous shortcuts. So, if you also hold down the shift key, the shape will be a perfect circle. 26. Polygon and Polyline: In this lesson video, we will continue to discuss the tools that are based on the brush engine. Now, we will focus on the "Polygon tool" and the "Polyline tool". We discuss both together because they are very similar. Basically, we use these two tools to create a series of connecting lines. So, if you want to create only a single line, the "line tool" is the one you want to use. But, if you want to create multiple connecting lines, then these two tools will be more suitable. To use them, just click release multiple times until you get the shape that you want. To end the creation process, you can hold down the Shift key, then click with the mouse. Or you can also perform double-clicking. Or, you can also end it by pressing the Enter key on the keyboard. If you strictly only want to use a drawing tablet, I suggest that you use the Shift or Enter methods instead. Because performing double-clicking using a drawing tablet is not that easy and also risky. Sometimes we accidentally offset the pen when trying to double-click. Now, if you are already in the process of making some lines, but then you want to undo them, just press Esc on your keyboard. What differentiates these two tools is the "auto loop" feature. In the "polygon tool", the shape you create will always be closed. If we don't close it ourselves, that is by clicking on the starting point. Krita will close it for us, by connecting the last point we created to the starting point. This is what I mean by the "auto loop" feature. Whereas in the "polyline tool", you are free to create shapes, closed or open. Krita will not create any additional lines after we finish the creation process. Next, these two tools also support the "fill" parameter. Just for example, let's activate the "polygon tool". And let's set this fill option to the background color, just like the previous tool. Then we can try creating a random shape. For example, like this. And then to end the process, hold the Shift key and then click. We can see the middle area is filled with the background color. The "Polyline tool" can also have a fill area even if the outline does not close. For example, we can set this to the background color. Then we can create an open shape. Like this, for example. You can see there is a fill area that uses the background color even though the outline does not close. 27. Mirror and Multibrush: In this lesson video, we will discuss the mirroring technique using the "Mirror tools" and then using the "Multibrush tool". The "Mirror tools", are the two buttons here on the toolbar. You need to remember that these two tools are very different from the "mirror view" command we discussed earlier. The "mirror view" which uses the letter M for the shortcut is a navigation feature. It does not affect the document, other than the way we view it. These two mirror tools are not a navigation feature. They will affect how we use the brush tool or any other brush-based tools. Essentially, these tools will create additional brush points by mirroring the location of the main brush point. So, it can be useful when you need to draw symmetrical shapes on the canvas. Let's try to activate this button first, which is called the "horizontal mirror tool". When this tool is active, you can see a vertical mirror line like this. If you try to make some strokes with the brush tool. What you draw on one side, will automatically be reflected on the other side horizontally, based on the position of this mirror line. By default, the mirror line is exactly at the center of the canvas. You can change its location by click-dragging on this circle icon. With the new mirror line location, the location of the additional brush point changed also. There are several options that we can tweak on the mirror tool. If you click on this little arrow button. This option can hide the appearance of the mirror lines. The mirroring effect is still working. It is just that the mirror line is hidden visually. Then, this "lock" option is for locking the mirror line position. This can be useful if we often move the mirror line accidentally. Then the last one is a command to reset the position of the mirror line back to the center of the canvas. To disable the mirror tool, simply press the icon again. Alright. Now, for the other mirror tool. Basically, it works the same. The only difference is that it works vertically, not horizontally. And, what's unique about these two mirror tools is that we can activate both of them at the same time. In this condition, the brush strokes we are creating will be duplicated by 3 additional brush strokes, which are the result of vertical mirroring and horizontal mirroring. For now, let's turn off these two “mirror tools”. Next, is the "Multibrush tool". We can access it by clicking on this tool icon. The reason we are discussing this tool together with the "mirror tools", is because some of their features are similar. As the name suggests, we can use this tool to create brush strokes using several points at once. This tool supports 5 different modes. There are "symmetry", "mirror", "translate", "snowflake", and "copy translate". Let's first take a look at the "symmetry" mode. This mode can create multiple brush strokes at once by rotating them at the center point of the tool. The center point of this tool is called the "origin". As you can see, if we draw brush strokes on the canvas in a clockwise direction. Krita will draw additional 3 brush strokes clockwise as well. Essentially, the movement of the brushes is always in the same direction. If we change this value to 5, for example. Now, there are 5 brushes at once creating strokes on the canvas. We can move the "origin" point by pressing the "move" button. Then click anywhere on the canvas to specify a new "origin" location. As you can see, now the center point of the tool is in this area. It is no longer at the center of the canvas. You can turn on the "show origin" option if you want to see the "origin" point visually on the canvas. With this tool, we can easily draw complex repeating shapes such as classical building ornaments, or wood carvings, or batik patterns for example. If we press the "reset" button. The "origin" point will return to the default, which is at the center of the canvas. The next mode is "mirror". This mode will make the "multibrush tool" work similar to the "mirror tools" we discussed earlier. You can use only the "vertical" option. Or only the "horizontally" option. Or you can use both if you want to. What makes this tool unique compared to the "mirror tools" is its ability to rotate the mirror lines. To see this, first, make sure the "show origin" option is active. And, if we change this "rotation" value. For example, by setting this to 45 degrees. You can see that the mirror lines are no longer straight vertically or horizontally, but become tilted or in a diagonal orientation. For now, let's return this value to zero. The next mode is "snowflake". We will cover the "translate" mode later, together with the "copy translate". The "snowflake" mode is like a combination of "the symmetry" and the "mirror" modes. So, at first glance, it looks like the "symmetry" mode. But if you pay attention. When we draw a line clockwise, for example. Not all the line strokes move clockwise. But the alternating brushstrokes move in the opposite direction. Or in other words, they are mirrored. For the other settings. Since they are similar to the "symmetry" mode, we don't need to discuss them again. The next mode is "translate". This mode will create some random additional brush points around the main brush point. This feature can be very useful if we want to draw some grasses for example, or hair, etc. Just for example, we can use 5 for the brushes value, just like before. Then we set this "radius" value to 60 pixels. This radius determines the distance or gaps between the brush points. We can try drawing some strokes on the canvas again. As you can see, with this technique, we can draw grasses quickly. Alright. The last mode is the "copy translate". Basically, this mode is the same as the "translate" mode. The difference is that the brush points are not randomly generated. Instead, we need to determine the location ourselves, manually. To do this, make sure the "show origin" option is active. In this mode, the "origin" point serves as the main brush point location. Let's say we want to add 3 points on the right, and 2 points on the left. For this, we can press the "add" button. Then just click on each location where we want to add the brush points. Place 3 on the right side. And place 2 on the left side. After you are done, you need to turn off the "add" button again. Now, we can try drawing some brush strokes on the canvas. And here is the result. As you can see, this mode does not create random brush points. If you want to reset or delete all the brush points. Just press this "remove all" button. Now, this tool is similar to the regular brush tool, as it no longer has additional brush points. 28. Selection basics: In this lesson video, we will discuss the basics of "image selection". "Selection" is very important for many different purposes. Essentially, we use a selection to limit the area that we want to edit. For example, limiting the area where we want to draw brush strokes, performing transformations, adding filters, and so on. In Krita, all the selection tools are gathered here. Starting from this tool until this tool. In general, you can find dotted lines on the icons. Let's take a look at the first selection tool, the "Rectangular selection tool". You can press this icon to access it. Or via the shortcut, that is by pressing Ctrl + R. As the name suggests, this tool creates a rectangular-shaped selection region. To use it, simply click-drag on the canvas, just as we used the "Rectangle" tool before. The difference is, instead of creating a brush stroke or fill color. This tool only creates a selection region. The selection region is indicated by dotted lines with a marching-ant-like animation. Before we continue. Let me first show you how the selection region affects brush strokes. Under the condition where there is an active selection like this. If we use the brush tool, and try to draw some strokes like this. Only the area within the selection is affected. The area outside the selection is off limit. If we use the "Rectangular selection tool" again in a different location. And try making some brush strokes again using the brush tool. You can see the active area is now at the new selection region. To clean up the selection, we'll cover this later. For now, if the selection tool is still active, just click once on the canvas to clear the selection. Now, we can draw on the canvas again without any limitations. Alright. The second selection tool is the "Elliptical selection tool". In addition to pressing the tool icon on the toolbox, you can also press the letter J on the keyboard. To use this tool, as before, simply click-drag on the canvas. What's unique about these two selection tools is that their parameters and shortcut methods are very similar to the "rectangle" and "ellipse" tools. So, if you are already familiar with using these two tools, you will also automatically be familiar with using these two selection tools. The only difference is that the selection tools don't draw anything on the canvas. The rectangle or the ellipse created are just selection regions. Just, for example, we can set the "round value" to 30 pixels. This will make the corners of the selection box become curved. Another example, if we use the "elliptical selection tool". And we lock the ratio value at number 1. This will cause the selection shape to always be a perfect circle. Etc. Then, in terms of shortcuts or the use of the modifier keys, they are also the same. Let's use the "rectangular selection tool" again. If we click-drag, then hold Shift. The shape of the selection will be a perfect square. We can also use the Alt key, to move the selection creation process to other locations. And we can also use the Ctrl key to move the reference point to the center of the selection shape. Please review again the lesson on rectangle and ellipse tools if you need more detailed explanations. But, just a reminder. For all the modifier shortcuts, you need to press them when performing click-dragging. Not before. If you try to press them before click-dragging, that will trigger other features that we haven't covered yet. Krita provides various methods for controlling the selection area. For now, we will cover only some of the basic commands. For this, you can open the "select" menu. The first command is "select all", whose shortcut is Ctrl + A. This command will select the entire canvas area. You can see the selection region border now covers the entire canvas area. Then, the opposite of that command is "deselect". Or the shortcut is Ctrl + Shift + A. Essentially, this command will clear all selections so that we can return to working on the document normally. Since this command is so important, it is a good idea to memorize it. Or even create your own custom shortcut so you can execute it much faster. You can make use of the express keys on your drawing tablet. The next command is "reselect", or with the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + D. Basically, if we have a selection. Then we press Ctrl + Shift + A, to clear the selection. Pressing this "reselect" command will restore the last active selection. The last command is "invert selection". The shortcut is Ctrl + Shift + i. Its function is to invert the selection region. Just an example. If we make a rectangular selection on the canvas, like this. Currently, the inner area of this rectangle is selected, while the outer area is not. Now, if we press Ctrl + Shift + i. The situation is reversed. The inner area is currently not selected. While the rest of the area on the canvas is selected. You can see, the marching ant effect now appears on the border of the canvas. You can press Ctrl + Shift + i again to invert the selection back to be inside the rectangle, if you want to. Or press Ctrl + Shift + A, to clear the selection. 29. Custom shaped selection: In this lesson video, we will cover some of the "selection tools" that can create custom shape selection regions. To create a custom-shaped selection, we can use one of these 3 tools. The "Polygonal selection tool", "Freehand selection tool", and finally the "Bezier curve selection tool". Now, to be able to use tools that are based on "Bezier curves", such as this tool and this tool. We need to first cover the basics of vector in Krita. So, for now, we will only focus on these 2 tools, the "polygonal" and "freehand". The way we use the "Polygonal selection tool", is almost similar to how we use the "polygonal tool" we discussed earlier. But, instead of creating an image on the canvas, this tool only creates selection regions. So, to use it, simply perform multiple clicks and releases on the canvas. To end the process, you can click again on the starting point. Or, you can double-click. Or, you can also press the Enter key on the keyboard. As I mentioned before. You should avoid using the double-click method if you are using a drawing tablet. Personally, I prefer to use the Enter key to complete the selection process. Alternatively, if you don't like pressing the Enter key, you can assign the double-click input with one of the express keys on your drawing tablet. The next tool is the "Freehand selection tool". This tool can create custom-shaped selection regions as well. The difference is that we use this tool through click-dragging, not click-releases. To end the process, simply release the mouse button or lift your drawing pen. In practice, I usually use the "polygonal selection tool" to make selection regions of rigid-shaped objects, such as rocks, buildings, tree trunks, and so on. Once you have a selection like this for example. You can fill the selection with the foreground color, by pressing the shortcut Shift + Backspace. As for the "freehand selection tool". This tool is more suitable for making selections that are more organic or those with lots of curves. Such as leaves, bushes, animal hair, and so on. Just like before, once you have a selection like this. You can fill in the selection region with the foreground color. Or, you can also use the background color, if you want. That is by pressing the Backspace key on the keyboard. There is an advanced technique that can combine the capabilities of the "polygonal" and the "freehand" selection tools in one go. This technique is one of my favorite techniques. So, most likely, you will often see me use this in future lessons. To use this technique, first, you need to activate the "Freehand selection tool". Then, while using this tool, hold down the Ctrl key. In this state, when you release the mouse button, the selection process is not finished immediately. Instead, you can perform click releases, just like you use the "polygonal selection tool". So, again, while holding down the Ctrl key, you can click-drag to create a "Freehand" type selection border. And you can perform click releases to create a "polygonal" type selection border. After you are done, you can release the Ctrl key, and then also the mouse button to end the selection process. 30. Introduction to Layers: In this lesson video, we will cover the basics of layers. So what are "layers"? Essentially, layers are images that we can stack on top of each other inside a document. We can manage or organize layers using the "layers" docker. If we create a new document with the default content, that is by only creating 1 layer. And the background is set as "as raster layer". The document will have a layer named "Background". All this time, we've been drawing or adding brush strokes to the background layer. So technically, yes, we can draw on the background layer. But this is not recommended, that is if you need more flexibility for later editing. As the name suggests, we should only use the background layer for background color. Alright, so, where should we draw then? For drawing, we should use a transparent layer or layers placed above the background layer. To create a new layer, you can press the plus button below. Now, we have 2 layers. One is called "Background" and another one is called "paint layer 1". Besides pressing the plus button, you can also use shortcut, and that is by pressing the "Insert" key on the keyboard. So now, we have 3 layers total. The active layer is indicated by this blue highlight. We can activate or select a layer by clicking on its name or its thumbnail. If we select the top layer, for example. Then we use the brush tool. Any brush preset will do. I'm using orange color for now. Let's say we make some brush strokes like this. Now, these orange brush strokes are on the layer that is currently active, which is "paint layer 2". If we select the layer below it. And we use a different color, for example, blue. Then draw another brush stroke. As you can see, the blue strokes are behind or below the orange strokes. This is because the blue strokes are on the second layer, or the one named "Paint layer 1". So the conclusion is. The order of layers that you see in the "layers'' docker simulates how papers are stacking in the real world. Meaning, that the one above will cover what is below it. So again, the stacking order of these layers is very important, as this will affect the final appearance of your document. There are several ways to arrange the layer stacking order in Krita. The first method is by clicking and dragging. For example, we can click-drag this layer down. Now the order is reversed. The blue strokes cover the orange strokes. Besides using the click-drag method, you can also press the up and down arrow buttons to move the layer up the stack or down the stack. Now, you need to remember that this background layer is actually not transparent. But it is filled with solid white color. So, if we select this layer. Then press this up arrow button, twice, to move it to the topmost position. Now, it looks as if our document is blank. Again, this is because all the strokes we drew earlier are now under this solid white layer. We can press this down arrow button to return the layer to the lowest level. Next, when you have a lot of layers. It's a good idea to give each layer a unique name, to make them less confusing. To rename a layer, just double-click on it. And then type a new name. Let's say we name this one "blue paint". Another way to rename a layer is by opening the "layer properties" window. For this, you can press the shortcut F3 on the keyboard. Or simply by right-clicking on the layer. Then select "properties". Or, you can also open it by pressing this button. If you do any of these methods, the "layer properties" window will open. In this window, you can rename the layer by typing the new name in this field. Just, for example, let's name this one "orange paint". Then click the "OK" button to confirm. You can see the name of this layer has changed to "orange paint". Before I end this lesson, I recommend you save this file. Because we will be using it again in the next lesson, where we will cover the "background" layer in more detail. 31. Background layer and canvas color: In this lesson, we will cover the "Background" layer and also the canvas background color. We will be reusing the file we saved from the previous lesson. As I mentioned earlier, the "Background" layer is a unique layer. If you use an eraser brush preset, or any brush preset with "eraser" mode turned on. And try to erase the image in the background layer. We can see the white color area turned into a checker pattern. As we discussed before, this checker pattern is just a visual representation of a transparent condition. Our document doesn't actually contain any checker pattern image. Now, if we use an eraser brush on another layer. This will also delete the image on that layer. So, in terms of the effect from erasing using the brush, regular layers and the "Background" layer are the same. What makes the difference is when we press the Delete key. On a regular layer, if we press the Delete key on the keyboard. All images on that layer will be erased. Making the layer fully transparent. But, if we are on the "Background" layer. Pressing the Delete key will instead fill in the entire layer with a solid white color. So this is what makes the "Background" layer unique. At this point, you might be wondering. What if I don't like this behavior? How can I change the background layer to behave like a normal layer? Well, this is actually not a big problem. But nonetheless, it is a question often asked by many Krita users. There are several approaches to this issue. The simplest solution is just to delete the layer, that is, by pressing this trash can button. Then create a new layer, and rename it to "Background". Or any other name you want to use. The second approach is to convert the background layer to a regular layer. But this only works if there are no other layers in the document except the background layer. Just an example. We can create a new document using the default settings for the content. If we click "create". We have a unique background layer as before. Now, in Krita, it is impossible to have a document with no layers at all. So, there must be at least 1 layer inside a document. Due to this, if we press the trash can button to delete the "background" layer. Krita will delete it, but then immediately replace it with a new layer with the same name "background". But, even though the layer's name is "Background", the behavior of this layer is the same as any normal layer. So, if we press Delete, it will delete all the images inside it. And not filling it with a solid white color. Next, you can also use the third approach. But this one is a bit tricky. Because we will need to use another method for displaying the background color. Essentially, instead of using a layer. We are going to display the background color directly on the canvas. To do this, when we first create a new document. In the content section. You need to set the background option to "as canvas color". This white color will later be used for the canvas background color, and not for the color of the background layer. If we click "create", this is the result. At first glance, it looks similar to our previous default settings. But if you notice, this "background" layer is actually transparent. And it behaves like a normal layer when we try to press the Delete key. The solid white color you see here is actually the canvas background color. If you want to set or change the canvas background color, you can open the "image" menu. Then click on the "image background color" option. You can specify the color here. You can also control the "Alpha channel" or the transparency. If we set this to zero, for example. This will make the canvas background completely transparent. If we click OK. You can see that now, the canvas background becomes fully transparent and so we can see the checker pattern again. In this condition, you can use the background color just like any normal layer. You can fill it with any color you want using the Backspace, or Shift + Backspace shortcuts. Just for example. Say you want to fill it with a white color again. You can press D, or press this icon to set the foreground and background colors to their defaults. Then press the Backspace key on the keyboard to fill in the layer with the active background color, which is currently white. 32. Basic layer properties: In this lesson video, we will further discuss the parameters or properties belonging to a layer. For now, let's create a new document using a slightly different content setting. For the number of layers, we set this to 3. As for the background we use the default setting, which is "as raster layer". Alright. If we select a layer. Then press F3 on the keyboard, or click this button to open the "layer properties" window. You can see in the "properties" section there are 4 checkboxes. "Visible", "Locked", "Inherit alpha", and "Alpha locked". Now, what you see here can actually be accessed directly from the "layers" docker. So, this eye icon is the "visible" option. This is "Locked". This is "Inherit alpha". And this one is the "alpha locked". For now, let's just close this window. The function of the "visible" parameter is to show or hide the layer. If we press the "visible" icon on the "background" layer. We can see the checker pattern as this layer is hidden. As for these two layers. Because these 2 layers are still empty or fully transparent. Pressing the "visible" icon on these layers doesn't change anything visually. But if we make a scribble with the brush tool on the layer. Then press the "visible" icon again. We can now see the difference. The point is that, if the icon looks dark, this indicates that the layer is hidden. But, if the eye icon is clearly visible, this indicates that the layer is visible. The next parameter is "locked". You can access it via the icon that looks like a padlock. If we activate this icon. The current layer will be locked from any changes. We cannot use the brush tool or other tools on that layer. We can't even delete it. If you try pressing this trash can icon, nothing will happen. This "locked" feature is very useful if we want to protect the condition of a layer from any accidental changes. Now, what is unique about this "lock" feature is that if we click-drag on it. Instead of changing the stacking order, this process will only create a duplicate of the layer. And the result of the duplication is a layer that is also locked. Therefore, if you ever need to delete a locked layer, you need to first unlock it. Only then, you can delete it by pressing this trash can icon. Next, is the "alpha locked". For the "inherit alpha", we will discuss this feature in the next lesson. Because in order to thoroughly cover the topic we also need to discuss "layer grouping". Alright. So, what is "alpha locked"? Basically, the function of this parameter is to lock the layer also. But, only the "alpha channel" gets locked, while the RGB channels are not. We have discussed in-depth, earlier, what RGB and Alpha channels are. Basically, if we have an image on the layer. And then we enable the "alpha locked" parameter. We can only draw over the pixel areas that already exist. We cannot draw anything on the areas that are still empty. As you can see, I can only add brush strokes on top of previously existing brush strokes. I think you can see the effect better if I hide the "background" layer first. Now, of course, at the current state. If you try to do this on the background layer. Using the "alpha lock" on this layer seems to have no effect. This is because the entire area on the background layer is filled with solid white pixels. Or in other words, each pixel has a maximum alpha value. If you use an eraser brush or eraser mode. And erase some of it. Now part of the layer area has zero alpha value. In this condition, if we try to draw some brush strokes again. Now, you can see the effect of the "alpha locked" parameter. For now, let's turn off this option. Remember this background layer is still unique. So, we can press Delete on the keyboard to fill it with white color. One practical usage of the "alpha locked" feature is when adding shading colors or highlight colors on top of the base color. As an example, we can use a brush called "stamp leaves". Set the foreground color to a leaf green. Then try to make a bush shape using this brush. For your information, currently, I am using only a mouse. That is why the brush strokes are always at maximum strength. After you are satisfied with the shape or silhouette. Next, we want to add a shadow color to this bush shape. For this, we can activate the "alpha locked" parameter. Then choose a darker color than before. You can do this manually, or you can also do this by pressing the letter K on the keyboard. Then draw some strokes on the bottom area of the bush to define the shadow. So again, this is the benefit of the "alpha locked" feature. A s you can see, the shape or the silhouette of the bush does not change. Next, we can select the base color again from the "color history". And press L to shift the color to a lighter version. For now, let's try this brush preset "texture large splat". Then add some brush strokes to the top area of the bush. From this simple example, you can see how useful the "alpha locked" feature is. Before ending this video. There is one more layer parameter that I want to discuss, and that is the layer color. Sometimes, our documents become overly complicated due to the sheer number of layers we are using. In such a case, giving unique colors to layers in the "layers" docker can help us to distinguish one from the others quickly. To add color to a layer, we can right-click on the layer. And choose one of these colors. For example, yellow. Then for this layer, we can choose red. Etc. You can see these colors affect the layers' appearance in the "layers" docker. Apart from the right-click menu, you can also open the "layer properties" window. And then choose the color from here. But of course, the right-click method is much faster to perform as we don't need to open any additional windows. To return the layer to the default color. You can right-click again, or by opening the "layer properties". Then select the color box with the X symbol. The layer's color now returns to normal or to its default. 33. Group layer: In this lesson video, we are going to discuss the "group layer". For practice purposes, I prepared this document off the record. There are 4 layers in total. 3 regular paint layers and 1 background layer. I also drew some strokes with different colors on each of these layers. While for the background layer, I just leave it white. I'm sure, by now, in sha Allah, you already know how to create simple layer composition like this one. So, there is no need to explain the process. Alright. So, what exactly is a "group layer"? Basically, a "group layer" is a type of layer. What makes it unique is that it can't contain image data by itself. It can only function as a container for other layers. Similar to a "folder" inside a computer file system. To create a "group layer", you can use 2 approaches, the manual method or the automatic method. Let's discuss the manual method first. If you pay attention to the plus button below. We've used the button several times before to create new layers. Now, if what you click is not the big button. Rather, the small arrow icon next to it. As you can see, Krita supports a wide variety of layers and masks. So far, we have only used one type of layer, which is called the "paint layer". What we want to cover now is this one, called the "group layer". If we click this. Now we have a new "group layer". You can see the layer symbol is different from the ordinary "paint layer". If the "paint layer" symbol is like a pencil and paper. The "Group layer" symbol is like a folder. Again, you cannot draw anything on a "group layer". To move these three layers into a group layer. You need to first select all of them. You can use the Shift method. That is, by first clicking to select the top one. Hold down Shift, then click on the bottom layer. So now, all 3 of them are selected. Or, you can also use the Ctrl method. To do that, hold down the Ctrl key. And then just click on each of the layers you want to select. Basically, it is similar to how we select files in a file browser program. After all the layers are selected. We can click-drag one of them, and drop them just above the "group layer". Now, these three layers are inside the "group layer". Let me undo this. Besides clicking and dragging. You can also use the arrow keys to move the selected layers, so they enter the group layer. Okay. So these 2 methods are the manual methods. Let me undo this again. Until there is no group layer. The second approach to putting layers inside a group layer is via the automatic method. First, you need to select all the layers you want to be inside the group layer. After that, simply press Ctrl + G. Or you can also right-click on one of the selected layers. Then choose "group". And then choose "quick group". As you can see, a "group layer" is automatically created by Krita. And all of these layers are now its members. Layers that are inside a group will look slightly shifted to the right. And if we click this little arrow button. We can expand and collapse the content of a group layer. In the collapsed or closed state, all layers inside it become hidden in the "layers" docker. Although nothing changes visually on the canvas. Essentially, we can use group layers for managing layer compositions by making them look simpler and less messy. We can open a group layer when we want to edit it. And then close it again when we are done. Next, what if we want to delete a group layer or return all its member layers out of the group. You need to remember carefully that if you select a group layer, and then press this trash icon. The layer group and all its contents or its sub-layers will be deleted by Krita. If you want to delete only the group layer and want to keep all the sub-layers inside it, you can do this in 2 ways. First, you need to remove all the sub-layers manually. You can select them and then click-drag them out. Or by pressing the up or down arrow keys. The second approach is a more automatic method. And that is by pressing the shortcut Ctrl + Alt + G. But first, you need to select the "group layer". Then press Ctrl + Alt + G. Or, if you forget the shortcut, you can also right-click on the group layer. Then choose "group". And then choose this one "Quick ungroup". All the member layers or the sub-layers will be back to the main level. While the group layer will be removed by Krita. In Krita, we can create "nested" group layers. What "nested" means is that a group layer can be inside another group layer and so on, creating a hierarchy. Just like how the folder structure works in our computer file system. Just an example. I can select these 2 layers. Then press Ctrl + G. Then select this layer and then press Ctrl + G again. Now we have 2 "group layers". Next, if we select everything like this with the Shift key method. Or we can also select only the "group layers" using the Ctrl key method. And then we press Ctrl + G again. We now have 3 group layers. This "group layer" is called the "parent group", because it contains other "group layers". And these two "group layers" are called "children" groups because they are nested or inside another group layer. Now, a child group can also be a parent to another child group. For example, if I select this layer, then press Ctrl + G. Now, this layer group is the "child" of this layer group. But it is also the "parent" of this group layer. In a "nested" condition or hierarchy like this. All the group features still work as usual. So, you can open or close each of these "group layers" if you want. And if you need to remove all these group layers and return the paint layers inside them to the main level, since they are nested, you need to ungroup them gradually. So, select this "group layer". And then press Ctrl + Alt + G. And then move on to the next group layer, and so on. One step at a time. 34. Inherit alpha: In this lesson video, we will discuss "inherit alpha". As before, for this lesson, I'll start with a new document that has a total of 4 layers. 3 of them are paint layers and 1 "background" layer. In the earlier lesson, we covered 3 layer-properties, "visible", "locked", and "alpha locked". But we haven't discussed the "inherit alpha" property. In general, the "inherit alpha" feature is similar to the "alpha locked" feature. That is, it will also lock the condition of the alpha channel or the transparency of a layer. The difference is that the "alpha locked" uses the alpha information contained in the layer itself. While the "Inherit alpha" uses the alpha condition from all visible layers below it. To make things more clear, let's hide the "background" layer first. And select this middle layer. Activate the rectangle tool. Turn off the "outline" option. And for the "fill" option, just use the "foreground" color. Let's pick a color, for example, a green color. Then click-drag to make a rectangle on the canvas. Then let's select the layer above it. Choose a different color so we can tell the difference. A blue color will do. Click-drag to create a rectangle that slightly overlaps the previous one, on the layer below. Alright. Now, let's activate the top layer. Then enable the "inherit alpha" option. And we use the brush tool. Choose a different color, for example, orange. If we draw some brush strokes on this layer. This is what happened. The brush strokes we created can only be visible if there is a non-transparent area on the layers below this layer. Please keep in mind that the "inherit alpha" feature doesn't really limit how we draw the brush strokes. So this is different from the "alpha locked" feature. Notice if I turn off the "inherit alpha" icon. We can see that all the brush strokes we just drew are still there. They were previously just hidden. Basically, we can turn this feature on or off without worrying about damaging the image in the current layer. This allows us to create non-destructive image compositions. And, because "inherit alpha" depends on all visible layers underneath it. If we hide this layer, for example. Or we hide this one, instead. Or perhaps, we hide both of these layers. All these conditions will automatically affect the appearance of the layer above that has "inherit alpha" turned on. And, because this background layer has all the pixels in a fully opaque condition. If we make this layer visible. Then all the brush strokes on the top layer will become visible, as if the "inherit alpha" feature becomes useless. Again, this is due to the background layer being completely solid or opaque. At this point, you may be wondering. What if we want the brush strokes on this layer to be affected only by the 2 layers below it, but we still want to see the background layer? Well, this is where we need the "group layer". One thing you need to keep in mind is that in Krita, the composition effect inside a group layer is independent of the layers outside it. Because of this behavior, we can isolate the effect of "inherit alpha" when all the related layers are inside a group. Let me just show you. Currently, the "inherit alpha" effect on this top layer considers or processes all the layers below down to the bottom layer which is the background layer. If we select these 3 layers. Then press Ctrl + G to wrap them inside a new "group layer". Here is the result. The brush strokes in this layer are now only constrained by these 2 layers. It is no longer affected by the background layer, because the background layer is outside the group or on a different level. Alright. The use of "group layers" is very important to the "inherit alpha" feature, as almost every time we use "inherit alpha" we will need a "group layer". In the next lesson, we will practice this technique by creating a simple digital painting. 35. Image composition practice: In this video, we will try to create a simple digital painting using paint layers, group layer, and the "inherit alpha" feature. We are also going to try out some brush presets that can generate texture. We will start by creating the sky, then the soil, and the grass. Next, we will draw a rock in the middle. After that, we will add shading and highlights to the rock. Let's start with just 1 background layer. We will gradually add more layers as we progress. First, make sure this background layer is unlocked. We want to add a blue-sky color to this background layer. Once you have selected the color, press Shift + Backspace. Then create a new paint layer by pressing the "Insert" key on the keyboard. Choose a darker blue color, for example, this color. Then, for the brush preset. We can look for a texture-type brush. For example this "texture big" preset. Then, let's create circular brush strokes, like this. Next, offset the color to a lighter version by pressing L. And then draw some brush strokes in the center area of the previous strokes. Next, we want to create the ground or the soil. For this, we can use a brush preset that looks like ground. For example, this one, called the "stamp floor". Next, we can choose a brown color. For the opacity, we can set this at around 50%. Then draw some brush strokes. For far-away areas, you don't want to press the pen too hard. But the closer the area to our view, the harder we can press the pen. Next, we want to create some grasses. For this, we can look for a brush preset that looks like grass. For example, this one, called the "stamp grass patch". And we can choose green for the color. For now, choose a light green color. And then make some brush strokes, something like this. If you think the color looks too uniform. You can add color variations. You can use a darker color, or add a lighter version, or a more saturated color, etc. But try not to use one that is too dark. After you are done, now you can use a fairly dark green color. For the opacity, let's lower it down to around 70%. We'll draw the rock later, in the center. We will have a light source at the top left area. The point is that the shadow will fall towards the bottom right. This is why we need a dark green color. We need it for the shadow area. Imagine the shadow of the rock falling on to the grass. We can use an even darker color to add some color variations. To create the rock, press Insert to create a new paint layer. Then use the "polygonal selection tool". And make the shape of the rock according to your liking. I'm just trying to make a random shape. For the bottom area, we want it to be a bit circular. Alright. Now, we can choose a gray color. But make it a bit blue, so it reflects the sky color around it. Press Shift + Backspace to fill in the selection area. Then press Ctrl + Shift + A to clear the selection. If you are still not satisfied with the shape, you can sculpt it further. You can make a selection again on the area you want to remove. Then press Delete. You can also do the same if you want to add more shapes. Just create a selection and then press Shift + Backspace. After you are happy with the shape, next, we want to make the bottom area of the rock look like it is really sitting between the grasses. For this, we can press B to activate the brush tool again. Currently, the grass brush preset is still active. For the opacity, let's set it to 100%. And, this is important, activate the eraser mode by pressing this icon, or by pressing the letter E on the keyboard. For now, I need really strong brush strokes. So I'm swapping the drawing pen with the mouse. You can just use a pen and press very hard. Or by first disabling the pressure sensor in the opacity parameter. But sometimes, swapping the pen for the mouse can be done much faster. After you are done, you can go back to using the drawing pen. Next, we want to add shading to this rock. Now, we don't want to draw it directly on this rock layer. But if you want to do that, you can just enable the "alpha locked" option, as we discussed earlier. For now, we want to separate the shading to be in a different layer. This is so later if we need to revise it, we can do that a lot easier. So, press "Insert" to create a new paint layer. Then, don't forget to enable the "inherit alpha" option. Now, to make the "inherit alpha" work based on the rock layer below it, and not on the other layers. We need to select both layers. Then press Ctrl + G to group them. Then, make sure the layer is the active layer. For the brush preset, we can use the "texture big" preset again. However, it seems that this is too big when compared to the size of the rock. So, let's just set the brush size to around 200 pixels. Next, we want to choose a darker color than the current color. For this, we can press K on the keyboard. Then draw the brush strokes. You can press hard on the pen on the edge area. But reduce the pressure a little on the center area. Then, to make the edge area even darker. We can press K again. And draw more brush strokes at the right and bottom border area. Alright. Next, we want to add a "highlight" color to the top left area of the rock. For now, I want to experiment with other brush presets. Perhaps we can try this one. Then for the color, we can hold Ctrl and click on this base color to pick or sample the color. Then press L to shift the color to a lighter version. And just draw the brush strokes on the top and left areas of the rock. Next, we can press L again. And add a few more strokes on these borders. After you are done, let's zoom in a bit. One of the advantages of using layers as well as the "inherit alpha" feature is that it is easier to revise the image. For example, we want to edit the shape of the rock again. We can select the rock base color layer. Then, we can use a solid brush preset. For example this one. Activate the "eraser mode". And draw some strokes to erase the area that we want to remove. We can also add more shape to the rock by disabling the eraser mode if you want to. From this simple example, you can see how layers in general and specifically "group layer" and the "inherit alpha" feature can help us to create non-destructive image compositions. Feel free to experiment further with these techniques. For example, making a different rock shape, or other type of object, or even a whole different image. 36. Move tool: In this lesson video, we are going to cover the "Move tool". As the name implies, we can use this tool to move layers or images that are inside selection regions. For practice material, I have created this document off the record. Here, you can see 1 "background" layer and 5 paint layers. 3 of them are inside a group layer. For now, let's hide the group layer first. Alright. To access the "move tool", you can press this icon, or you can also use the letter T on the keyboard for the shortcut. While the tool is active, you can select a layer and then click-drag on the canvas to move it. So, first, select the layer. Then click-drag on the canvas to change its position. If you want to move multiple layers at once, you can do that also. Just select the layers. Then click-drag on the Canvas. So that is the basic technique of using the "move tool". Now, imagine if you have tens or even hundreds of layers that you need to move around. Of course, going back and forth between "layers docker" and the canvas would be very time-consuming. In this scenario, you might want to use the second mode of the "move tool" called "move layer with content". When the move tool is in this mode, every time we click-drag on the canvas, Krita will detect the pixel under the mouse cursor, and automatically move the layer containing that pixel. So, we don't need to select the layer first in the "layers docker". Honestly, I don't understand why this mode is named like this in Krita. In Photoshop, this feature is called "auto select". And in my opinion, that name is more suitable and better represents its function. But that's how it is in the version of Krita that I'm using. Maybe this will change in the future or in the version you are using. The next mode is "move the whole group". This mode should only be used on a layer that is inside a group. You don't want to use this on layers that are in the root level or outside of any group. Why? We will discuss the reasons later. For now, let's hide these 2 layers. And unhide this group layer. While using the "move the whole group" mode. If we select a layer that is a member of a group. And try to move it. All layers within that group will move along also. Let's see the difference again. If I change the mode back to "move current layer". Which is the default. In this mode, each group member will move independently. In this mode, you can still move all layers inside a group. You can do so by first selecting the group layer. Only then click-drag on the canvas to move the group and its content. While with this "move the whole group" mode. You don't need to select the group layer. You can just select and move any layer, as long it is a member of a group, the whole group will move also. Now, you need to be careful with this mode. Because, if you try to move a layer outside the group or in the root level. For example, this "circle" layer or "rectangle" layer. And click-drag to move it. Krita will move all the layers in the document. Why is this happening? This happens because all of these layers in the "layers docker" are considered to be part of the main group layer that is invisible. So, again, even though there is no visible group layer, this "layers docker" itself is considered to be a group layer. And all these layers are its members. Due to this, I tend to avoid using this mode. I don't want to accidentally move any layer that I don't need. I prefer to just use the default mode. And if I ever need to move all layers within a certain group, just select the group layer. Only then perform click-drag to move it. Besides moving a whole layer, you can also use the "move tool" to move a portion of the image within a layer. For this, you need to use selection. For example, say you select this orange square layer. And create a selection with the "rectangular selection tool". Then press T to activate the "move tool". Now, this is important. Make sure the "move" tool is in the default mode, which is "move current layer". Because, in the version of Krita that I'm using, there's a bug. That is if I use the second or the third mode. Sometimes the selection area cannot be moved. So, just to be safe, I'm using the default mode. After that just click-drag on the canvas. As you can see, only the pixels that are inside the selection move. The pixels outside the selection area, or even those on other layers, do not move. After you are done, you can press Ctrl + Shift + A to clear the selection. So, to recap. If there is no active selection, the "Move tool" will move the whole layer. But if there is an active selection, the "move tool" will only move the pixels inside the selection region that are on the active layer. In addition to the click-drag method, you can also use the "move" tool by pressing the arrow keys on the keyboard. For example, say I select this circle layer. Then press the arrow keys on the keyboard. The layer will move according to the arrow keys that we press. Now, to set how far the layer jumps when we press the arrow keys, we can set the value in this field. By default, this value is in millimeters. So it is tied to the "pixels per inch" value of the document. I prefer to use pixels for the unit. For example, let's set this to 20 pixels. If we select this blue layer, for example. Then press the left or right arrow. We can see that the jumping distance is further than before. Notice also, this 10x "multiplier" value. This is useful to multiply the jumping distance, even more, that is when the Shift key is pressed. So, if we hold down the Shift key, then press the right or left arrow keys. It will jump at a greater distance. To be exact, 10 times 20 pixels, equals 200 pixels. The last feature I want to discuss is using the Shift key while performing a move with click-dragging. If you select a layer, for example, this "splat red" layer. And click-drag to move the layer. While still holding the mouse button down, if we also press and hold the Shift key, the movement will be constrained to vertical or horizontal directions. But, you need to remember that you need to hold down the Shift key, while click-dragging, not before. Because, if you hold down the Shift key first, and then try to click-drag, you end up activating the "move the whole group" mode, even though the active mode is "move current layer". Again, this is something you need to pay attention to when using the Shift key with the Move tool. 37. Opacity and Blending Modes: In this lesson video, we will discuss more properties of layers. First, is the "opacity" and then the “blending modes”. We can access these two properties from the "layers docker". This is the "layer opacity", and this drop-down list that says "normal" is what we called the "blending mode". You can also access both from the "layer properties'' window. For this lesson, you can download the document that I have prepared. Inside the document, you can find 3 layers. One layer contains a solid gray color named "BG''. The layer in the middle contains an image of a star and some color boxes. And in the top layer, there are also boxes but with greyscale colors, from black to white. Let's discuss "opacity" first. Until this lesson, in sha Allah, you already know what "opacity" is. But what we discussed before is mostly "brush opacity". What we are discussing now is "layer opacity". Essentially, layer’s opacity controls how opaque or transparent a layer is. For example, if we select this layer. And then slide the "opacity" value to the left. The layer will become more transparent. If we slide the value to the right, it will become more opaque. Please keep in mind that the "opacity" slider and also the "blending modes" drop-down list are both contextual. It means, they display the values of the currently active layer. If for this layer, we set the opacity to 50%. Then we select the layer in the middle. The opacity value will return to 100%. This is because, now, the "opacity" slider displays the value of the middle layer, not the top layer. And if we select the top layer again. The opacity value will return to 50%. For now, let's return this opacity value to 100%. Next, let's discuss the "blending mode". So, what is "blending mode"? Basically, "Blending mode" is a mathematical algorithm that controls how the colors in a certain layer mix with other colors from the layers below it. By default, the layer's "blending mode" is set to "Normal". If we click on the "blending modes" drop-down list, you can see that Krita supports a wide variety of "blending modes". Of all the graphics software I've used, Krita is the one that provides the most types of "blending modes". Before we try out any type of "blending modes", it's a good idea to first discuss how this drop-down list works. What we see here is actually part of the "favorites" category. We can open and close this category by pressing the small caret icon. Now, this "favorites" category is unique, because, it only displays or contains the types of "blending modes" from other categories. You can see that in the other categories, each item has a checkbox on its left side. The function of these checkboxes is to display those items in the "favorites" category. Just for example, if we open the "mix" category. Then we activate the checkbox item "Allanon". Now, in the "favorites" category, we will also see a "blending mode" called "Allanon". If we go back to the "mix" category. And turn off the "Allanon" checkbox again. Then that blending mode is no longer listed in the "favorites" category. Alright. Of the many "blending modes" provided by Krita, we are going to only discuss 6 of them. They are the most frequently and commonly used by artists around the world. These blending modes are "normal", "multiply", "screen", "overlay", "color dodge", and "lighten". By discussing these six blending modes, I hope you will have enough insight and foundation to try and experiment with other blending modes on your own. Now, make sure this top layer has its "blending mode" set to "normal". If we use the "move tool", and move these gray boxes over the star image or over the color boxes. You will see that the greyscale boxes will just cover anything below it. This is the behavior of the "normal" blending mode, which is when the "opacity" value is 100%. Now, if we change the "blending mode" of this layer to "multiply". When we move the layer over this colorful star or boxes. Instead of just covering the image, it darkens it. So now we know that the "multiply blending mode" darkens the image underneath. What is unique about this blending mode is that the white color will appear completely transparent. While the black color will look completely solid or opaque. Usually, we use the "multiply" blending mode to add shadow colors to a drawing. Now, let's try changing the "blending mode" to "screen". Basically, "screen" is the opposite of "multiply". It will make the color underneath look brighter. And "screen" also makes the black color completely transparent. While the white color becomes completely opaque. Usually, we use "screen" to add lighter colors or "highlight" area to a drawing. Next up is the "overlay” blending mode. Now, this "overlay" mode is unique. Because it combines the effects of both "multiply" and "screen". With "overlay", the dark colors will have a "multiply" effect, which makes the colors below it darker. While the bright colors will have a "screen" effect, which makes the colors below it brighter. In the "overlay" mode, a perfect 50% gray color will appear completely transparent. Another unique fact about the "overlay" blending mode is when we have pure RGB colors underneath. What I mean is a pure red, or a pure blue, or a pure green. In this condition, any color you have in the current layer will look completely transparent. Usually, I use the "overlay blending mode" for adding textures and also for a simple color correction. Next are the "lighten" and "color dodge". These two "blending modes" are still one family with the "screen" blending mode. They will make the colors underneath look brighter. But each has slightly different characteristics. I find "lighten" suitable for adding fog effects or mist or anything related to particles in the air. And, for the "color dodge", because it is stronger than the "screen". I use it to add visual light effects, such as lasers, lightning, lens flares, and so on. So, these are the 6 types of blending modes that I usually use for digital painting or illustration. There are likely other blending modes that you might like or match your illustration style. So feel free to experiment with the other blending modes. Before I end this lesson, I want to discuss the brush "blending modes". Besides being available on layers, "blending modes" are also available on brushes. The default brush "blending mode" is "normal". Of course, to be able to access it, you need to activate the brush tool or other tools based on the brush engine. You can use other "blending modes" if you want. But, you need to be careful with this feature because it is destructive. To make things clear, let me just give you an example. Suppose we want to create brush strokes over this star image. When using the brush blending mode technique, you must use the same layer as the target. So, make sure the layer where the star image exists is active. We can hide the other layers so we can see the effect more clearly. For color, I'm using a light blue color. Set the brush opacity to fully 100%. And for now, set the "blending mode" to "normal". For the brush size, let's make this around 200 pixels. If we create a brush stroke here. You can see the stroke will cover the previously existing image. So, this is the default condition. Now, if I set this to "multiply", for example. And make another stroke. As you can see, now the stroke no longer covers the previous image. It just makes the previous color darker. Keep in mind that this technique is destructive. Because the color of the pixels in that layer will change. Let me undo this first. The technique I prefer is to create a new layer, then set the "blending mode" to "multiply". As for the brush, just use the default "blending mode" which is "normal". If we make brush strokes in this condition. You can see that the final result is visually identical to before. The difference is that this technique is non-destructive. Because of the base color and the shadow color, each exists on its own layer. This setup will be more convenient if later you need to revise the drawing. 38. Drawing a sketch: Starting from this video, until the next few videos. We will cover the process of making this ax weapon illustration from start to finish. As you can see, the illustration uses a style similar to common American or European comics. I understand that style is a subjective matter. So you may not prefer this kind of drawing style. But, even if you don't like this style, I suggest you follow all the lessons from start to finish. Because, besides for practicing the tools and features we discussed earlier. We will also be going to cover several new tools and features in Krita that we haven't discussed before. These features might be useful for your own workflow. We will start by drawing a pencil sketch. But before that, just to remind you again, the document that I use is at a full HD size. You can use a larger image size if you want to. Just make sure that later when following the lessons, you may also need to increase the pixel settings, such as the brush size. Alright. Currently, I only have one background layer. Generally, if we use white as the background color, we will tend to pick colors that are too bright for the illustration. So, just to be safe, we can choose a more neutral color, or at least a bit darker than white. Let's use a light gray color for now. Then press Shift + Backspace to fill the background layer with that color. Next, for the sketch, it is better to use a separate layer. So, create a new layer. And rename it to "Sketch". Previously, we've tagged some brush presets, and also enabled the tag in the pop-up palette. Well, now is the time we use them. Select this "pencil 4 soft" brush preset, the one whose thumbnail looks like a mechanical pencil. Then, for the color of the sketch. We should avoid black. Why? Because later we will create the outline using black color. It will be difficult to tell the difference if the sketch lines are also in black. Feel free to use any color you like, as long as it is not black. For example, I'm using this brown color. Next, we can start drawing the ax. You may draw different ax designs according to your liking or your own imagination. But, to make sure we are practicing the same lessons, try to at least make the ax have 4 different elements. It should have a metal element, a wooden element, then a cloth or fabric element, and finally a gemstone or a crystal-like element. To save time, I'm speeding up the video a bit. For your information, originally, the entire sketching process took less than 6 minutes. After the basic shape of the head and handle is complete. We can zoom in and start adding details. I want to add some kind of ties or ropes, as reinforcement so that the metal head is not easily detached. Then, I want to tidy up and determine which parts of the fabric are on top and which are under. If you want to erase, you can press E for the eraser mode. I think it would be better if this area is more curved inward. And after you are done erasing, don't forget to press E again to return the brush tool to the drawing mode. Now, let's focus on adding details to the metal head part. This is the sharp part of the ax head. Then in the center, I want to add some kind of gemstone and then add some carvings around it. Usually, in RPG games, we can add elemental effects such as fire, or ice, or lightning, etc, to a weapon by inserting certain gemstones. Of course, that does not exist in the real world. Even if there is a precious stone on the weapon, its function is purely for decoration. The main goal of making the ax like this is so we can learn to draw and color different materials. For this illustration, I did not use any references. Everything just comes from imagination. However, if you are working on real projects, you should always do research first and use reference images. We will cover how to use a reference image in a later lesson. After you are done, don't forget to save the file. We will continue the illustration process in the next video. 39. Brush smoothing: In this lesson video, we will cover brush smoothing methods. Sometimes we are required to draw a smooth line or curve. For example, when creating "line arts" or "outlines". Or what in the comic world is usually known as the "inking" process. For this purpose, Krita provides a lot of tools and features. There are at least 6 methods that we can use. We can use various "brush smoothing" modes such as "basic", "weighted", and "stabilizer". Then you can also use a special tool called the "dynamic brush tool", then you can use the "assistant tool", and finally use "vector tools". Because there is a lot to cover, in this video we will only focus on the "brush smoothing" modes and then the "dynamic brush tool". If you activate the "freehand brush" tool or just the "brush" tool for short. In the "tool options" docker, you will see the "brush smoothing" option. As I explained in the earlier lessons. You should always turn this feature off, unless you are making "line artworks" or in the process of "inking". The most basic type of "brush smoothing" is the "basic" mode. This mode does not have any parameters. Now, this mode is actually designed for budget drawing tablets that don't have any brush smoothing feature built into the hardware. For example, the cheaper versions of the Wacom drawing tablets that were released before 2004. Or perhaps other products from other brands that are categorized as budget drawing tablets. When I record this video, which is early 2022. Almost all types of drawing tablets on the market already have a smoothing feature. So, most likely, if your drawing tablet is new, let alone in the middle to premium categories. You don't need to use this feature. You can find out by trying the feature directly. If you don't feel any difference between turning the brush smoothing to "none" and to "basic" mode. This means, your drawing tablet already has a basic brush smoothing feature. The second mode is "weighted". This mode provides a stronger smoothing effect when compared to the "basic" mode. There are many parameters that you can set here. The first is "distance". This parameter sets how far the brush tip is from the actual mouse cursor position. So basically, that is how most brush smoothing techniques work. That is, by making the brush stroke move a little late compared to the mouse cursor. This can compensate for or reduce the vibration of our hands. Now, you need to know that this value is not in pixels. But it is in the number of "events" in Krita programming terms. Honestly, I'm not an expert in Krita's software development. But the point is if we set this at a higher value. Then the distance between the cursor and the brush stroke will be larger, or further apart. And this condition results in smoother strokes. If we set it to a smaller value. Then the brush stroke will be closer to the cursor. Which causes the resulting stroke to be less smooth than before. Next, this "stroke ending" parameter determines how aggressively Krita draws a line to the cursor's last location. It is quite difficult to see the effect. As we need to make the brush stroke very late or far behind the cursor. But, let me try to explain the basic concept first. If we drag a brush stroke quickly, from this point to this point, for example. When the brush stroke just reaches this point, while the cursor has already reached this point. And then we release the mouse or lift the pen up. In this condition, there is a gap between the brush position and the last cursor location. If this value is low, or even zero. Then Krita will just stop the brush stroke at this point. But if the value is higher, the further Krita will draw the brush stroke to the last location of the cursor. Again, this happens so fast that it's a bit hard to tell the difference. This is when I use a low value. And this is if I use a high value. Usually, I set this to 0.5 for all situations. Next up is the “smooth pressure” option. Personally, I always have this option enabled. Essentially, this option will smooth out the changes in the pen pressure automatically. With this, the difference in brush size and or opacity along the stroke will be more gradual and look natural. And, the last option is the "scalable distance". This option corresponds to the "distance" value listed above. The theory is that if this option is active, then the distance value will take into account the zoom level condition of our canvas. So if we zoom out, the distance value will automatically be slightly enlarged. And if we zoom in, the distance value will be reduced. I usually just leave this option turned on. The next mode is "stabilizer". This mode is slightly different from the "weighted" mode, because we can adjust the brush stroke to end up at the cursor position. This mode has 5 parameters. For now, let's first turn off the "delay" option so we can see the difference. The first parameter is the "sample count". This parameter works similarly to the "distance" parameter in the previous "weighted" mode. Basically, if the value is low. Krita will draw brush strokes almost sticking to the cursor. But if this value is high, the brush strokes will lag more or far more behind. But no matter how far the stroke lags behind. If we turn off the "delay" option, the brush strokes will eventually follow and end in the cursor location. But if this "delay" option is active, there will always be a radius or a gap between the cursor and the brush stroke. We can set the distance or the radius in this field. If we set this to smaller values, then the circle radius will be smaller also. Vice versa, if we set it to larger values. The radius becomes larger, or in other words, the distance between the cursor and the brush tip becomes further. Let's return the value to 50 pixels. If you pay attention. When this "delay" option is off. We can turn on or off this "finish line" checkbox. This is basically similar to the "Stroke ending" feature found in "weighted" mode. The difference is, here, we can only set it "on" or "off". Just an example. If this option is "on". Then I draw a line quickly, and let go. You can see even though I lift the pen at this location and at that moment the brush tip position is still here. Krita will immediately create a straight line from this point to the last location of the cursor. Meanwhile, if we turn this "off". And quickly draw a brush stroke, then release. Krita will not attempt to continue drawing the brush stroke until the last cursor location. So that's the difference. Then, for this option. I already explained this earlier when discussing the "weighted" mode. Because they are the same, I don't need to explain it again. In addition to the above methods, Krita also provides a special tool called the "dynamic brush tool" for drawing smooth line artworks. You can access it by pressing this icon. This tool is similar to the "freehand brush tool". The only difference is in the "brush smoothing" technique. Honestly, I don't understand why this is a separate tool. Why not just combine it together with the "freehand brush" tool. And make this "dynamic brush smoothing" technique one of the brush smoothing modes. But, that's how it is in the version of Krita I'm currently using. In this version, there are even parameters that still cannot be used. Apparently, this parameter is used for simulating the slope of the canvas. For now, let's just focus on these 2 active parameters. Basically, this tool works using physical simulation. Imagine that you are pulling a heavy pendulum with a piece of string or an elastic rubber. The "mass" parameter is used to determine the weight of the pendulum that we are pulling. The heavier it is, the slower it will move. Krita suggests a small value for this "mass" parameter, which is 0.02. Then this "drag" value determines how elastic the string or the rubber is. If the value is small, the pendulum will move to the cursor with extreme speed. Meanwhile, if the value is large. For example, 0.92, which is the value suggested by Krita. If we move the cursor quickly, the pendulum may get far behind as the string is now more elastic. Alright. Now, of all the methods for brush smoothing. Personally, I prefer the smoothing characteristics of the "weighted" mode. So I rarely use the "stabilizer" mode or the "dynamic brush" tool. But, again, this is just a personal preference. It's better that you try them yourself and see which one is more suitable for you. 40. Assistant tool basics: In this lesson video, we will discuss the "assistant tool". Previously, we covered several techniques for brush smoothing in Krita. Although the goal is similar, the "assistant tool" is a bit different. Because, it is not a brush tool, but a separate tool. We can think of the "assistant tool" as different types of rulers we can find in the real world. To use the "assistant tool", you need to press this icon that looks like a sniper target. After that, you need to select the type of the assistant you want to create from this drop-down list in the "tool options" docker. You can see that Krita provides various types of "assistants". Since they work similarly, we will discuss just some of them. Which are the ones you probably use most frequently. At least by knowing how to use them, you have enough knowledge to try the other types yourself. Let's try the "ruler" type first. As the name suggests, we use this type to make straight lines. To place it on the canvas. Just click to define the first point, and click again to specify the second point. If you repeat the process, you will create another "ruler assistant". So, basically, you can have more than one "assistant" at a time. Each of these "assistants" has a control box. You can use this arrow icon to move the "assistant" to a different location. Then you can press this eye icon to hide or unhide the "assistant". And finally, you can press this icon to delete it. Let me undo this. If you have too many "assistants". You can delete all of them at once by pressing this trash can icon. For now, we still need them, so let me undo this again. Next, we will see how to make use of the "assistant" objects. The "Assistant" tool is only useful for creating, editing, and deleting "assistant" objects. To be able to use the "assistants" in the drawing process, you need to use the brush tool. If you notice in "tool options" docker, there is an option to snap to "assistants". If this option is "off", then the brush strokes will ignore "assistant" objects on the canvas. But if this option is active, when drawing on the canvas, we can see that the brush stroke will snap to the closest "assistant" object. You can control how strong the "assistants" pull the brush tip using this "magnetism" parameter. At the maximum value, the brush will snap exactly at the "assistant" objects. But if we make this in the middle value, say around 500, for example. If we move the cursor here. Then click-drag. You can see the brush stroke is not exactly on the "assistant" line and neither is on the cursor. But in the middle between the two. For now, I'm setting this at the maximum value of 1000. The last option is "snap single". When this is active, we can only snap to one "assistant" object in a single brush stroke. But if we turn this option off. In a single brush stroke, we can snap to more than one "assistant" object. It depends on which one is closest to the cursor. We can create unique shapes with this feature. Sometimes when drawing with the "assistants". We want to hide the "assistants" so we can preview the drawing clearly. But we don't want to delete them. For this, you can open the "view" menu. And click on this option "show painting assistants". Please keep in mind that even if the "assistants" are hidden, they still work and affect the brush strokes. So those are the basic techniques in creating and using the "assistants". Next, let's discuss how we can set up the "assistant" further. For now, I press the Delete key to clear all the strokes on the canvas. Then turn on the "snap single" option. We can show all "assistant" objects again by pressing the same menu item. And let's reactivate the "assistant" tool. At this point, you may be wondering. Does this eye icon work the same as the show hide "assistant" feature in the menu? The answer is, it is different. If we hide an assistant using the "assistant" tool. When we use the brush tool. That "assistant" object will be ignored by the brush strokes, as if it does not exist. Though visually it is still visible. So, this behavior is the opposite of hiding the "assistants" via the menu, which will make them invisible but still working. So that's the difference. Next, when the "assistant tool" is active, you can see these black points. The function of these points is to further adjust the shape of the "assistant". In this process, you need to be careful. Because if you click-drag on an empty area, you will be creating a new "assistant" instead. And all of these concepts we just discussed apply to all types of "assistants", not only for the "ruler" type. Next, let's try another type of "assistant", for example, the "infinite ruler". At first glance, this "assistant" is similar to the regular "ruler" assistant. We can also move the black points to further tweak the shape. The difference is that, when using the brush tool. The "infinite ruler" type, allows the line to be drawn farther from the location of the black points. Hence the name is "infinite". Now, you may be curious about this "limit assistant to area" checkbox. This checkbox is useful for creating an additional window, to limit the area that will be affected by the "assistant". You should note that not all "assistants" support this feature. An example of the "assistant" type that supports this feature is the "parallel ruler". Let's first see this type without the "limit assistant" feature. At a glance, the way we create and edit this "assistant" is similar to the "ruler" and the "infinite ruler" types. The difference is that if this "assistant" object is on the canvas, it will override the effects of other "assistants". Each time we create a brush stroke on the canvas. The resulting lines will be straight or parallel to this "assistant". Making the other "assistants" seem inactive or do not exist. Now, if we return to the "assistant tool". And remove this "parallel ruler". And also these two. We want to recreate it, but now we enable the "limit assistant to area" option. With this option active. After we click and then click again to form the line. We have to click for the third time, and then click again the fourth time, to define the window area that will limit the assistant's effect. Now, if we try to draw with the brush tool. This "parallel ruler" will only affect brush strokes when they are inside this window or rectangle shape. This feature can be useful for making comics, for example. Where you want to limit the brush strokes to a certain box. 41. Advanced assistant tool: In this lesson video, we will continue discussing the "assistant" tool. We are going to cover the "perspective" types, "circle" types, and then "spline" type. We are also going to cover how to set the color and save the "assistants" to an external file. Now, let's discuss how to create perspective effects. In Krita, there are 3 types of "assistants" that we can use to create perspective effects. The first is "2 point perspective", "perspective", and "vanishing point". We will focus on the "2 point perspective", as this is the most complex. But before that, I will briefly explain the "perspective" and "vanishing point" types. We use this type to create a vanishing point. This type also supports the "limit assistant to area" feature. We already discussed this feature in the previous video. For now, let's just turn it off. If we click on the canvas, we now have a vanishing point. With this, the next time you draw some brush strokes, they will snap to these lines. So that is basically the "vanishing point" type. Let me delete it first. Next up is "perspective". To create this "assistant" type, you need to define 4 points that will make up the perspective plane. So this is the "perspective" type. Now, let's focus on the most complex one, called the "2 point perspective". This assistant type supports the "limit area" feature. But we're not going to use it for now. To create the assistant, you need to click 3 times on the canvas. The first 2 points are used to determine the vanishing points or the horizon line, and the last 1 point is to determine the center line. For example, we click here once. This will be the first vanishing point. Then, for the second point, if you want the horizon line to be perfectly straight. You can hold down the Shift key, then click again to create the second point. Next, we determine where the center line is. And then click again. When you are done, you can still adjust the shape by moving the black points of this assistant. Now, in this condition, you may be tempted to drag this point. Remember, this is not a black point. So if you try to click-drag it, you will instead create a new "assistant". Let me delete this one first. If you use the brush tool. With this assistant, you can easily create straight vertical lines. You can also easily draw lines that lead to the first vanishing point, or lines that lead to the second vanishing point. Next, we will look at the "assistant" types that can help us draw circular shapes. For this, you can use either the "ellipse" type or the "concentric ellipse" type. The simplest one is the "Ellipse" type. Basically, it can help us to draw a single ellipse or a single circle. To create it, you need to click 3 times on the canvas. The first and second clicks are to define the base diameter. And the third click is for defining the second diameter. Now, if you need to create a perfect circle. When you specify the third point, you can hold down the Shift key. After you are done. You can try drawing with the brush tool. As you see, it is a lot easier to draw a circle or an ellipse with this "assistant". Alright. Let me delete this "assistant". Next, if what you need to draw are multiple circles centered on a certain point, then you should use the next type called the "concentric ellipse". To create this assistant, the method is basically the same as how we create the "ellipse" type. You may also hold Shift while specifying the third point if you want a perfect circle shape. The difference between this and the previous "ellipse" type is when we use the brush tool. We can draw multiple circles all located in the same center point of the "assistant". You can draw a full circle or ellipse, as long as you create it in one brush stroke. The last type of "assistant" we want to cover is the "spline" type. This is probably the type that I often rely on compared to other "assistants". Essentially, this "assistant" is useful for drawing curves. To create it, you need to define 4 points. The first 2 points are used to specify the start and the end of the curve line. While the third and fourth points are used to control the curvature, or the shape of the curve. The way these control points work is basically the same as how the Bezier handles work in vector graphics. I know that we haven't discussed vectors. But you can see for yourself that using this "assistant" is not that hard. And using this "spline" type can be a way for you to know and practice vector editing. Now, you may notice that when using a "spline assistant", or other "assistants" in general. Sometimes the black points are blocked by the control box. So it is difficult to access them. If this happens, don't panic. These black control boxes are zoom-independent. Meaning, that if we zoom in or zoom out, their size will remain the same compared to the other UI elements in Krita. With this, we can easily access the black points that were previously blocked. After you are done. We can use the brush tool to draw a curved line on the canvas. If you notice, the default color of the "assistants" is a light gray. This can be a problem if we have a light gray color also for the background. Because of this, Krita provides a way to change the color of the "assistants". You can choose the color here. Let's say, we choose this blue color. Then you can also adjust the opacity level with this slider. The last thing I want to cover is saving the "assistants" data into an external file. You need to know that the "assistants" are not bound to a specific layer. You can be on any layer, or show or hide layers. All of that does not affect the condition of the "assistants". In essence, you cannot use layers to manage "assistants". While using the show-hide command from the "view" menu will affect all "assistants" without exception. If you work with many different sets of "assistants". And want to have control to turn it on and off frequently. You can make use of external files. That is by pressing this button. Then you need to provide a name for the file. For example, I just call this "test". Then click "save". Now, the current state of the "assistants" has been saved to a file. So it's safe if you want to delete the "assistants" from the canvas. You can create another set of "assistants" if you want. And then save them again into a different file. And so on. If you ever need to load a certain assistant's layout from a file, just press this button to import it. Select the file, then click "open". You can see the assistants that we saved earlier are now back in the canvas. With this technique, you can also share your "assistants" with other people. 42. Drawing the outline: In this lesson video, we will continue our project, creating an ax weapon illustration. Previously we have created a sketch. And after learning various "brush smoothing" and "assistant tools" techniques, we now have the means to proceed to the "inking" process or making "line art". Personally, I use the term "outline" for this process or the type of drawing. To start, let's create a new layer. And rename the layer to "outline", or whatever name that makes sense to you. For the brush, we'll be using the "basic 5 size" brush preset that we put on the pop-up palette earlier. But if you pay attention, the default brush size looks much larger compared to our sketch lines. Just as a reminder, we can reduce the size of the brush via the slider above. Or you can also hold down the Shift key and click-drag to the right or left. Or you can also press the open and close square bracket keys on the keyboard. We want to make this brush size, at least 2 times to 3 times larger than the sketch lines. I think 15 pixels is enough for now. Before, I've been using the mouse. Now, I'm switching to the drawing tablet. For the "brush smoothing" options, as we discussed earlier. My favorite is the "weighted" mode. And for now, I set the "distance" value to 75. Finally, make sure we use black for the foreground color. Once we get all the settings correct, we can start drawing brush strokes by following our previous sketch. In this condition, if you feel the "brush smoothing" is not smooth enough, you can still change the settings. Personally, I'm quite satisfied with the current setting. If you make a mistake, just undo it with Ctrl + Z, and then try again. Or you can also erase the mistake by pressing E for eraser mode. I'm speeding up the video because there is nothing new that we can discuss. At this point, you can hide the "sketch" layer and check the stroke lines you just created. If there are leaks then you need to patch them. This is important if later at the coloring stage you want to use the "colorize mask" feature. If not, then you don't need to patch them. Next, for this ax head area, we need to use the "assistant tool" and also the "mirror tool". First, to make our brush strokes automatically mirrored in the vertical direction, we can activate this mirror tool. We can offset the center of the mirror so that it is at the center of the ax head. For reference, I'm using this line on the right. Then for the curved lines on the outside of the ax head, we can use the "assistant tool". Since we want to draw curves, the most suitable type of "assistant" is "spline". Before we create anything. If you notice, the assistant's color and the background color look very similar. We need to change the color first, for example to this red color. And, perhaps we need to reduce the opacity to make it more subtle. Next, let's create the curve line at the top first. Click on this end, then click on this end. Then determine the control points for the curvature. If you are still not satisfied, you can tweak the control points again. Then, we can create more "splines". One is from this point up to this point. Try to make the center of the spline curve exactly at the mirror line. For the remaining two I will speed up the video. Alright. Next, we can press B to activate the brush tool. Don't forget to enable the "snap to assistants" option. From this example, you can see that we can use the "assistants" and the "brush smoothing" features together at the same time. For now, I want to be able to snap to multiple "assistants" at once, so I turn off the "snap single" option. Then just draw the lines following the "assistants" that we just created. If the stroke line jumps like this, no problem. We can zoom in and just fix it later. After you are done, you can review the lines again and repair them as needed. For this process, you may need to turn off the snap option. And hide all the existing "assistants". Apparently, it already looks good. We just need to fix the corner where the brush stroke jumped earlier. Press E and just erase the excessive pixels. Next, for the carvings, we can use the brush tool directly. I'll just speed up the video for now. Alright. Next, we want to draw circles in the middle of the head for the gemstone and also for the carvings surrounding it. For this, we need to show all the "assistants" again. Use the "assistant tool". And delete all existing "assistants". Since we're going to create multiple circles, we need to use the "concentric ellipse" type. Then click for the upper border, and click again for the lower border. Hold Shift to make it a perfect circle, then click to confirm. If it still does not fit correctly, you can move it using the move icon in the control box. Make sure it is on the mirror line. After you are done, press B for the brush tool. Make sure this snap option is active. And you can start drawing the circle. The center circle is for the gemstone. Then create another circle outside of it for the slot. And finally, another circle for the carving. Alright. If you are done, you may delete the "assistant" object. After this, it is just a matter of adding final touches. You can smooth out the lines or erase the ones that you don't need. I'll just skip the process as there is no new technique that we can discuss. So, this is what the resulting "outline" looks like. That is if we hide the sketch layer. 43. Basic coloring techniques: There are many methods or approaches that we can use for adding colors to a drawing. You can use the manual method, and that is by just relying on the "brush tool". Then you can use the "fill tool". The "Shapes fill" brush preset, the "polygon tool", the "contiguous selection tool", various types of "custom selection tools", and the last one is the most advanced technique in Krita for coloring called the "colorize mask". In this lesson, we'll focus on the basic methods that can fill or produce areas using a single color at once. Before we get started, we want to create a non-destructive workflow. In essence, we want the colors to be on a separate layer. We don't want the colors to mix directly with the sketch drawing or the outline drawing. So, select the "sketch" layer first. And then press the Insert button on the keyboard. Now we have a new paint layer just below the "outline" layer. Rename this new layer to "Color". The first method is to use a regular brush tool. For this, you may want to use a brush preset that has a hard border, such as this "basic 5 size" that we have been using quite often. For now, I'm only using the mouse. Choose a wood color, for example, this brown color. Then adjust the brush size by holding down Shift and click-drag to the left, to make it smaller. Make sure we don't use any "brush smoothing" this time. Then just draw directly on the canvas to add a wood color to the correct area. To remove any excess strokes, you can activate the eraser mode. And just erase the areas we don't want. Then, for a smaller area, you can just set the brush size to be smaller. You can see for yourself that this method is quite laborious and quite risky for stroking mistakes. The next method is using the "fill tool. Which is the tool whose icon resembles a bucket. You can press F for the shortcut. In other graphics software, this tool is often called the "bucket" or the "paint bucket" tool. By default, to use this tool, you need to select a layer that has a line artwork. Then just click on a closed area that you want to fill. This method has many drawbacks. First, the area must be closed or surrounded by existing lines or strokes. Or, it can also be an area that already has a fill color before. The second drawback is that this method is destructive. Basically, it will affect or break the pixels where you apply the tool. And the third drawback is that it doesn't look good on semi-transparent outlines or color areas. If we zoom in. Notice how the semi-transparent pixels are not completely filled in with the colors. Let me undo this first. To solve this issue, is to keep using the "color" layer below the outline. Then in the "tool options" docker, in the "sample" parameter, use the "all layers" option. With this, even though we are working on a color layer, which has no stroke lines to enclose the areas. Krita will still consider the outline layer as if it exists in the same layer as the color layer, provided that the "outline" layer is not hidden. Then, to cover more of the semi-transparent pixels, you can increase this threshold value. In essence, this value will cause Krita to be more tolerant of differences in the color of its target. This value of 8 is too small, I usually use a value of at least around 32 if I need to deal with semi-transparent areas. If we try to use the "fill" tool again, we can see the transparent area is getting more color. In addition to using "threshold", we can also force the resulting color area to be wider or narrower by setting the "grow selection" value. Just for example, if we increase this to 5 pixels. And try to fill this wood area again. You can see that Krita has expanded the color area by 5 pixels. You can also use a negative value if you want to shrink the resulting area. But for now, I just set this to zero again. Then, if you are curious, this "feathering" parameter is useful to make the borders of the color area degraded towards transparent. Of course, this is not suitable in the case of our ax weapon drawing style. But, just an example. If we set this to 10 pixels. And click again on the canvas. This is the result. I think 10 pixels is way too big. That is why not only the borders get affected but almost everything. But, you get the idea. For now, just press Delete so this color layer becomes clear again. The next method is quite unique. We'll be using the brush tool again, but with a special brush preset called "shapes fill". You can see the "thumbnail" is similar to a chemical bottle. I don't understand how this preset correlates with a chemical bottle, but to use this "brush preset" you just have to click-drag on the canvas to create a closed area. This technique is similar to how we use the "freehand selection tool". The difference is that because it's a brush tool, the area we created will be instantly filled with the active foreground color. For example, we can choose this yellow color. And we can use this brush preset to color the areas of the fabric that wraps around the handle. If we make a mistake, we can also turn this brush preset into an eraser using the "eraser mode". So that's the technique of coloring using the "shapes fill" brush preset. The last technique we want to discuss which is almost similar to the "shapes fill" is the "polygon tool". We've covered this tool before, so I'm not going to cover all the details again in this lesson. To make use of this tool for coloring, first, you need to change the "fill" parameter to "foreground color". Next, for the "outline" we can set this to "No outline". Then, just do a few click-releases on the canvas to define the points that make up the area you want to fill with the color. To end the process, you can click again on the starting point. Or, you can perform double-clicking. Or you can also hold down the Shift key, and then click. Let's try this directly on the bottom part of the ax handle. As you can see for yourself, at a glance, it works almost similar to the previous "shapes fill" method. But instead of doing a long click-dragging, for this method, we do it by performing multiple click-releases. 44. Coloring with selection: We will continue discussing the coloring method in Krita. Previously we discussed the basic methods. Now, in this video, we will focus on the various coloring methods using selection. The most basic technique is that we create a selection region first, then fill it with the "fill color" command. We already discussed this before in the lessons about selection. Just to refresh our memory. We can use the "polygonal selection tool", and make a selection on the canvas. Then, we choose the color we want. For example, this color. Then press Shift + Backspace to fill the selection area with the active foreground color. If the color we want to use is the background color, then we can press Backspace. If you forget all these shortcuts, you can open the "edit" menu. You can see that both commands and the shortcuts are all here. After you are done, don't forget to press Ctrl + Shift + A, to clear the selection. You can use all of the selection tools for this technique. For example, we can use the "Freehand selection tool". Draw the selection region by click-dragging on the canvas. Then choose a color. Then press Shift + Backspace again to fill the selection with that color. Don't forget to press Ctrl + Shift + A to clear the selection. So again, that is the basic method. What makes the selection technique unique, is that we can combine it with the brush tool. With this, the resulting color can be varied. Not just a single or uniform color as with the previous method. For example, we can create a selection like this. Then press B for the brush tool. Right-click, and select this "airbrush soft" brush preset. First, let's set the brush size. And then make some strokes. Try to make them more or less towards a certain side. Press Ctrl + Shift + A to clear the selection. So, this is an example of filling a selection with colors that varies in transparency. With this technique, we can easily add a shading color or a highlight color to an image. For the next example, we can also fill colors with a "Hue" variation. Let's say, we want to create a selection that looks like a flame. Then we can choose this yellow color. Press Shift + Backspace to fill the color. Then use the brush tool with the "airbrush" preset. Now, pick an orange color. And make some brush strokes, like this. You can continue the process by using the red color. If you are done, you can clear the selection. I know we haven't discussed the "gradient" feature in Krita. But with this simple technique, you can actually simulates gradient colors on the canvas. Just for a quick tip. If you want to further refine the flame drawing, you may want to use the brush preset we have prepared before called the "blender smear". You can just mix and push the pixels around until you're happy with the result. Alright. The last selection method that we want to discuss is this tool called the "Contiguous selection tool". We will cover this tool later in more depth. For now, I will try to explain it briefly. This tool is used to make a selection based on the existing color that we pick. Basically, if we click on a point on the canvas. Krita will analyze the color at that point, and then try to select the surrounding area whose color is similar to the color at the point we clicked. Now, to control the level of color tolerance, we use this "fuzziness" parameter. The way this works is that the higher this value, the more tolerant Krita will be. That is, more colors will be considered similar to the initial color. With higher value, the selection area will be wider. Vice versa. The smaller the "fuzziness" value, the more strict Krita will be when comparing the colors. Essentially, this will make the resulting selection region become smaller or narrower. Alright. Then, we can also use the "grow shrink" parameter to manually force the selection region to be wider or narrower from the original result. Positive values will expand the selection region. While a negative value will narrow it down. Next, we can use the "feathering" parameter to make the edges of the selection region more subtle or become more transparent. If you notice, all of these parameters are similar to those in the "fill tool" we discussed earlier. Of course, the difference is, if the "fill tool" directly fills the area with color. The "Contiguous selection tool" only creates a selection. After that, we can use the brush tool or any other methods we want to use to fill it in. One drawing technique that can make use of the "Contiguous selection tool" is creating a silhouette of an object. To try this out, we should first clean the color layer by pressing the Delete key. Then make sure the "Contiguous selection tool" is active. For now, I set the "fuzziness" value to 8. From here, you can just use the "all layers" mode, that is if you want to stay on the "color" layer. Or, if you want to use the "current layer" mode, you need to be in the "outline" layer for this to work. Then, click on this empty area. Now, the entire canvas area is selected, except the ax object area. If we zoom out. We can see the selection border appears on the edge of the canvas. Now, let’s focus again on the outline area around the ax. You can see that the selection tends to fall outside the outline. We can fix this by increasing the "grow shrink" value just a little. For example, to positive 2. If we try clicking again in the outside area. Now, the border of the selection region is much deeper into the outline. Once you are done, select the "color" layer again. And then, this is important. We need to invert the selection. For this, we can press Ctrl + Shift + i. Or, if you forget the shortcut. You can open the "select" menu, then choose "invert selection". Now, the selection is no longer outside. But it is precisely in the area of the ax object. From here, we can choose the base color, for example, this brown color. Then press Shift + Backspace. If you are done, you can clear the selection. So now, this is what we have on the "color" layer. That is if we hide the "outline" layer. From here, we can use the "alpha lock" layer feature, to lock the transparency area. Then use a brush tool with a solid color preset. And start adding the colors to the ax object area as needed. You can also combine this technique with the previous coloring techniques, to make the process even faster. 45. Colorize mask: In this lesson, we will cover the last coloring technique which is using the "colorize mask" feature. But, before we do that, let's first discuss the basics of "mask"? In Krita, "Mask" is additional information that we can attach to a layer. If we select this "outline" layer. Then click on the small arrow icon next to the plus button. You can see that Krita supports different types of "masks". We will cover all of these in more detail in the "advanced" level of this course. For now, let's focus on the "colorize mask". If we click this. Now, we have something that looks like a layer. But notice how it is slightly shifted to the right as if the layer is inside a group layer. Even though this "outline" layer is not a group layer, but an ordinary "paint layer". So, this is the first characteristic of masks that you need to know. That is, it cannot exist on its own. It must be attached to another layer. Besides using the small arrow button below. You can create a "colorize mask" by right-clicking and then choosing "Add", then choose "add colorize mask". Now, if you pay attention. The icons on the right side of the "colorize mask" are different from the icons on a regular layer. So even if we rename this to a different name, for example, "Color". We can still tell that this is actually a "colorize mask" by looking at the icons on the right side. Okay, so that is the first method or the manual method to add a "colorize mask" to a layer. For now, let me first delete this mask by pressing the trash icon. The second method of adding a "colorize mask" is with its tool. To access it you need to click on this icon called the "colorize mask editing tool". If we press this tool, then click on the layer that doesn't have a "colorize mask" yet. Krita will add a "colorize mask" to that layer automatically. But if you are on a "colorize mask" or on a layer that contains a "colorize mask". Clicking using this tool will not add any new "colorize mask". Instead, the first time you use this tool, you may enter a mode where you are editing the "colorize mask". You can tell that you are in this mode when you see the outline drawing has additional blurry colors around it. If you want to exit or re enter the "colorize mask" editing mode, you can click on this "checkbox". Or, you can also press the pencil icon in the "colorize mask" in the layers docker. So, again, this is the "editing" mode. And this is the normal mode. So, how does this "colorize mask" work? At first glance, the way it works is almost similar to the "fill tool". That is, we need to apply it to a well-prepared outline image. All the color areas should be enclosed without any leaks. What makes the "colorize mask" different is that it uses a more advanced algorithm in detecting the outlines. So the coloring result is very clean. The second difference is that the "colorize mask" is non-destructive. You can always revise the color if necessary. Before you start coloring with a "colorize mask". Make sure you use a solid brush preset and in normal condition, not in "eraser" mode. That is because the "colorize mask" will use the brush tool and its settings to register the colors. After that, make sure the "colorize mask editing tool" is active. And the editing mode is also active. For example, let's say we want to give the ax rope a red color. Set the brush size to be smaller. And just add some strokes like this. It doesn't matter if we hit outline areas. The important thing is that the brush stroke is inside the region we want to fill, even if only partially. Doing this is much easier than using the "fill tool", where you have to click on each area one by one. For the fabric, we can choose a yellow color. Then just drag a long stroke like this. Next, let's focus on the top area. We can re-select the colors we've used from this palette. This is the color for the wood. And this is for the red rope. Then for the head, we can choose this gray color. Now, if you notice, in this ax head area, there are many closed areas inside it. This is another reason why using the "colorize mask" is better than the "Fill" tool. If there are closed areas surrounded by other larger enclosed areas. Then automatically, these areas will follow the color of the larger area. So you don't have to fill in each of them one by one. Well, unless you want a different color in those areas. Next, let's use this dark gray color for the sharp edge. And choose a dark blue color for the gemstone in the middle. Lastly, we also need to color this outer area, even though later we intend to make this area transparent. You may use any color, as long as it is different from the other colors already in the palette. For example, we can use this green color. Then make a stroke in this outer area. Now, to register this green color as transparent color. Make sure to select the color in the palette. Then press the "transparent" button. Colors that are set to transparent will have a cross line like this. This is a "toggle" button. Meaning that we can turn it on or off as needed. After you are done, you can press the "update" button here, or you can also press this icon. Krita will then calculate and fill in the colors based on our brush strokes input. After it is done, to see the result, we need to exit the editing mode. And, you can hide this background layer, if you want to see the transparency condition. With "colorize mask", we can easily revise the coloring we have created. For this, we need to go back into the "colorize mask" editing mode. Just as an example, we want to add a wood color for this bottom area. Then we want to remove this blue color, and replace it with a purple color. We can use the eraser mode. And then erase the strokes manually. When the blue color is completely gone, the palette is automatically updated. Now, we don't see the blue color anymore. Let me undo this first. The brush eraser mode technique can be useful for further adjusting the color areas. However, if there are dozens of brush strokes, all of which you want to erase. Using the eraser mode technique is not efficient. To remove all brush strokes of a certain color, we can just select the color directly from the palette. Then press the "remove" button. After that, if you want to replace it with another color. Just choose a new color, let's say a purple color. Then reapply the brush stroke. For now, I also want to add a dark gray color to the slot area around the gemstone. Let Krita "update" the colors. And here is the result. The last technique we want to cover is converting the "colorize mask" to a regular paint layer. We need this step if we want to add shading or highlight colors above the base color, but still below the "outline" layer. Before we convert this mask to a paint layer. If you still want to keep the original "colorize mask" as a backup, then you need to duplicate this mask first. To do that, just select the mask, then press Ctrl + J. Or you can also right-click, then select "duplicate layer or mask". Now we have 2 identical "colorize masks". We can choose one of them. Then right-click. Choose "convert", and then choose "convert to paint layer". Now, we have a regular paint layer. We can rename this layer to "Color", for example. For this mask, we can just hide it. Then click the small arrow button on the outline layer to keep things simple. At this point, you have learned a lot of techniques for applying basic color to an image. Because each method has its advantages and disadvantages. You may want to try and experiment with all of them, as they may be useful in different situations and conditions. Going forward, I'll assume you have already created a "color" layer like this. Regardless of which method you use. 46. Shading: We will continue our ax weapon illustration project. This is what we have from the previous lesson. Now, in this video, we will focus on the "shading" process, or in other words adding darker colors to the image. But before we get into the shading. I feel the color of this yellow cloth is too bright. To revise the color, you can recreate the color with the brush tool. However, I want to use this moment to discuss the "filter" feature. I will explain the "Filter" features in more depth in the "advanced" course. For now, we will only focus on how to darken colors using a "filter". First, we need to use the selection tool to limit the area that will get affected. For now, I'm using the "polygonal selection tool". Just select the area you want to change. After that, open the "filter" menu, choose "adjust", then choose "HSV adjustment". You can see the "lightness" parameter here. Just lower the value until you're happy with the brightness level of the color. I think 25 is dark enough. Click "OK", to confirm. Then Ctrl + Shift + A to clear the selection. Next, to make sure the "color" layer is safe from any unwanted changes, we can lock it by pressing this lock icon. To make the background look more interesting, we can add some random brush strokes. For this, we can select the "background" layer. Then press B to activate the brush tool. Then for the brush preset, you can look for one that looks natural or can simulate paint brushes in the real world. For example, we can choose this one. You can see that the brush size is too small. Let's make it bigger, to about this size. Let me just round the value to 150 pixels. Next, to make the brush strokes oriented in a uniform direction, we can make use of the "assistant tool". Use the "parallel" type. And make it tilt, to something like this. Press B again. And now, I'm switching my mouse with my drawing tablet. You can use any color you like. Personally, I like to use shades of blue for this background. Then make some brush strokes on the canvas. Sorry, I forgot to turn on the "snap to assistant" option. Now we can draw brush strokes with a uniform orientation. You may use different pressures on the pen to vary the transparency. Now, if you want to remove the brush strokes. Do not use the eraser mode. Remember, this is a background layer. Not an ordinary transparent paint layer. To erase, just use the normal brush mode. But you should pick the base gray color by holding down the Ctrl key, then clicking on where the color is. After we pick the color, we can draw some brush strokes to reduce the excess blue colors. So that is basically the process. Since there is no new technique for us to cover, I'll speed up the video for now. Here I used a slightly green color, just to give some variety so it doesn't look too boring. Then, I also gave it a slightly lighter "Cyan" color in the center area. After you are done, you can activate the assistant tool again. And use the "delete all" command to remove the assistant. Now, go back to the brush tool by pressing B. For now, I'm reusing this brush preset. To protect the background layer from any changes, we can lock this layer. Then, to contain the shading colors, we should create a new layer above the "Color" layer. And rename the layer to "Shading". Previously, we have discussed "blending modes". To add shadow colors, we should use "Multiply". And to add highlight colors we use "Screen". But, we will discuss coloring using different blending modes in future projects. For this project, I want to show you that we can also use the default blending mode, which is "normal", for shading or highlighting. Then, we want this shading layer to be constrained to the alpha channel of the "color" layer. For this, we can select both layers. Then press Ctrl + G, so they are moved inside a new group layer. Select the "shading" layer, then lock its "alpha inheritance". With this, if we draw anything on the "shading" layer, the color will not bleed out beyond the "color" layer area. After setting up the layers, we are now ready to start adding shading colors. Let's start with the wooden part at the top. We can first pick the base color. That is by holding down the Ctrl key and then clicking on the wood area. Then, press K to shift the color to a darker version. And just make some brush strokes to define the shadow area. It is the same process for the red color. Hold down Ctrl and click to pick the color. Then press K to make the color darker. It seems that 40 pixels for the brush size is too big for the rope area. Let's change this to around 24 pixels. As you may notice, I only use the solid or the "basic 5 size" brush preset for this process. The reason we're using this brush preset is that we want to create a comic coloring style where the shading borders look hard. For coloring styles with smoother shading borders. We will discuss that technique in future projects. I'm speeding up the video as there's no new technique that we can cover. Oh yes, I forgot to explain earlier that in this project, we will assume the main light source is on the top left area. So the shadows should fall toward the bottom right of the object. But, up to this point, you probably already realize that by looking at the shadow's directions I'm drawing. For the carving or the engraving areas on the ax head, you can just imagine if they are slightly rising above the surface. Then for the sharp area, we want to give the impression that there are scratches or metallic fibers from the sharpening process. Next, we want to add shading colors to the gemstone. Now, the gemstone area is a bit unique. Because we want to use a smooth color transition. So we're using the "airbrush" preset instead. If you notice the default brush size is very big. I'm making it smaller using the express dial on my drawing tablet. Then, to limit the brush strokes inside the circle area. We can create a selection first. We can just sample the selection using the "all layer" option. For this, I want to explain a shortcut to move the layer's selection. Let's say the shading layer is already quite complex, so we need to sample the selection from the "color" layer. To move the layer's selection up or down, we can press the "page up" or the "page down" keys on the keyboard. Make sure the "color" layer is selected. Then, use the "contiguous selection tool". Then click in the center area of the circle. Once we have the selection, we can press "Page up" until we are back in the "shading" layer. Press B. Then hold down Ctrl and click to pick the purple color. But, we need a darker version of this purple color. Then draw circular strokes at the top, left, and right sides. So the area looks darker. As for the bottom center, we just want to add a lighter color. Then to make it look more interesting, I want to draw some kind of spiral shape in the middle. For this, we can use the solid brush preset. Alright. Clear the selection. And this is what the gemstone looks like after the shading process. We will add a "specular" color later in the highlighting process. For now, I want to add a fake reflection on the main metallic part of the ax head. There is no new technique here. Basically, I just use a dark gray color and a solid brush preset to draw the shape of the reflection. This is the final result of the shading process. In the next lesson, we will add light colors or "highlights" to the drawing. 47. Highlighting: Let’s continue working on the ax weapon illustration project. In this lesson video, we will focus on adding highlight colors. But before we get to the highlights. I think the shading colors in the handle area need to be darker. We can just use the "filter" technique as we did in the previous lesson. But I want to show you an alternative technique using a brush and the "multiply" blending mode. For the brush preset we use "airbrush". Adjust the size until it is almost as big as the ax handle. We don't want the brush effect to be too strong, so let's just lower the "opacity" value to around 50%. Then, this is the most important part. To make the brush strokes darken the existing colors. We don't use the "normal" blending mode, but we use "multiply" instead. Then, we want to apply this brush to only the pixels that are already on the "shading" layer. For that, we need to turn on the alpha lock icon. Now, let's focus on the top handle first. To keep the ax head area unaffected, we need to create a selection. After that, just draw some brush strokes. Add more pressure or more strokes for the right side. After you are done, we can move on to the lower handle. Just like before, we need to create a selection first. Then we can draw the brush strokes. Since the light source is on the left side, try to make the right side darker than the left side by applying more strokes or pen pressure. And here is the result so far. Now, let's get into the "highlighting" process. For this, we need to create a new paint layer. Enable the "alpha inheritance" option, so that the alpha condition of this layer is constrained by the "color" layer. And rename this layer to "highlight" or whatever name that makes sense to you. To add the highlight colors, you can just use the same method with the shading process. And that is using a solid brush preset. However, I want to explore alternative techniques. You probably already know that in American comic coloring style, you often see exaggerated highlight colors. Now, we want to try creating this type of highlight. First, what we need is to create the selection region. For example, like this. Then, use the "airbrush" preset. Set the brush size as needed. And, don't forget to return the brush blending mode to "normal". Then, pick the color of the wood. But make it a lot brighter, close to white. Let's try applying the color using 50% opacity. I think this is not strong enough. Let's just set this back to 100%. Then we can try to draw some brush strokes again. Change the brush size to be smaller. And make another stroke. Basically, we want the center area to be brighter than the edge or border areas. We can repeat the same process on the red ropes. First, create the selection. Pick the red color. Offset the color to be way brighter. And draw some strokes again using the "airbrush" preset. Let's create a selection here. And draw more brush strokes. So that is basically the process. From here, I'll just speed up the video, because technically the process is the same. Here is the result we have so far. Next, we want to add some light colors to the sharp areas of the ax head. For this, we can go back to using the solid brush preset. Then, choose a color that is close to white. And draw some brush strokes starting from the center. I think the brush size is too big. Let's just set it to about 24 pixels. I'm speeding up the video again as there is nothing new that we can discuss. Now, I'm adding a highlight color to the top area of the ax head, then to the engravings. Then, here, I want to add a bit of shading to the engraving area. For this, we need to use the "shading" layer. And this is the result so far. Next, let's add a "specular" effect to the gemstone. Don't forget to use the "highlight" layer again. Use the solid brush preset, and just use a white color. Then draw some circles on the top left of the gemstone area. The final highlighting process for the ax head area is to add a bright version of the reflection. The technique is the same as how we added highlights to the handle area. So, start by making a selection. Then use the "airbrush" preset. Set the brush size again as needed. And just draw some brush strokes so that the bright white color is stronger in the lower part. Then, we can do the same for the area on the right. The colors we are creating here are basically to simulate the light from the sky and also the shadows from the mountains in the distance. The last highlight color we want to add is the "backlight" effect. It would be too long to discuss "backlighting" in-depth. For now, to make things simple, basically, we want to simulate a strong light source from behind the object or from the background. That light should shine on the darkest part of the ax object. For the color, we should use one that matches the background colors. This is so the ax object looks connected to the surrounding environment. The process is similar to before. You can create a selection first and then use the brush tool. For now, I'm just using the solid brush preset to create the backlight color. I'm speeding up the video, as there are no new techniques for us to discuss. Alhamdulillah, our ax weapon illustration project is done. This is the final result. Indeed, this is just a simple illustration. But all the techniques we used in this image can be applied also to more complex illustration projects. It is all up to you to make use of them and practice them by creating more illustrations. 48. Brush presets preparation: Starting from this lesson, until the next few lessons, we will start discussing the basics of creating digital paintings in Krita. In this lesson video, we will discuss the preparation process. That is discussing various brush presets that we will be using in the next painting process. Previously, we learned about how to manage brush presets using tags. We've also selected some brush presets by tagging them. And also have activated that tag in the pop-up palette. Here are the 7 brush presets that we selected earlier using the tag called "My brush". What I haven't explained is the function of each of these brush presets. Before we get into the details. You need to keep in mind that every artist has a unique style and therefore has a different preference and workflow. There is no right or wrong about this. I never say that the brush preferences and the workflow that I'm using are the best. But I hope that, by learning how I use various brush presets in my workflow, you can gain enough insight to develop your own brush preferences and workflows. Alright. Just to recap all the brushes really quick. In making a "digital painting" or illustration, I need at least 7 brush presets. First, I need a brush for "sketching". Generally, in the real world, we sketch with a pencil. This is the function of the "pencil 4 soft" brush preset. Second, I need a brush preset for "blocking". What "blocking" means is quickly creating a solid area to add a base color or create a silhouette. This is the function of the "basic 5 size" brush preset. Third, I need a brush preset for "shading" and "highlights". Essentially, a brush that can generate color gradations easily. This is why I use this "airbrush" brush preset. Next, I also need a brush preset for "smearing". What "smearing" means is the process of pulling and mixing pixels as if we are pulling wet paints on a canvas. It is for this purpose I use the "blender smear" brush preset. Next, I need a brush preset that can blend colors through a "blurring" process. That is the function of this brush preset called the "blender blur". Next, we need a brush for the "detailing" process. Now, you need to remember that, usually, we only want to use a brush where the pen pressure only controls one aspect. Be it the "brush size" or the "brush opacity", etc. This detailing brush is a bit different. The pen pressure will control two things at once, the "brush size" and the "brush opacity". That's why I chose this brush preset called "basic 5 size opacity". Because of its characteristics, you may need some practice to really get the hang of this brush preset. But once you are familiar with it, it can help speed up the process of detailing or "fine-tuning" an image. Lastly, I need a special brush preset for erasing. Indeed, each brush preset can become an eraser using the eraser mode. But sometimes we also need a special brush preset with a fixed brush size. This is why I chose this "eraser circle" brush preset. So that is a quick explanation of the various brush presets that we will use for the next digital painting projects. You can use other brush presets if you want. But at least, you need to choose 7 brush presets to represent the 7 digital painting processes I just described. 49. Custom shortcuts: In this lesson video, we will continue preparing for the next digital painting process. Now we will focus on creating custom shortcuts. As we have seen so far, Krita has a lot of tools and features. Most of these tools and features already have "keyboard shortcuts". We can rely on the default settings provided by Krita. But if you want your workflow to be even faster, you can take advantage of custom shortcuts. The basic strategy for making use of custom shortcuts is to place the tools and commands you frequently use as close as possible to your fingers. If you are like most people, that is, you use your right hand to draw and write. Your right hand will be mostly in this position holding the drawing pen. While your left hand will be mostly in this position. So basically, your left hand tends to be on the left side of the keyboard. That's why when choosing keyboard keys for the custom shortcuts, you should choose the one located on the left side of the keyboard. Of course, if you are left-handed, you may want the other way around. You want the shortcut keys to be on the right side of the keyboard. I'm pretty sure you already understand this basic strategy. The point is that we need to be able to access the shortcuts as quickly as we can. The first shortcut that I want to create is using the letter Q for clearing the selection. Why? Because pressing Ctrl + Shift + A to clear the selection is quite a hassle. As you need 3 fingers to do this. Whereas we need this command very often. Then, I chose the letter Q, because it is located close to the left hand. Now, by default, the letter Q is used by the "Multibrush tool". But I rarely use the "Multibrush tool". And even if I do need it, I can just click on the icon easily. To create a "custom shortcut", we need to go to the "settings" menu. Then open the "configure Krita" window. Select the "keyboard shortcuts" category. In the search box, type "deselect". Krita will filter the list of shortcuts so that it only displays the "deselect" command. Here you have 2 options. Replace the existing default shortcut, or add a new shortcut as an alternative. For now, let's just leave the default shortcut, so that later, pressing Ctrl + Shift + A will still work. We just want to add the letter Q as an additional shortcut to access the "deselect" command. Click here. Then click the "none" button below. Then press Q. Krita will detect that the letter Q is already being used by the "Multibrush tool". To continue using the letter Q to perform "deselect", we need to press this "reassign" button. And then click "OK". Now, the letter Q is no longer assigned to the "Multibrush tool", but is now assigned to the "deselect" command. We can try making a selection. You can use any tool you want. Then press Q. As you can see, the shortcut is working as expected. Next, I also want to add one more custom shortcut, which is the letter Z for the "freehand selection tool". The reason is that we will use this tool very often later. Meanwhile, the letter Z is close to the left-hand position. Also, in the version I'm currently using, by default, the letter Z is not used for any shortcut by Krita. To create the shortcut, the process is similar to before. Use the word "freehand selection" in the search box. You can see that there is no default shortcut for this tool. So we can just click here. Click this "none" button. Then press the letter Z on the keyboard. Click "OK". Now, we can test the shortcut. First select another tool, such as the brush tool. Then press the letter Z on the keyboard. If the "freehand selection tool" becomes active. This means that we have successfully created the custom shortcut. Going forward, you can use this method to create your own custom shortcuts. The last two features I need to explain are resetting "custom shortcuts" and saving them to an external file. Both of these features can be useful if you often have to work on different computers. For example, you are a teacher or instructor who has to teach using multiple computers in different classrooms. To reset all shortcuts to the "default" state, you can press this button "restore defaults". But, if you already have your favorite "custom shortcuts". It's a good idea to first save all these shortcuts into an external file. So that later you can easily load them back when needed. For this, you can press the "save load" button. Then select "save custom shortcuts". You can specify the folder location and the file name. Then click "save". You can copy the file and move it to another computer. Or share the file with your students for example. Later, to reload the shortcuts data from the file, simply press the "save load" button again. Then press "load custom shortcuts". Select the file you want to load. Then click "open". 50. Shading basic concepts: Although this course is not about how to paint in general. But it's more focused on how to make use of the tools and features in Krita to create digital paintings. I still feel the need to briefly explain the basic concepts. This is because these concepts will determine a lot of actions we will take later when making digital paintings. For this lesson, I've prepared a Krita file that you can download. The first thing we need to discuss is the light direction. If we unhide this group layer. And hide the other layers. This is what we see. At a glance, what we are seeing here, or rather what our brains perceive, is that this circle is a big ball. Meanwhile, all these small circles are the holes on the surface of the big ball. The question is, why do our brains think that way? If we "expand" this group, and hide the layer below. We can see that this small circle is nothing more than smaller duplicates of the large circle which is then turned upside down. Now, here is one interesting fact about the direction of light. Whether we realize it or not, almost all light sources are coming from above. We can find natural light sources, such as the sun or the moon, more often above our heads. Man-made light sources are the same. We are used to installing lamps above, on the ceiling. And rarely on the floor. Because of this habit, our brain is used to seeing the "highlight" colors on the upper area of objects and the "shadow" colors on the bottom parts. When we reverse this general condition. That is, we make the color dark on top and light on the bottom. Our brain will think that the object is a hole. Knowing this concept is important because the majority of people who will see our illustration will always think in the default state. Or in other words, expecting that the light source is located above. Of course, you are not bound to create a light source only from above. It's just that you need to be extra careful when doing it so that the viewers don't catch it wrong. Essentially. When the main light source is well defined. Then all surfaces whose shading color is in the direction of the light source will look convex. Meanwhile, a surface whose shading color is in the opposite direction to the light source will look concave, or as if it is a hole. The second concept we will discuss is how the "value" or the "brightness" of a color determines our brain's perception of the surface depth. For more details, we can unhide the second group layer. At first glance, this circle looks like a deeper hole when compared to this one. While this one looks deeper than this one. Though, in reality, all I did was vary the opacity of each of these circle layers. This one is set to 100 percent, this one is 60 percent, and the last one has an opacity of 20 percent. The question is, why do our brains think that darker colors mean deeper surfaces? The answer is that in the real world, when light hits a surface, it bounces off many times until it runs out of energy. Strong light will bounce off more, so it can reach more distant areas. When light enters a hole. The deeper the bottom of the hole, the harder it will be for light to reach it. Whether we realize it or not, this phenomenon that occurs in the real world is well recorded by our brains. So when we see a darker color, our brain automatically perceives it as having more depth. Knowing this basic concept is important so that we can properly describe the depth of the surface by varying the brightness of the colors we are using. Another aspect of shadow color that you need to pay attention to is how smooth or how sharp the border is. If you unhide this layer group and hide the others. You can see 2 bumps in this large ball. The bump at the top is actually created from the bottom. I just duplicated it and then added some blur to it. But notice how the two create a different perception of shape. The one above seems to indicate that the area around it is sloping. While the one below looks like a flat surface that rises up, creating a steep cliff around it. So from this example, we can conclude that sharp shadow borders will suggest that there is a steep change on the surface. While, if the shadow colors change in a smooth gradation will make the surface look sloping. Now let's look at the examples in the last group layer. Here you can see. From the same silhouette shape, which is basically just a circle. We can describe different shapes just by relying on shading techniques. We can see this one seems to form a human-like face. This one seems to be a cone shape that we see from above. While this one is more like a coin or a flat button. The final conclusion of this lesson is that shading plays a very important role in defining the shape of objects in an illustration. We need to understand that when we do shading we are actually trying to manipulate the perception of the viewer's brain to think in a certain direction. In the real world, the shape of the object will dictate how the shadow falls on that object. When we create a digital painting, we do the opposite. We craft and tweak the shadow colors to create the illusion of the object's shape. You can think of these three concepts as your tools or arsenals to create various shapes in the illustration. Just to recap what we have discussed. First, you can use the light direction to make the surface look like it is going in or out. Second, you can use the brightness variations to determine the depth of the surface. And third, you can use the smoothness of the shadow borders to define slopes or steep areas on the surface. I know that these concepts are easier to say than to put into practice. To be able to apply it and to really master it, you will need a lot of practice. Especially if you are very new to digital painting or painting in general. The easiest way to practice it is to use reference photos. Basically, you can analyze the shading of various objects in the real world and try to duplicate them on the canvas. This kind of exercise is commonly referred to as "light study". 51. Shading techniques: In this lesson video, we will review the different methods for applying shading colors over a flat base color. There are at least 3 methods that we can use. The first is the "blurring" method. That is by using a flat shading color, then we smooth it with a blur brush. The second is to use the "airbrush" preset. And the last is a method that I call "tradigital". Basically, it is a manual method that imitates the shading process on paintings in the real world. To practice these three methods, we will create a circle with a flat color. Then add shading colors to the circle using the different methods. The goal is to make the circle look like a 3-dimensional ball. For better flexibility, we want to use a separate paint layer from the background layer. Next, to draw a circle, we can use the "ellipse tool". Or you can also make a selection first using the "Elliptical selection tool". Click-drag and hold down the Shift key, so we have a perfect circle. Then, we need a gray color. For now, I just pick it from the color palette. Then press Shift + Backspace to fill the selection area. Now, we have a flat gray circle. Clear the selection. From this lesson onwards, I will be using the letter Q to clear the selections. We covered this in the previous lesson about custom shortcuts. Since you may be using a different custom shortcut, I will only explain the command without specifying what key I'm pressing. Alright. Next, we want to duplicate this layer, 2 times so that in total we have 3 identical layers. For this, we can right-click, then select "duplicate layer or mask". Or we can also use the shortcut Ctrl + J. Then rename this layer to "01". Rename the second layer to "02". And finally, rename this layer to "03". Next, we can select the "01" layer. Use the "move tool". And click-drag it to the left, while holding down the Shift key to keep it straight horizontally. Then select the "03" layer. Move this layer also but to the right. Once you're done, you can hide all layers except the "01" layer. Don't forget to also select the layer. The first method is to use a solid brush, then we refine it using the "blurring" brush preset. But, before we do that. We need to constrain the shading color, so it doesn't bleed out from the circle area. We should activate the "alpha lock" of this layer. Do the same for the 2 layers above. I'm currently using the "basic 5 size" brush preset. Make sure the base color is on. If not, you can pick the color first, by holding down Ctrl, then clicking on the color. Then, press K to make the color darker. And just make the areas darker. During this lesson, we will assume that the light is coming from the top left corner. So the shadow should be at the bottom right area. Press K again, and make the next area even darker. If there are excess color areas. We can pick the color we want to expand and just cover the mistake. Next, hold down Ctrl and pick the base color again. Then press L to make it lighter. And make the highlight area on the top left of the object. I'm speeding up the video for now. Alright. Next, to smooth out these flat color areas, we can use a brush preset called "blender blur". You can adjust the brush size as needed. If the size is small, the gradation area formed will also be small. If we want to affect a larger area quickly, of course, we need a larger brush size. How hard we press the pen will also affect how strong the blurring effect is. And here is the end result. The next method is to use the "airbrush" preset. We will use this method on layer "02". So make sure layer "01" is hidden. Right-click, and select the "airbrush" preset. By default, this brush-preset size is quite large. We can first reduce it, until it is about as big as the circle. Hold down Ctrl and pick the base color. Press K twice, so that the color becomes quite dark. And just do some light brush strokes, in circular motions at the bottom right area. Just a reminder. Make sure "alpha lock" is active. After you are done, you can move on to adding the highlight colors. Basically, the process is the same as the shading process. First, pick the base color. Press L twice. And just draw some brush strokes. Since the highlight area is getting smaller, I'm making the brush strokes while gradually decreasing the brush size. For this, I'm using the express dial in my drawing tablet. You can also do this by pressing the open bracket key on the keyboard. And here is the end result. The last method that I think is the most difficult, is the "tradigital" method. You need a lot of practice to get the hang of it. The point is that we are trying to imitate the shading process of real-world paintings. This technique is suitable for use when you want to produce an illustration with a "painterly style". Or making the digital painting as if it is made using real brushes and paints. This method is not suitable when you need clean or smooth gradient colors. The success key to this method is to use brush presets that look natural or simulate real brush bristles. Usually, these brush presets display a brush image in their thumbnails. I'll be using this brush, called "dry bristles". Feel free to experiment with various other brushes to find the one that suits you the most. Pick the base color. Press K twice. And make strokes with light pen pressure first in the middle area. Then, as we go to the border area we can add more pressure to the pen. For the highlight color, the process is basically the same. Pick the base color. Press L twice. And make some light strokes first. The closer we get to the center area, the more we can press the pen. So that is the first stage of this method. The next stage is to refine the existing brush strokes. Again, we don't want to make the colors perfectly smooth. So, avoid using the "blurring" brush and do all the color blending manually. Essentially, we look for areas where there are two contrasting colors meet. Then pick a color in the middle. And make light strokes a few times on that area so that the colors are more blended. In this process, sometimes lowering the opacity of the brush can help to get more subtle strokes. Just repeat this process until you are satisfied with the result. As you can see for yourself, this technique produces a unique brush strokes characteristic. In case you really need to smooth out the colors with "blurring". You still want to avoid using the regular "blender blur" preset. Instead, use a blurring preset that looks natural. For example, this blurring brush called, "blender textured soft". Just use it as needed, and not too much. Using it excessively can remove all the unique brush strokes that are already in the image. So those are 3 shading methods that you can use. We can compare the final results of the three methods. Going forward, we will be using the "blurring" and "airbrush" methods a lot in this course. As for the "tradigital" method, we will discuss this in more depth in the advanced level course, in sha Allah. 52. Sketching, coloring, and layer composition: The best way to practice the shading techniques we learned earlier is to practice them directly on an image. That's why we're going to make this skull illustration. I chose the skull for our drawing object, because it only has one type of color on its surface. But the shape is quite complex, so it is challenging enough for us to practice shading. The workflow for creating this skull illustration is almost similar to how we created the ax illustration before. The difference is that we won't be drawing any "line art" or outlines. Then we will also use smooth shading techniques, not just flat colors. And in terms of composition, we will also make use of the "Blending modes". In general, this is the workflow. First, we draw a sketch. Then we add the base color. Then we prepare the layers for non-destructive image composition. Next, we add color shading using the method we discussed earlier. Later we will also discuss advanced shading techniques using selection. Only then will we add the highlight color. And then we add texture. For this lesson video, we will first focus on the sketching process, adding base color, and then we will also prepare the layer composition. Please note that for this skull drawing lesson, I recorded it using Krita version 4. If you are using version 5 or above, you will notice some differences. But don't worry. In general, the difference is only in the appearance of the UI. Nothing has changed in terms of the tools and commands. But, if you really want to match the UI in the video. First, you can close the color palette on the left side. You can open it again later if you want, through the "settings" menu, "dockers", and then select "palette". Then in Krita version 4, the bar at the far left of the toolbox is extending horizontally at the top. That's why, I changed the size of the tool icons to be smaller to make more room for the canvas. You can do so by right-clicking on an icon. Then select the smallest size, which is 12 by 12. Now, in Krita version 5, this bar is on the left side. So I don't feel the need to reduce the icon size anymore, and just stick to the default size. Again, you don't have to change anything if you don't want to. I explain this, just to anticipate any questions regarding the UI differences. For the sketch, I've made a paint layer above the background layer. The brush preset we're using is "pencil 4 soft" which we've previously placed in the pop-up palette. As for the color, since we're not going to make any "line art", it doesn't matter if we use black. Let's start drawing the sketch. This large ellipse is the back of the head. These are the cheekbones. We are creating a "stylized" skull image, not a realistic one, just to make it easier for us to work with. For the teeth, we only make 4. For the eyebrows, we want to make it look like it is angry. Of course, a real skull has no eyebrows. Again, we are not trying to make a realistic style. Just a simple drawing for us to practice. I'm speeding up the video for now as there's no new technique we need to discuss. I removed some of the back head, because I think it looks too big. After you are done, you can rename the sketch layer to "sketch". And the bottom background layer to "BG". As I mentioned before. For the background color, it is better to avoid pure white color and use a more neutral color. Press Shift + Backspace to fill the "BG" layer. Next, for the base color, we can create a new paint layer below the sketch layer, but above the background layer. I’ll just name this layer "B", which stands for "base color". Then, we can reduce the "opacity" of this "sketch" layer to 20%. The sketch image now looks very subtle, but still visible. So we can still use it as a guide. To add the base color, we first use the "freehand selection tool". Remember that we created a custom shortcut for this tool earlier, using the letter Z. Just follow the silhouette of the skull sketch. We can hold down the Ctrl key to create straight lines for the selection shape. After the selection region is complete. Let's pick a light brown color. And fill the selection by pressing Shift + Backspace. Clear the selection. At this point, I realized that the background color that I selected earlier has a brightness or value very similar to the base color of the skull. Let's make it even darker. Pick the current background color. Lower the color picker point so it is darker. Make sure we're on the BG layer. And press Shift + Backspace. After you are done, you can lock this layer to protect it from any changes. As we discussed earlier. It's a good idea to separate the shading layer from the base color layer. This is so it will be easier if later we need to make changes or revisions. We want to create a new layer above this layer. Later, we want to use the "alpha inheritance" feature. To make the alpha condition not affected by the background layer, we need to place the shading layer and the base color layer in one group. We have discussed that to create a new group layer, we can press Ctrl + G. But with this method, we have to manually create a paint layer for the shading layer. Let me undo this first. What I want to show you now is a faster method that is by pressing Ctrl + Shift + G. If you forget the shortcut, you can also right-click on the base color layer, “group”, then select the "quick clipping group" command. Now, notice the result. Besides putting the base color layer inside a group, this command also creates a new paint layer that has the "alpha inheritance" option turned on automatically. So, this command can save us some time. Next, we need to change the blending mode of this layer to "multiply". Then rename this layer to "S", a short for "shading". Remember our earlier lessons. The "Multiply" blending mode will make the color below it darker. So, it is suitable for shading or shadow areas. For this group layer, let's just rename it to "skull". 53. Shading with selection: Let's continue with the skull illustration project. Previously we have completed the "sketching", "base coloring", and "layer composition" processes. Now we will focus on the "shading" process. We will see how to use the standard method for shading the skull object globally. Then use shading with the selection technique for more detailed areas. Before we add shading colors, as usual, we need to first determine where the light source is. We can just set the light source at the center up above. But the result might be too boring. Let's make it slightly tilted from the top right. For the first stage of shading, we will use the "blurring" technique. Make sure the brush tool is active. Hold down Ctrl and pick the base color. Press K once to darken the color. Then choose a solid brush preset. Currently, the opacity is at 100%. Let's reduce it to about 20% by pressing the letter "i" on the keyboard. Again, you need to play with your imagination. If the light comes from the top right corner, where the shadow will be in the skull object. Let's just make it like this. I'm speeding up the video for now. After the first application. We can repeat the second time in a darker area. Then repeat again, and so on. Until we are satisfied with the shadow shape. Next, use the "blurring" brush preset. And make strokes to soften all the contrasting lines. Alright. Now, we have a global shading color on our skull drawing. Next, we will add more detailed shading to this skull drawing. For this process, we will be using the selection tool in conjunction with the "airbrush" preset. Let's start from this area. Zoom in a little. We need to select the base color first to create the dark version. Currently, we can still use the color history. But imagine a scenario where you just opened Krita, to continue your drawing session. By that time the color history is clean. There are several techniques to select the color that is on the bottom layer. For now, we will use the manual method, that is we just hide the shading layer first. Then Ctrl + click on the base color. Press K twice for a much darker color. Don't forget to unhide the shading layer again. Use the "airbrush" preset. But for the opacity, lower it down to around 50%. This is so the airbrush effect is not too strong. Activate the "freehand selection tool". You can hold down Ctrl to make it work similar to the "polygonal selection tool". Close the selection. Press B for the brush tool. Make sure that now we use the "airbrush" preset. Then make a few strokes like this. Make sure the right side is darker than the left side. Then clear the selection. As you can see, we have just created a more complex shading with the help of selection. The right side has a sharp border, while the left side looks smooth or sloping. I know that this method is not perfect. Because, if we hide the sketch layer. Notice how the lines formed by the selection look rough. Now, this doesn't matter if that is the style you are after. But if you want the edges to appear smoother, you can use the "smearing" brush that we've prepared in the pop-up palette. Just make some strokes along the edges where you want to smooth it out. Next, if we show the sketch layer again. We can see that in this area there is a line of bone that is useful for holding the jaw together. I don't know what the official name of this bone is. However, we can reduce the strength of the shadow color in this area by making a selection again. Just follow the shape of the bone. Then, reactivate the brush tool. But, for now, we enable the eraser mode by pressing the icon. Or by pressing E on the keyboard. With the airbrush preset working as an eraser, we can reduce the density of the shading in this area. Make the left area lighter than the right. After that, activate the "blurring" preset. And use it on the left edge of this bone. From this example, you can see how a combination of selection tools, airbrush preset, eraser mode, smearing preset, and blurring preset can help you to create different types of shading shapes. Let's move on to the eyebrow area and the eye area. I'm speeding up the video as practically I'm just repeating the same technique. First, we make a selection with the "freehand selection tool". Then we use the airbrush preset again. For the area under the eyebrows, we can make the upper part darker. Then use the "smear" brush preset to soften any shading colors that are too harsh. Then use the "blurring" preset to make the color gradation in this bottom area even smoother. For the eye holes, nostrils, and teeth area. In general, the process is all the same. I'm sure, in sha Allah, you already understand the techniques. Finally, we have finished the shading process. To cut some time from the video, I will do some minor fixes off the record. But there is no new technique involved. In the next lesson, we will cover adding highlights as well as additional details on the skull such as textures, cracks, and so on. 54. Highlights and textures: In this lesson video, we will be adding highlight colors and then adding more details to the skull illustration. For the highlight colors, we will need a new paint layer above the shading layer. Rename this new layer to "h" which stands for "highlight". Activate the "alpha inheritance" option, so that we can draw on this layer without worrying the strokes will bleed out from the "base color" area. Now, unlike the "shading" layer, for the "highlight" layer, we need to set the "blending mode" to "screen". Remember, the "screen" blending mode will brighten the colors underneath. Then, from here, the coloring techniques are similar to how we add the shading colors. The only difference is that we choose lighter colors, not darker colors. For example, we want to add a highlight color above the eyebrows. Create a selection, something like this. Press B for the brush tool. Hold down Ctrl and select the base color. Now, instead of pressing K, we press L to make the color lighter. Then make brush strokes like this. Use the same technique on the eyebrow on the right. Make a selection. Use the brush tool with the "airbrush" preset. And draw some brush strokes. Try to make the center area lighter. We can repeat the process for the top area of the head. Alright. Now we can use the "blurring" brush to refine the color gradation. For the eyebrows area, I prefer the highlight color to look sharp. So for this, I'm just using the "smear" brush preset. Since the rest of the process is technically the same, I'm speeding up the video. There are many ways to add texture details to an image. The simplest way is to create it directly on the "base color" layer. If you choose this approach, make sure you turn on the "alpha lock" of the "base color" layer. For applying textures, Krita provides many types of brush presets that we can use. We haven't put any texture brushes in the pop-up palette. This is because I prefer to only place commonly used brush presets in the pop-up palette. While the texture brushes are very conditional. You may place texture brushes in the pop-up palette if you want. But for now, we will be using the brush preset window to search for texture brushes. Just a side note here. Since this video is still using Krita version 4, you may notice the "brush preset" icon is slightly different. But the function is the same. We can use this brush preset. Or perhaps this one. Then, for the color. You can pick a dark color that is already in the image. Or you may also choose a new color directly in the color picker. For example, we can choose this color for the texture. Reduce the brush opacity to around 30%. And make some light strokes where you want to add the texture. Alright. Before we move on to apply other details. I just realized that the bottom left area is not dark enough. To darken it, make sure we're on the "shading" layer. The advantage of a non-destructive workflow, or using layer composition like this, is that we can make changes to one aspect of the image, without having to break or to recreate other aspects of the image. For example, you can focus only on the shading, without worrying about breaking the "base color" or "highlight colors". Alright, I think this is dark enough. Now, we are going to add cracks to our skull image. Since cracks are relatively small in size, we can create them directly on the "base color" layer without using any additional highlight colors. Use the "freehand selection tool". I used the custom shortcut Z for this. Make the selection area resembling the shape of a crack. After you are done, use the "airbrush" preset. To choose a dark color, you can pick it from the image, or you can also choose from the color picker. Then make some brush strokes like this. Try not to make the colors look too uniform. You can add more cracks if you want. For example, we can add one more in the top area. The process is basically the same as before. Make a selection first. Then add a dark color with the "airbrush" preset. Now, let's add a dent or a scar to this skull object. For this process, I want to show you a slightly different approach. Since a dented area is mostly larger than a crack, we need to show some shadings and highlights on it. Remember our lesson on the light direction. We need to reverse the direction of the lighting to create the illusion of a hole or sunken area on the surface. Let's select the "shading" layer. We want to add some sort of deep scar from here to here. Use the "freehand selection tool", and make the selection region. Next, use the airbrush preset, and add a dark color inside the selection. Remember, we need to make the top area darker than the bottom area. Alright. Next, select the "highlights" layer. In this layer, we want to add a lighter color. You can choose a lighter color via the color history, or the color picker, or just pick an existing one. Then add the color at the bottom area, along the selection region. At first glance, it looks good, but I think the right end and the left end need to be more pronounced. Basically, I'm just repeating the same technique as before. Next, what if we want to remove texture spots in the dented area? Remember the texture spots are on the "base color" layer. So, to erase them, we can hide the "highlight" and the "shading" layers first. Pick the base color in the "base color" layer. We need this color to erase or cover the texture spots. Then, just use the solid brush preset, and make sure the opacity is at 100%. We can unhide the "highlight" and "shading" layers if needed just so we can have a guide. We are still working on the "base color" layer. And just make some strokes until the textures we want to remove are all clear. Our skull illustration is almost complete. I said "almost", because there are still some areas that I want to improve. For this finishing touch process, I'm not using any new techniques. We've discussed everything that we need. So, I'm just speeding up the video to save time. First, I want to fix the skull area on the left side. Then, I added more shadows at the bottom of the left cheekbone. And also the cheekbone on the right. For the eyebrows, I think it still looks too flat. So I added more shadows in the lower area. For eye sockets, the shading also still looks too flat. To give the impression that the bone has some thickness, I added another area around the eye socket. And lastly, I want to soften the shading in the area where the bones meet. Alright. From here, we can still go on fixing the image. Such as smoothing out the shading or adding details, etc. You may keep working on it if you wish. However, since there are no new techniques for us to discuss, I assume that this skull illustration is done. And so, here is the final result. 55. The workflow: Starting from this video and the next few videos, we will be creating an illustration that is more complex than the skull project. We are going to create a tree on a cliff illustration just like this. When compared to the previous skull project, this one has more than one color area. In this video, we will outline the workflow that we will go through to create the illustration. The workflow can be summarized as follows. The first step is to find reference images and place them on the side of the canvas. One of the benefits of reference images is to help us stay focused on what we want to create. The next stage is sketching. We've done this process before. Basically, it is the process where we use a pencil brush preset to draw out the basic ideas onto the canvas. This is the foundation for the subsequent stages. The next stage is to prepare the composition, and that is by creating layers, masks, groups, and so on. Here, we need to determine which object belongs to which composition group. Generally, there are 3 groups of composition, "background", "midground", and "foreground". These 3 parts of the composition are just basic guidance. In practice, people may use fewer or more layers of composition depending on their needs. The next stage is laying down the base color. At this stage, we need to choose the base color palette for each of the objects inside the illustration. The next step is to add "ambient occlusion", or what I often called "local shading". For this type of color shading, we will use a different layer positioned above the base color layer. At this stage, we add subtle shadows that usually appear in corners, crevices, and also at intersections between objects. The next stage is "global shading". For this, you can use the previous "local shading" layer, or you can also create a separate layer. Basically, "global shading" is the term that I use to name a larger type of shading. Usually, this is where I put shadows that are emitted by one object to another object. The next stage is "highlighting". We've created highlight colors before. Basically, we are adding lighter colors to areas that are facing the light source. For the "highlight" color, we need to create a separate layer using the "screen" blending mode. The next process is to add detail or texture. For this stage, you are free to create a new layer, or just use the base color layer. It is at this stage that we can add color variations, textures, scratches, holes, bumps, and so on. So, that is the workflow that we are going to use for our next project, drawing a tree on a cliff. Again, I need to remind you that this is not the only workflow nor the best workflow. It is just a workflow that you can follow and learn from. In the next lesson, we will cover how to place reference images inside Krita. 56. Using reference images: Before we start drawing the illustration. In this lesson video, we will discuss how to use reference images in Krita using a special tool called the "reference images tool". For the illustration project, I have collected several images from the internet. I'm sure you already know how to search and download images from the internet, so I don't think I need to discuss this basic part. More or less, the illustration will look like this photo. But the top area of the cliff will be filled with grass. So, for the cliff top area, it will look more or less like this image. Or perhaps this one. We can see that some grasses are growing inside the cracks of this rocky cliff. As for the tree, I like the look of this bonsai tree. This tree has large roots but is covered by green mosses or small grasses. Though I think the bark of the tree still looks too plain. The tree bark on this bonsai tree looks more interesting. Likewise, the look of the leaves. Then, for the cliff area, I prefer the rock formations in this picture. At this point you may be wondering, don't I have the illustration completed already? Why do I still need these reference images? You need to know that I'm able to display the final image at the beginning because of the video editing process. When I started, I didn't actually see or know what the finished image would be like. Everything was still just in my head. After we have all the images. We can put them as references in Krita using a special tool called the "reference images tool". You can access it by clicking on the icon that looks like a pin. In this condition the tool is active. If you look in the "tool options" panel, you can see some buttons here. To add a reference image just click on this plus button. Select the image you want to import, then click the "open" button. We can see the image is now in the document. You can repeat the process if you need more than one reference image. Click the plus button again. Select the image, then click "open". If you have an image on the clipboard. Meaning that you perform a "copy" command before on an image. You can "paste" and place the image directly as a reference by pressing this button. By default, if we import several reference images on the canvas, they will overlap on top of each other. To fix their locations, make sure the "reference images tool" is active. We can select a certain reference image by clicking on that image. And to move it, just click-drag on it. You will notice that the selected image will display control points around it. These points are useful for "scaling" or resizing the image. Now, notice that, even though what we are click-dragging are the middle points, the image is not distorted. This is because the "keep aspect ratio" option is on by default. I do not recommend that you turn off this option, as that can cause the image to be stretched or squashed. Then, if you want to flip or reverse the image. Just right-click on the image, then choose "transform", and then choose "mirror horizontally". We can use reference images to perform "tracing". Or in other words, we can draw lines by following the reference. Just for example, I can press this plus button again. And select this image, then click open. Position and scale the image as you see fit on the canvas. Now, to keep the reference image from blocking the canvas, you can lower its "opacity" level. Let's say, to 20%. And you can also lower the saturation level to zero percent, if you want to turn the reference image to "grayscale". Next, we can use the brush tool. Pick the brush preset that you want to use. For the "tracing" process, most likely, you will want to use an inking or a pencil brush preset. As you can see. The reference images will be locked from any changes if the "reference images tool" is not active. You can create a new layer if you want. No matter how many layers you have, the reference images will always be displayed above the layers. After that, you can start tracing by drawing brush strokes following the reference image. Now, if you need to hide all reference images, you can open the "view" menu. Then click on the "show reference images" option. There is no default shortcut for this command. If you often work with reference images, you may want to create a "custom shortcut" for this command. To delete a reference image, make sure the "reference images" tool is active. Select the image, then press "Delete" on the keyboard. If you want to delete all the reference images at once, you can press this trash can icon. The next option we need to cover is the "save location". There are 2 modes for this, "embed" and "link". If you use the "Embed" mode, the current reference image data will be saved in the Krita document file or the ".KRA" file. This mode will make the size of the document file bigger. But you can easily and safely move the document files from one to another computer. While the "link" mode is the opposite. Krita will not save the reference image data directly in the document. Only the information that points out to the original image file gets saved. This will make the ".KRA" file size become smaller. But, the drawback is that when we move the Krita file to another computer. All the reference images will be gone unless we bring along the image files also. In general, for convenience, you always want to use the default mode, which is "embed". Unless you have a problem with limited storage space. The last feature we want to cover is storing or saving reference image data externally. Let's say you've imported and organized some reference images in a Krita document. Then, you want to reuse these reference images in other Krita documents. For this, you can press the "export reference images set" button. Krita will save the reference image information into a special file with the extension ".KRF". You can select the folder and also specify a name for the file. Then click "save". Later, to re-import the data, you can press this button. And then just select the ".KRF" file that you previously saved. Going forward, I'll be importing and putting all the reference images for the tree illustration into this Krita document. I'm speeding up the video because technically there is nothing new for us to discuss. You need to remember that I used Krita version 4 when creating this tree illustration. So the UI display will be slightly different. But functionally it's still the same as version 5. And this is the result so far. In the next lesson, we will start sketching for the tree illustration. 57. Sketching: In this lesson video, we will start sketching the tree on a cliff illustration project. In the previous lesson, we already added some reference images to this document. We can see them if we zoom out or pan the canvas. For this project, we want limit the drawing to a circle area. Why? Well, to be honest, so that it doesn't take too long to complete. We will focus on the workflow and the techniques. There's no point in making the image too big, as that will only make us repeat the same techniques over and over again. If you master the techniques for a smaller image, you will be able to apply them also for a bigger one. To create the circle, we can use a new layer. Rename the layer to "frame". Next, select the "Elliptical selection tool". Click-drag while holding the Shift key, to make a perfect circle. If you get to the end of the canvas, but the circle is not centered. You can hold down the Alt key and drag the selection to reposition it. We haven't discussed alignment and transformation in-depth yet. In sha Allah, we will discuss that in the intermediate level of this course. For now, it is okay if the circle is not exactly at the center. We want to create a frame with the circle. Meaning that the inner area should be void or empty, while the outer area should be filled with a color. Basically, we need to invert the selection. We can do this by pressing Ctrl + Shift + i. Now the outer area is selected, while the inner area is not. Let's choose a dark gray color. Then press Shift + Backspace to fill the selection area with the gray color. Now, we have some kind of circular window or frame where we can focus our illustration inside. If you are done, clear the selection. To save the frame layer from any changes, we can lock the layer. Next, we want to draw a rough or initial sketch on layer 2. For this, we can use the pencil brush. For a rough sketch color, we use blue. In this area, we want to draw the tree. Then around this central area, we want to draw the top side of the grassy cliff. And finally, at the bottom, we want to draw the rocky side of the cliff. Let's start drawing the sketch. This will be the canopy of the tree or its leaves. These will be the trunk and branches of the tree. And this will be the soil or the grass. Here, we want to create a steep rocky cliff. At this point, I'm thinking that the ground should be lower. To fix the sketch we can use the "eraser" brush. I think by lowering the ground line, we will have more space for the tree object. Let's add more details. We can start from the tree first. We want to draw a tree almost similar to the bonsai tree in the reference photo. But we are not trying to create a realistic illustration style. We just want to create a stylized tree drawing. For the shape of the tree, I'm thinking of adding a zigzagging motion to the trunk. That is why I mostly use straight lines that change direction sharply. I hope that this will give the tree a unique characteristic. I'm speeding up the video for now. This is the left side branch. For the bark details, I want to add some kind of line pattern just like the reference photo. But I want to make them seem twisted. Again, the goal is to give the tree a unique characteristic. I'm adding the trunk eye here. Just try to make the shape polygonal and put a swirl pattern in the middle. We also want the roots to have a bark line pattern that is twisted. Now I can proceed to the grass area. For the rock side of the cliff, I'm trying to copy the pattern from the reference photo below. The last one is the leaves of the tree. After the first stage of the sketch is complete, we can continue by creating a new paint layer above the previous sketch layer. Basically, on this new layer, we are going to draw a tidier sketch using black color. To set the foreground color to black, you can just press D on the keyboard. As you can see, the foreground color is now black. Let's start tracing and perfecting the previous blue sketch. I’m just speeding up the video for now. For this final sketch, you can make it as detailed as possible. You can even add pencil shading on it if you want to. That totally depends on the visual style you want to pursue. If you do that, later, you can overlay the final sketch above the finished drawing. Many artists like to do this because it can deliver a stronger artistic impression to the final result. Alright. So this is the final result of the sketch process. I have to skip some of the videos. Because honestly, I made some mistakes there which I don't think will give you any benefit if you watch them. And also it would take too long to watch them. Apart from that, I also made some changes off the record. As you can see, I lowered the end of this middle branch a bit. Then the end of the right branch is also the same. I moved this down and slid it to the left a bit. Then I also fixed some details on the left branch. To make our document tidier, we can rename this old blue sketch layer to "sketch rough". Then rename the last black sketch layer to "sketch final". In the next lesson, we will set up the layer composition and then start adding the base colors. 58. Layer composition and base colors: In this lesson video, we are going to sort the layers and then add the base colors to our tree illustration. First, let's divide the illustration into several main group layers, based on the number of their composition layers. Our illustration actually only has 2 composition layers. The first is the "background". In our case, it is only the sky. The second is the "midground", which is where the trees and hills are located. We're not going to draw anything in front or in the "foreground". So basically, we only need to create 2 main group layers. Let's create the first "group layer". Change the name to "MG" which stands for "midground". And let's create the next "group layer". Then rename it to "BG" which stands for "background". Next, we need to move "layer 1" into the "BG" group layer. We can move it by click-dragging, or simply press this up arrow button. And let's rename this layer to "B" which stands for "base color". Now, let's focus on the "midground" group layer where the tree and cliff elements are. For this composition layer, you can just make each area of the base color a separate group layer. So the cliff will become a sub-group layer, the grass will become a sub-group layer, and the tree trunks and branches will become a sub-group layer. And finally, the leaves will become yet another sub-group layer. In the end, we will have 4 subgroups independent of each other. But if we follow this strategy, we will have too many layers to manage. There are many other solutions that we can take. We can just make all of them in one layer, for example. But for now, we're going to split the base colors into 2 sub-group layers. One for the grass and leaves. Then the other one is for the tree trunks and the rocky cliff. Essentially, what I'm trying to do is to avoid having areas of different colors touching each other directly within the same layer. As this will make it harder when later we need to select each of them individually. So for now, if there is a gap between the 2 areas, then we can put both on the same group layer. So, again, inside the "midground" group layer we should have 2 sub-group layers. For this one, we can rename it “grass and leaves”. Create another group layer. Make sure this group is at the same level as the previous "grass and leaves" group. We can just press the up arrow button. And then rename this layer to “bark and cliff”. After we prepare the group layers. To start coloring, we need to add a new paint layer inside the group layers. Select the “grass and leaves” group, and create a new paint layer inside it. Rename the layer to "B" which stands for "base color". Here we will put the base colors for the grass and leaves. Let's just do that now. Use the selection tool. And create a selection region by following the final sketch image. Since this grass group will be below the tree trunk and cliff group, we can safely create areas of color just below the tree trunk or cliff areas. Choose a color for the grass. I want to choose a green color that is slightly yellow. A side note for choosing a base color. Try to avoid colors that are too contrasting. That is too close to black or white. And also avoid colors that are too strong in saturation. The reason is that colors that are too contrasting or too saturated will be more difficult if later we need to adjust them again. Yes, we can still adjust them but will require more steps. So try to use a color that is more neutral or more towards the center. To fill the selection with the active foreground color, we can press Shift + Backspace. Now, if nothing happens, or, Krita deletes the selection area instead. This usually happens because the eraser mode of the brush is active, or we are using an erase brush preset. I don't know if this is considered a bug or not. But this condition has existed in Krita for a long time. I've asked the Krita developers several times to change this weird behavior. But it seems my input is being ignored. The point is, if this ever happens to you. Just make sure the "eraser mode" is off, or use a non-eraser brush preset. In Krita version 4 we need to use the brush tool first to turn it off. But since version 5 and above, you can press E to turn the "eraser mode" on and off, even if you're currently using the selection tool. Now that the "eraser mode" is off, we can fill the selection area by pressing Shift + Backspace as usual. Next for the leaves, let's choose a slightly different shade of green. Then we need to create the selection region. Now we can fill the selection area with the green color. I'm speeding up the video now because there's no new technique for us to cover. After the colors of the grass and leaves are complete. Next, we are going to add the base colors for the “bark and cliff” group layer. Create a new layer. Rename it to "B" also. As the group name implies, we are going to add colors for the rock area as well as the trunk and branches. The rest of the process is similar to before, so I'll just speed up the video. Now, we have the base color for the "midground" group layer. Just to conclude, we currently have a "frame" layer on top. Then we have one visible final sketch layer. And one layer of a rough sketch that is hidden. Then, we have 2 main group layers, namely "midground" and "background". The "background" currently still contains a plain white color. Before we add color to the "background", let's first organize the sketch layers. You can delete the rough sketch layer if you want, as we don't need it anymore. But, in my case, I want to keep all the sketch layers in this document. Just in case you want to see the two sketches when later downloading the file. So for me, I select these two layers. Then press Ctrl + G to wrap them into a group layer. Rename the group layer to "sketch". Now, we are going to add the sky color. Since it is a background element, we need to create it in the "background" group layer. Choose a cyan or light blue color that is quite bright. Then press Shift + Backspace. Then choose a lighter color. Use the airbrush preset and let's make the brush size bigger. Draw some brush strokes in the top area. Next, let's choose a darker color. And make a few more strokes in the bottom area. I think the color is now getting too dark. We can choose a brighter color and add a few strokes to give the impression that there is fog in the area. Alright. I think this is already looks good. In the next lesson, we will start adding the shading colors. 59. Local shading: Let's continue with the illustration project. This is what we have so far. Going forward, we don't really need the reference images anymore. As we discussed earlier, to hide the reference images, we can go to the "view" menu. Then turn off the "show reference images" option here. However, because you can download the file from the previous lesson that still contains the reference images. For this file, I will delete all the reference images. This is so that the Krita file size is smaller. To do that, we can activate the "reference images tool". Then click on this button that says "all". In Krita version 5 and above, the icon has a trash can symbol. Now, all reference images have been deleted. Next, we need to reduce the opacity of the sketch layer, so that it doesn't get in the way too much when we apply the shading colors. Select the sketch group layer. Right-click here. Type 20, and Enter. As we can see, now the sketch is more transparent though we can still see it. Before we get into painting, let's first discuss the basic concept of "local shading" or what is commonly referred to as AO or "ambient occlusion" in the computer graphics world. So what exactly is "ambient occlusion"? Basically, it is a type of shadow that is very subtle that usually appears on narrow crevices, corners, or in areas where objects intersect. You can see them clearly when the sky is cloudy. Or in other words, when the lights are coming from all over the place uniformly. This type of lighting is known as "ambient lighting". When this type of light illuminates an object. The corners, crevices, and or holes on the object cannot be reached by this light perfectly. That's why we can see shadows in those areas. And that is also why this type of shadow is called "ambient occlusion". Because, in essence, it happens when the "ambient light" gets blocked or "occluded". Personally, I just use the term "local shading" for "ambient occlusion", to make it easier to pronounce. Simply put, in the "local shading" stage we are going to add small and subtle shadows to the illustration. Let's start adding local shading to the trunk and branches. For this, we need a new paint layer above the base color layer, inside the "bark and cliff" group layer. Rename the layer to "L", which stands for "local shading". Activate the "alpha inheritance" option so that all our brush strokes on this layer are not visible beyond the base color layer area. And, since this is for the shadow color, we need to change its "blending mode" to "multiply". Activate the selection tool. We want to create a shadow here because this area is the intersection where the trunk and the root meet. Create a selection like this. We also need to include the area below, as this is also a contact area where we should see soft shadows. Press B to switch to the brush tool. Make sure we use the "airbrush" brush preset. To reduce the strength, I set the opacity value to 50 percent. Then press "D" to use black color. Now, for the shadow color, it is actually better to use the same "Hue" value that matches the base color, just as we did in the previous skull project. But, to save time, I'll just use black for all the "local shading" colors. Because we're using a separate layer, you can freely change the shading color later, if you want to. It will not break the other elements of our image composition. Make a brush stroke like this. Add more strokes so that the corners or the borders are darker. Clear the selection. Then, you can use the "smear brush" preset or the "blur brush" preset to smooth out the color. I'm using the "blur brush" for now. Next, we want to focus on the line of this bark. Imagine if the light is coming from above slightly to the right. Where would the shadow be if this line is assumed to be going into the surface? We can create a selection like this. And then make the brush strokes. Sorry, I should use the "airbrush" preset, not the "blur" brush. Alright. Basically, we need to repeat this technique for the rest of the bark lines. Let me show you another example. I think this bark line is more challenging than the previous one. You can see in this area that the selection direction is different from the one above. Use the "airbrush" preset again. Then use the "smear" brush to smooth out the shadows. Okay. For the rest, the process is technically the same, so I'm speeding up the video. Of all the stages of making this illustration, this stage is perhaps the most time-consuming of all. Personally, I enjoyed the whole process of creating this illustration. For your information, it took me about 25 minutes to complete the "local shading" process on the tree trunk area. Next, we can move on to the rocks on the side of the cliff. Basically, the whole process is also the same as before. First, we need to imagine where the shadow will fall based on the direction of the light source. Create a selection, then add the shading color with the "airbrush" preset. Then use the "blur" or the "smear" brush to refine the shadow color further. For your information, it took me about 10 minutes in the real world to draw the "local shading" on this rocky area. Finally, we can continue to add local shading colors to the grass and leaves areas. Technically it is still the same as before. There's nothing new for us to discuss. So, I'm speeding up the video in this section also. The "local shading" process for the grass and leaves areas took about 9 minutes in total. Alright. So, this is the state of our illustration project so far. In the next video, we will add the "global shading" colors. 60. Global shading: In this lesson video, we are going to add "global shading" to the illustration. "Global shading" is a term that I use for large shadows that affect more than one area of the base color. And also the type of shadow that is emitted by an object to another object. For "global shading", you can create it directly on the "local shading" layer, that is if the existing image composition is not too complex. But if the image is already complex enough, it's better to separate it into its own layer so you have more flexibility in case you need to revise it later. Such as, if you want to subtract, add, or change the shadow color to be different from the "local shading" color. Let's create a new "paint layer" above the "local shading" layer. And rename it to "S" for "shading". Just like with the "local shading", we need to enable the "alpha inheritance" option. And change the "blending mode" to "multiply". Then, we need to add a shading layer as well inside the "bark and cliff" group layer. Also, enable "alpha inheritance". And change the "blending mode" to "multiply". Alright. Now, we can start by creating a big shadow in the tree trunk area. Make sure the shading layer is selected. Use the "airbrush" preset. If the leaves cover the light, the area at the top the tree trunk will look darker. For the rest, just remember that the light source is on the top right. So in general the dark shadow should be at the bottom left of the tree trunk or the branches. For the cliff, grass, and leaves areas, the process is basically the same. So I just speed up the video. Don't forget to use the correct layer that matches the area you want to add shadow. After the first step of "global shading", next, we want to add cast or emitted shadows to our illustration. For this type of shadow, you are also free to create a dedicated layer or use one of the existing shading layers. For now, we'll just use the existing shading layer. We can start with the tree trunk first. Use the "freehand selection tool", and try to make a shape that looks like a silhouette of leaves falling on the tree trunk. Just imagine the sunlight coming from the top right hits the tree trunk but is partially blocked by the leaves. Until the center area where the sunlight cannot directly touch the trunk anymore. I'm trying to follow the contour of the tree volume. For this process, you really need to play with your imagination. Next, use the airbrush preset. Let's make the brush size bigger. Then draw brush strokes like this. Now, let's zoom in, and use the "smear brush" to smooth out the sharp edges of the shadow. For the leaves area, I already like the sharp edges of the shadow. Alright. For the next process, basically, we just need to repeat the same techniques. Create the shape of the shadow using the selection tool. Then add the shadow color using the "airbrush" preset. Then we refine it further with the "smear" or "blur" brush presets. Now, to create a shadow that falls on the grass area is indeed more challenging. Because we have to make grass blades shape with the "selection tool". The shadows in the leaves area are also the same, we need to make a selection following the shape of the leaves. Although it looks difficult, for me, this is where the fun or excitement of making illustrations lies. We can use the "smear brush" for the final touch. And here is the illustration so far. In the next video, we will add textures and other details. 61. Details and textures: In this video, we will continue and finalize our illustration of a tree on a cliff. We are going to add details, color variations, and finally texture to the illustration. Before we continue, I want to talk about the "highlighting" process. In the previous projects, which was the ax and skull illustration, we created a special layer for the "highlight" colors. Usually, I only add "highlights" on glossy surfaces. Such as wet or oily surfaces, metal, glass, and so on. Other than that, sometimes I add "highlights" on regular surfaces if I want to exaggerate the glossy effects. For this tree illustration, I don't want it to look too glossy or too shiny, so I prefer to skip the "highlighting" process. But if you do want to add "highlights" to this tree illustration, feel free to do so. The process is essentially the same as before. That is, you need to create a new layer above the "shading" layer. Change the name to "H" which stands for "highlights". Enable "alpha inheritance". And change the "blending mode" to "screen". Remember, for "highlights" we use "screen", not "multiply". Then for the coloring process, it is technically the same as the shading process. We need to create a selection first. Then use the "airbrush" preset. We can hold down Ctrl and click to pick the base color. Then press L once or twice to offset the color to a lighter version. Then, you can press the letter "i" several times to lower the opacity to around 50%. Make as many brush strokes as you need on the area that you want. Just make sure it is the area facing the light source. Then use the "smear" or "blur" brush to refine it further. As you can see, the process is basically the same as before. And again, personally, I don't want or need any "highlight" colors in the tree illustration. So, I’m deleting this layer. Previously we added details directly to the base color layer. Now, I want to explore a different method, and that is making use of a separate layer. So, in the “bark and cliff” group layer, we can create a new layer above the “b” or base color layer. Rename the layer to “D” which stands for “details”. Turn on the "alpha inheritance" option. Then for the "blending mode", we only need the default or the "normal" mode. So, there's nothing we need to change. Now, suppose we want to add moss to the roots of the tree. We can choose a color from the "color history" if the color is still available. But if you just start Krita, you can sample the color from the base color layer. Hide these 2 layers first to reveal the base color. Then hold down Ctrl and click to pick the color. Then, we can unhide these layers again. To create the moss, there are 2 approaches that you can take, depending on the style you want to after. The first method is to use a selection, while the second method is to directly use a "stamp" brush or texture brush. Let's try the first method. Essentially, this method is similar to the previous shading technique. So, first, we must create a selection. Then use the airbrush preset, and so on. I'm pretty sure you already understand this. Alright. Now, let's look at the second method or approach. We have used this method also in the earlier rock and grass project. Basically, we need to find a brush preset that looks like moss. Let's try this brush preset. And make some strokes on the canvas. From the initial stroke, I learned that this brush preset uses pen pressure to control the brush size. So, if we press the pen hard, then the size becomes bigger. But if we lightly press the pen, the size becomes smaller. I just speed up the video, so it does not get too boring. You can see that I also added moss to the rocky cliff area. Next, I use the same detail layer to add cracks to the rock. The process is exactly the same as how we added cracks in the previous skull project. So I don't think I need to explain it again in detail. Next, we want to add color variations to the grass as well as the leaves. As before, we need to create a new paint layer above the "base color" layer. Rename the layer to "D" from the word "details". Enable "alpha inheritance". And just leave the "blending mode" at "normal". Let's say we want to add shades of yellow to some areas of the grass. Choose the yellow color. Then, for this, you can directly use the "airbrush", like so. Or, you can also use the "selection tool" first, if you need to define or limit the area. I intentionally create random shapes so that the color variations look more natural and don't look too uniform. Then we can use the "airbrush" to add the color. Next, we can also use the "smear" or the "blur" brush to refine it further. Until we are happy with the result. At this point, I'm thinking of adding another variation of green that is more towards Cyan. I also added some color variations to the leaves on the tree. The last type of detail we want to add is texture. For this process, we can create a separate layer. But I want to take advantage of the existing detail layers. We'll cover a lot of "texturing" techniques in the "intermediate" level of this course. For now, we're going to use a "stamp" brush preset to add the texture effect. For example, to add texture to the grass, we can use this brush preset, or it can be this one. Let's try this one first. Zoom in a bit, then pick a color from this point. I think this color is too strong. We can lower the opacity a bit by pressing the letter "i" on the keyboard. Let's try 30% first. I think this value is strong enough. You can also make color variations in this texturing stage. For the leaves area, of course, we need a brush preset that looks similar to a leaf or leaves. I think this one is perfect for our tree. Choose a darker green color. I'm using a fairly low opacity value of around 10%. Then add some brush strokes. You can change the color or the opacity setting of the brush as needed. For the color of the leaves, basically, we want the leaves that are facing the light source to have lighter colors. Next, to add texture to the rocky cliff area, make sure we choose the right layer, that is the "d" layer in the "bark and cliff" group layer. Then look for a brush preset that has a rock texture. I think this one will do the job. Choose a dark gray color. I think this is too strong. Let's try reducing the opacity to 30%. And draw more strokes to add the rock texture. For the trunk and branch areas, you can also add texture if you want to. But, in my opinion, currently, it is already too crowded with all the bark lines. For the trunk and branches, I don't want to add any more texture. So, we can assume that the illustration is now completed. And here is the end result. 62. Workflow flexibility: In this lesson video, I want to discuss the benefits of a non-destructive workflow for illustration or digital painting. And I think the best way to explain them is just to show you some practical examples that commonly occur in the real world. One of the advantages of a non-destructive workflow is that it is easy to change all or some of the base colors. For example, suppose we want to create a winter version of our tree illustration. In this case, you can change the color directly on the "base color" layer, or you can create a new layer above it. For now, let's just use the existing "base color" layer. Let's pick a color for the snow. Make it closer to white. Now, if we just press Shift + Backspace, this will completely replace the existing color and also the alpha channel condition. This is not what we want. We want to preserve the alpha condition. So first, we have to enable the "alpha lock" option. As we already know, this option will lock the alpha channel or the transparency condition of the layer. So, if we draw some brush strokes, like this. The new color can only be applied to the alpha areas that already existed. To quickly fill in the color, we can press Shift + Backspace. Because now the "alpha lock" is active, the fill color command is also constrained by the alpha condition of the layer. Next, I want to revise the color of the bottom part of the leaves. Usually, the snow only accumulate at the top part of the object, not at the bottom. Let's choose a dark blue color that is slightly towards green. Then just make some brush strokes like this. Notice that you can still see the greenish tone here. This is because of the green color we used before on the detail layer, which is above the "base color" layer. In our case, this condition is exactly what we need. Next, we want to change the color of the tree trunk to make it less saturated. The goal is to make the colors better match the winter environment. The next example is that we can add additional details to the illustration without having to recreate the shading. Let's say we want to add some more snowflakes around the tree area. For this, we can use the recoloring technique as before, by only relying on the existing "base color" layer. Just an example. We can re-select the previous snow color from the "color history". Then use the "airbrush" preset to add the color. Again, this is similar to the previous technique. What we want to cover now is adding detail to the illustration by creating a new layer. Why do we need to do this? Because, if you notice. The tree has the bark line details drawn on the "local shading" layer, which is located above the "base color" layer. If we want to draw snow covering the wood area, of course, we need to create it on top of the "local shading" layer. But we still want the new layer to be below the "global shading" layer. This is so that the layer still receives the global shading effects. Let's just name this layer "snow". Enable “alpha inheritance”, and just leave the “blending mode” at “normal”. Next, we use the "airbrush" preset and make brush strokes to add the snow. You can also use the "stamp" brush preset. Try to find a preset that looks like mud or snow. For example this one. Then make some brush strokes on the canvas, in the "snow" layer. From this example, you can see how easy it is to add additional details to our illustration. With this, you can create many variations from a single image with minimal effort. This is the final result of the recoloring process and also the additional snow details. The third example is adding a backlighting effect to our illustration. Let's say we have an additional light source on the left side of the tree. Ideally, you should draw and display the light source on the canvas. But to save time, I'm skipping that process. For now, just imagine that on the left side of the picture there is a bonfire. Maybe there are people camping in that area. That bonfire will be our light source for the "backlighting" effect. Previously, we created a "backlighting" effect in our ax illustration project. Essentially, "backlight" is a type of lighting that we intentionally place in dark areas of an object. The goal is to keep the shape or silhouette of the object from the darkness of the shadow color. And also, "backlighting" is useful for adding a certain "mood" to the image composition. It can make the image look more interesting. To create a "backlight" effect, because it is basically a light color, just like the "highlights". We need to use the "screen" blending mode. Now, if you previously already created a layer for highlights, you can just use that layer. However, I usually separate the "highlight" color from the "backlight" color. I usually create a dedicated layer that I call "V", which stands for "visual effects". I put all kinds of lighting effects in this layer, including the "backlight". Enable the "alpha inheritance". And then change the "blending mode" to screen. Next, choose a strong orange color. Then just add the color using the "airbrush" preset. You can do this directly. Or, to have more control over the area, you can create a selection first before applying the brush strokes. I'm speeding up the video. At this stage, I'm sure, in sha Allah, you already understand all the techniques I'm using here. The next example is adding "rim lights". So, what are "rim lights"? Basically "rim lights" are almost the same as "backlights". Both are used to strengthen the outline or the silhouette of an object. It's just that the position of the "rim lights" is more flexible. They are not tied to the lighting condition. At this point, you may be wondering. If we add "rim lights" freely to wherever we want, won't this cause the image to look "fake"? The answer is yes it will. Especially if we overdo it. If you are not trying to achieve a realistic style, this won't be a problem. However, if you still want to give your drawing a sense of realism, it's best not to add too much of it. The process of adding "rim lights" is basically the same as adding the "backlight". We can use a separate layer called "V". And for the rest, it is just business as usual. Alright. We have finally finished adding the "backlights" as well as the "rim lights" to the tree illustration. This is the previous condition, and this is the after condition. The last example we want to discuss is "overlaying" the sketch drawing on top of the final illustration. If you remember, we reduced the opacity of the "sketch" group layer to 20%. This is what causes the lines in the sketch layer to appear very subtle to almost invisible. Now, you can adjust the opacity value as needed or according to the style you want to have. If you lower this down to zero. We get a very clean illustration style. On the other hand, if you push the value all the way to 100%. You will get a sketchy illustration style. Personally, I prefer a clean style that doesn't have any sketch lines at all. But this is just a matter of taste, not about right or wrong. For now, I'm setting the opacity value to 50%. Or, perhaps 40%. I think this looks better. So here is the final result after we add the "lighting" effect and make the sketch lines more prominent. In total, we already created 2 variations from a single original illustration. From these examples, you can see the benefits of having a non-destructive workflow. I know that in some cases, this workflow can be overkill. But in many other scenarios, this can save you tons of time. Especially if you need to make lots of variations from a single artwork quickly. 63. Next step: Alhamdulillah. Congratulations. You have completed the basic-level course. You have learned a lot about Krita from this course. But we only covered about 30% of the entire Krita's features in making illustrations or digital paintings. If you are ready to continue your journey in mastering Krita even further, you can join the intermediate-level course. I hope you find these courses helpful and can bring positive impacts in your life. Thank you for supporting my work. Wassalamu’alaikum.