2020 was the first time in a very long time I’d put serious study into my art
since college. I have three main resources I used during that pandemic time:
Hopefully once May 2022 rolls around I’ll be even better and faster.
Krita 4.4.3 was released recently, and the Android version
fixed the biggest show-stopper for me to be able to use it: customizations to
the app configuration are now restored on startup, so you can rearrange and
modify settings and they are preserved between app uses.
This means I was able to set up Krita so I could minimize the time needed to
go into the main menu, and not need to use my Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+’s keyboard,
while supporting a workflow similar to the one I came up with for
Clip Studio Paint:
- The addition of Clear and Deselect to the top bar lets me use
Lasso Select for manipulation and erasing much faster.
- Adding Show Dockers lets me hide most of the UI without having to go
into full-blown Full Screen mode.
- I added Mirror View to the toolbar as well so I can quickly flip the canvas
to check my drawings for errors.
- I moved Tool Options to the navigation and out of a docker since I
don’t use it too often. Mainly for Reference Art.
- I moved the Toolbox docker to the top of the screen so all the tools
are laid out in a row. Having them in the side docker meant I had to scroll
up and down a bunch in the docker to find things.
- Everything else on the screen covers my usual CSP workflow.
There are a few things that are missing
- I want to be able to lock transforms to aspect ratio as a tool option to
Transform. Without a keyboard, it’s not locked at all so you have to
be precise when manipulating selections.
- There’s no right-click support on the canvas at all, even with a keyboard
or with a Bluetooth mouse, so vector operations are more difficult.
I went back to drawing balloons by hand like I did in the
Autodesk Sketchbook days of
The Industrious Rabbit.
- More robust balloon handling in general would be great. I don’t care
as much abuot text handling on Android since dealing with fonts is
a total mess.
- I don’t seem to be able to save tags on brushes to be able to group them.
I’ll have to experiment with this more.
I plan on doing all the art for the next The Industrious Rabbit post in
Krita to give it a real good workout. So far, so good!
I had started down the road of redoing the covers of the games
I featured in my recent The Industrious Rabbit post about
Nintendo Entertainment System Memory Management Controllers,
The NES: Cartridge Constraints,
but decided to switch instead to the memory magician acting out the game using balloon props instead.
I did manage to finish one that came out pretty great, and it’s a rework
of the cover of the game Arkista’s Ring. Enjoy!
These are some characters built for a Root RPG campaign that I’ve been
running for quite a while. I’m sure that I’ve referred to their existence while
playing actual board games of Root. This post is for the
Root Fan Art
contest, and this is just a small sample of the art I’ve built over the past year.
These pieces just happen to be the best. Hashtag RootFanArt. Enjoy!


