More drawing on Tumbler

Tuesday, January 4, 2023 · Permalink

Declan came into my office while I was trying Krita on Tumbler, and I handed him the stylus. He had to keep pushing hard on the screen, confirming to me that, yeah, it really needs a harder pressure than one would intuitively think. I drew a dinosaur and he colored it.

And then he asked to have it printed.

I thought about using my old Wacom Graphire3 graphics tablet, but it kinda defeats the purpose, right? It’s got a Wacom graphics tablet built-in already! Anyway, it will never compete and it’s unrealistic to expect Tumbler to match my professional-level (albeit old) Wacom Intuos3.

So, this is what I have and, if I get used to drawing on it, I could potentially have a separate device for drawing Journal Comics, with its own workflow.

So Tumbler will become something more than a Music Computer. Pretty cool.

Drawing on Tumbler

Monday, January 4, 2023 · Permalink

More Tumbler. Copied over my Neovim and Krita configuration. I still have pending to setup a Git repository for my dot files.

Anyway, Krita works. And I persevered on drawing and trying other tablet modes. While, yes, the X200 Tablet’s pressure levels are terrible (you have to push hard in order to register strokes), I think it’s usable with my fixed-width art style. And, yeah, handwriting is far better and legible when writing directly on the screen.

Two things I didn’t consider:

One, the screen is now closer to my eyes, which means I need to use my glasses. I tried in a second session without glasses and it was acceptable. No issues with that. I use my smartphone without glasses mostly anyway.

Second, the ergonomics of drawing on the screen and trying to use the keyboard at the same time is uncomfortable. I tried transforming to tablet mode and relying on the on-screen controls. Everything’s doable albeit a lot slower. Tapping with the stylus on the Undo button, or having to pick the Pan or Eyedropper tool is a lot slower and cumbersome than hitting hotkeys. But, it’s usable. I just have to be more patient.

So, for lazy, hobby drawings, it’s OK; but definitely not for professional, paid work.

Krita 5

Monday, January 3, 2022 · Permalink

En Diciembre salió Krita 5, el programa de dibujo que uso ahora (antes usaba CLIP Studio Paint con Wine).

Dos cosas que esperaba con ansias:

  1. El nuevo manejo de pinceles, el anterior tenía demasiados bugs y ahora, finalmente, administrar los pinceles ya no son un problema.
  2. ¡El grabador de video! CLIP Studio Paint tenía esta característica para grabar un timelapse del proceso de dibujo. Aún no he probado el de Krita, pero genial que no necesitaré un programa externo para grabar la pantalla.

Probando Krita nuevamente

Thursday, November 4, 2020 · Permalink

CLIP Studio Paint 1.10 dejó de funcionar con WINE en Linux, justo cuando agregaron soporte para SVG (¡buah!). Como ahora el futuro de CSP en Linux me es incierto, estoy volviendo a probar Krita (más seriamente que antes) para determinar si es una alternativa viable.

Muchas cosas que me funcionaban a medias con CSP ahora funcionan: copiar y pegar del clipboard (usaba un script para convertir de PNG a BMP y viceversa), la punta secundaria del lápiz de la tableta Wacom, un inicio más rápido (no hay WINE qué levantar), entre otros. Krita tiene bastantes características interesantes que no tiene CSP, pero también tiene varios bugs y en general todavía le falta pulir muchos detalles básicos. Lo peor de todo es que más de una vez he tenido crashes, lo cual es inaceptable.

Como la mejor forma de aprender algo es aplicándolo en un proyecto real, “calqué” y pinté este dibujo del manual de instrucciones de un modelo a escala del VF-1 de Revell, que mi hermano y yo tuvimos de chicos.