Krita 3.0 Development Builds

I never like or rather decently use Krita 2.9. For some reasons Krita 2.9 doesn't run very well on my system. So I stay with Krita 2.8 and hold my hope high for the next Krita, the 3.0. Which is still in development.

The latest Krita hit Beta stage few days earlier and now the development build is ready to be tested.

I test it and what I found it is faster than 2.9 and  that alone is music to my ear and pencil to my fingers.

The only bug I found so far is browsing in reference image docker hung Krita. But that was a one time only, I couldn't reproduce it.

The best thing about this is you can try it without interfering your stable Krita installation and no installation necessary. Just download Krita and run it.

Here's some Krita 3.0 Beta screenshots:

How To Protect Your Drawing Tablet

I am a little obsessed with protecting my gadgets, they're not cheap and I can't afford to buy them again and again.

My drawing tablet gear is no exception.

Wear and tear from daily use is no doubt will leave scratches, if you are like me then you want to keep its mint-ness  preserved.

Just use screen guard, like the one used in handphones and tablets. Find the size that suits your drawing tablet, I think a little bigger than the drawing area is better, that way your digital pen won't bump into a slightly elevated borders.

I put 10" screen guard over my 6" x 8" drawing area and then I can sleep well . 

Gpick | Make Your Own Color Palette From An Image

What if you found a great color combination in the wild? In a photograph? And you want to incorporate that in your painting? First thing first, capture it and then...

Meet Gpick, an advanced color picker. It is not just a color picker, it is also a color palette editor and creator. One of the feature is a tool to make a color palette out of an image. So all you have to do is take photos and let Gpick turns those great color combination into a color palette.

Install Gpick (of course) from Linux Mint/Ubuntu Software Manager. Open Gpick and go to Tools -> Palette From Image. There is a 100 colors limit per image though.

Here's an example. I want to get a color palette from this picture.

WIP - Let's go scavenging, R2, BB! #starwars #fanart #r2d2 #bb8 #rey #jedi #desert #jedi #droid #digitalart #digitalillustration

A photo posted by @pakepensil on Apr 8, 2016 at 3:52am PDT

With Gpick tool, I process and save it as color palette.

And then open the newly created in MyPaint Palette Editor.

Easy and convenient right?

Just remember, capturing colors from real world is not accurate since it depends on your camera sensor quality but still it is a a great leap from guessing.

Skin And Body Color Palette for GIMP, MyPaint

I am in the middle of a project and that is painting the skin of a character, choosing from the default color palette is a trial and error process,  it's a learning process in itself but for me the time is better spent in sketching and drawing.

Luckily there is a shortcut, a ready to use skin and body color palette. The links are below.

Skin and body color palette with description

The colors it still a base

Link :

- Flesh tone, skin color palette from inkscape. Copy the code and save it as .gpl file. After that you can import it from color palette editor (wrench icon in color palette docker) -> add.

- Skin Palette for MyPaint V2 by MeryAlisonThompson, this one comes in image file you use it with color picker tool in MyPaint to use it. Or you can install Gpick and turn it to color palette with Palette From Image tool".

A Girl And Her Guardian

Yet another work in progress with MyPaint.
This one is about a scared girl and her companion, her trusty Husky.

WiP red haired girl and her trusty husky #digitalillustration #fantasy #adventure #girl #husky #digitalart #instaart #MyPaintApp

A photo posted by @pakepensil on Apr 5, 2016 at 11:50pm PDT

I depict Husky as a guard dog, which is not. So don't get a Husky to be your guard dog because of this painting :)

Get it on 15x15/30x30 (cm) canvas.

The Resource Gatherer

Here is one of my painting with MyPaint, still work in progress. 

WIP 3 | The Warrior Next BG #digitalpainting #art #girl #catsuit #beast #rider #fantasy #scifi #girl @charmingfantasyworld @__fantasy_art_

A photo posted by @pakepensil on Apr 1, 2016 at 9:56am PDT

The main idea is a female warrior/resource gatherer in an alternate universe where bio-engineering is so advanced that you can control any living thing instead of pollution maker big machinery. But no matter what technology route taken, the world is always at war for resources.

And the plan is to show that in the background.

Up to this stage with layers and everything, it already has a whooping 250 MB in file size, this is getting too big for my laptop to handle. I will have no choice but to downsize the DPI or I would not finish this.

Or I could upgrade my PC, which is always a tempting yet pricey option.

Available in 15 x 15 and 30 x 30 (cm) canvas. 

Krita | Free Sketching and Painting Program

I love the simplicity of MyPaint, and I think it is enough for most of my need but that doesn't stop me from looking for a better sketching and painting program.

Behold Krita.

Krita is a free sketching and painting program for Linux, Mac and Windows. Krita is aimed at concept artists, texture or matte painting, illustrations and comics artists.

Started it in MyPaint and did some polishing in Krita

Here are some Krita's highlighted features :

• Intuitive and customizable UI
• Brush Stabilizers for shaky hand
• Pop-up Palette, no need to travel to the edges to change brushes and colors
• Brush Engines, create your own brushes
• Wrap-around mode to create patterns and texture effortlessly
• Resource Manager import and export brush and texture packs.
• Drawing Assistants
• Mirroring Tools
• Layer Management
• Selections
• Layer Masks
• Full Color Management
• OpenGL Enhanced
• PSD Support
• HDR Support
• Transform Tools
• Training Resources
• Color Palette

All these features and controls means Krita has steeper learning curve than MyPaint but it is worth it.

Compared to MyPaint, I won't call it better. MyPaint has simplicity and Krita is more complex, which one better depends on one's need.

Price wise, they both free, so go ahead install them both. And don't forget to donate/contribute back especially when your artworks sells.

WIP Step 3 | #BatmanvSuperman #bvs #digitalpainting #batman #superman #dc started w #MyPaintApp, continued w #Krita

A photo posted by @pakepensil on Mar 29, 2016 at 9:15am PDT

How to install Krita on Linux Mint/Ubuntu

For Linux Mint/Ubuntu, you have to add this PPA to install Krita by typing these commands to Terminal.

For stable version :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports 

sudo apt-get update 

sudo apt-get install krita

For updated and testing package :

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dimula73/krita
sudo apt-get update
sudo sudo apt-get install krita-2.9 krita-2.9-dbg

I found the testing package is stable enough to use, just don't put all dockers on the right side it will make Krita window un-maximize-able.

Valentina | Free Fashion CAD

It is no secret, industry-specific software can boost your productivity immensely, but they don't come cheap. Fashion drafting software is no exception.

If your budget doesn't allow you to get those fancy and super expensive pattern drafting software tool, give Valentina a spin or two. Valentina is a open source pattern drafting software or fashion computer aided design/drafting (CAD) some might call it.

I can not do a full review since I don't know how to draft a pattern, all I can say is this Fashion CAD looks clean and user friendly enough to use.

Valentina comes for  Windows XP+, Mac OS X 10.7+ and Linuxes( Debian, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Gentoo) in both 32 and 64 bits.

MyPaint 1.2 Review

If you are looking for a free painting software in Linux, your best bet is MyPaint. I am more than enthusiast to recommend this great app.

To be honest I am more than ready to be disappointed with MyPaint, I was expecting clunky interfaces, outdated design - but oh boy I'm glad I was wrong. The software is user friendly, nice to look at and easy to customize.

I never work with other paid painting software, but I found that for now MyPaint is everything I need.

If you are about to set an affordable journey of digital art, MyPaint and affordable Genius' i608x is a sane bridge to get to the next level of expertise. After all tools doesn't make arts, people does.

My WIP Digital Painting With MyPaint

Mermaid Princess A commision from daughter. #mermaid #princess #myth #digitalpainting

A photo posted by @pakepensil on Mar 23, 2016 at 5:41am PDT

Fortunately MyPaint is already available in Ubuntu repository, installing it is as easy as clicking mouse.

A2DP Bluetooth Speaker/Headphone On Linux MInt 17.3 (Ubuntu 14.04)

--- English ---

Music can boost your creativity, but late night and loud music doesn't blend very well if you still living in the land of living and yelling neighborhood.
So for those night when extra punch of music is needed you naturally need a pair of good earphones/headphones. Wireless headphones is better choice since it frees you to move about e.g: to make your extra dose of caffeine and then going to the bathroom because of it.

For that reason I have Bluedio Q5 In-ear Wireless Bluetooth that I bought for my phone, which pairs and streams perfectly.

But Linux Mint doesn't.

The problem is Linux Mint doesn't come with the needed module to stream to Bluetooth speakers.

And here is the solution to make a2dp Bluetooth speakers/earphones works under Linux Mint 17.3 (and Ubuntu 14.04).

First you have to make sure, the needed module is installed. Go to terminal and type : 

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

And then load the module, with this command :  

pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover

To have it started every time you start the computer, add it to Startup Applications.

After that open your Bluetooth connection manager e.g : Blueman, connect your device and connect to Audio Sink.

You may have to open your sound manager and pick your device there.

Enjoy your wireless experience.

--- Bahasa Indonesia ---

Speaker A2DP Bluetooth Di Linux MInt 17.3 (Ubuntu 14.04)

Bagi sebagian orang bekerja/belajar dengan mendengarkan musik dapat meningkatkan produktifitas, kreativitas dan hal positif lainnya, namun menyetel musik keras-keras di tengah malam tentulah kurang elok kalau hidup di tengah pemukiman padat dan ramai.

Solusinya tentu saja dengan headphone/earphone, nirkabel lebih baik lagi karena membuat Anda bebas bergerak dan beraktivitas tanpa terganggu untaian kabel. Misalnya untuk tambah dosis kafein atau sekedar keluar kamar mencari udara segar.

Tapi sayangnya headphone/earphone a2dp Bluetooth kurang akur dengan Linux Mint 17.3 (Ubuntu 14.04), beginilah cara membuat keduanya akur menghibur Anda.

Masalah utamanya Linux Mint 17.3 belum dilengkapi dengan modul yang diperlukan untuk mengalirkan (stream) audio ke headphone/earphone a2dp Bluetooth.

Pastikan install dulu modulnya, buka Terminal dan ketik :

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

Kemudian muat modulnya dengan perintah ini :

pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover

Lalu supaya modul aktif setiap kali menyalakan komputer, tambahkan perintah tadi di Startup Applications.

Setelah itu buka pengelola koneksi Bluetooth connection manager yaitu Blueman, hubungkan perangkat dan koneksikan ke Audio Sink.

Lalu, buka Pengelola Suara dan pilih perangkat yang dipakai.

Selamat menikmati musik nirkabel dengan Linux Mint 17.3

Kernel 4.4.0-13 On Linux Mint 17.3 Dell Inspiron N4110 Is Buggy

A short kernel update report.

The kernel 4.4.0-13 doesn't work really well with my Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa on Dell Inspiron N4110. The lower part of the screen is flickering occasionally. I guess the graphic driver needs a little bug spanking.

Everything else works like it should but this is a huge deal breaker, so I revert back to 4.2.0-34.

Mint's Linux Kernel Update Manager

Edit :

March 22, 2016 - the bug is fixed,  after Cinnamon is upgraded to Cinnamon 2.8.7+rosa.

Linux Mint 17 and Genius Mousepen i608x

In short it works. With little work but no bells and whistles attached.

My old love of drawing and painting reiginite, the urge get stronger each day so the other day I bought an affordable digital pen solution from Genius, the i608x. As the name implies this digital pen has a 6" by 8" working space that is a plenty especially if you come from mouse painting, like I did.

The hardware itself is fun to use and takes a little time to get used to which is natural after all this is how we learn to draw.

So let's get this digital pen works!

All you need is go to digimend's site and download the badly needed driver and install it. That easy, to make things easier please be sure to install Gdebi Package Installer via software manager beforehand, so you can install the driver with double-clicking.

The basic function like movement and multi-pressure works, but the mouse (which I don't use) and the nice-to-have shortcuts pads don't.

It serves me well, I do want to use the better solution from Wacom but I have to sell my artworks first to justify that purchase financially and morally.

So, next time I'll blog about my favorite painting application.