WRITTEN_BY David REVOY -
-
202 comments
_Disclaimer: I'm **not sponsored by Huion **for this article and I purchased this tablet myself, it's not a commercial gift. Also, this article was designed for Linux Mint 18 and Ubuntu 16.04: it will not work with the same command line for later versions. If you want to know what changed, read the comments of this article, I'll update the article later._
---
**2020-11 Update:** it works on Kubuntu 20.04. I took it from my closet for a sunday evening test and was surprised how simplier is it to get it work two years after this article. It just require to install the Digimend driver (deb) [version 10](https://github.com/DIGImend/digimend-kernel-drivers/releases), reboot, and then all works if you connect it via the wireless USB dongle (the cable connection will only charge the battery of the tablet and doesn't work).
Also, good to notice: the KDE system setting panel for tablets works fine except (calibration/setting monitor area/proportion/stylus buttons) but no tablet buttons are listed, it probably require a bit more tweaking. Anyway easy install! I'll put it back to the closet because I'm still not fan of the pressure curve of the stylus and I'll keep using my other Wacom tablet.
Here is a photo:
[](data/images/blog/2017/06/img_20201108_195055537.jpg)
---
## Intro
After the [buglary](article608/my-house-has-been-robbed "buglary" ) of my house, I had to purchase a new tablet. I have a long experience with tablets, I owned so many models over the last 15 years that I even maintain for the fun a [tablet history log](article332/tablet-history-log "tablet history log" ) about it. For once and after 15 years of Wacom, I also studied another brand: Huion. I liked the design of the WH1409 (no big padding around active area), the spec (maybe the largest active zone on a tablet right now on the market, 35x22cm / 13,8x8,6inch) and the low price (160€, the third of the price of a similar model made by Wacom).
The problem: the driver. No official GNU/Linux driver or tweak for this model, and a almost dead [Digimend](https://digimend.github.io/ "Digimend" ) project: the leader decided to [leave the project](http://spbnick.github.io/2016/07/31/Wrapping-up-DIGImend-work.html "leave the project" ) for good reasons after a decade of hard work on it, but now the project is orphan and is looking for a new maintainer... So it's not a good sign of health for all the non Wacom, but I decided to take the risk of getting something non-functional and tweak-it as a hobby until I get it working. Now it's done and I'm sharing the result to ease the path to other GNU/Linux artists around wanting a low-cost large tablet. :-) Not everything work perfectly, I'll end the article with a review of pros/cons and limitations of this model under a free/libre O.S.
## Status after unboxing
On a Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.1, it was a surprise when I first connected the tablet: the coordinate, pressure, all main feature worked out-of-the-box (USB cable only, not wireless). But no button, no way to map the tablet to a single screen of my dual screen. And even when turning a screen off with xrandr, bad raw proportion for the classic 1920x1080.
The kernel 4.4.0-79-generic I'm using has the module of the Digimend project included, and the tablet is probably compatible with a part of the driver: if you type lsusb in a terminal, the tablet <CONSTRUCTOR>:<MODEL> is 256c:006e , and 256c in the Digimend project source-code probably triggers a default/generic Huion driver. So, even if the model is [unlisted](http://digimend.github.io/tablets/ "unlisted" ) on the official documentation, the basics work. That was encouraging.
[](data/images/blog/2017/06/2017-06-15_huion-test_net.jpg)
_After unboxing_
## Install Digimend driver via DKMS:
I wanted to be sure to get the latest source code compiled for the Digimend project, in case more could work with more recent development. Unfortunately, I had to make many test and trial to compile the source of the project. Impossible to do the make/make install, 'deb' package not working... I had to search a long time how I could do. After many research, it appear all Ubuntu-based 16.04 can't compile custom module this way. It's prohibited (but the error message wasn't very obvious about it).
The only option is to install the DKMS way. The README.md file of the project doesn't explain how. After research, I learned the joy of DKMS. To install via DKMS, you'll need Git, and DKMS.
sudo apt install dkms git-core
then we will put the source code inside a specific directory with the structure /usr/src/<PROJECTNAME>-<VERSION> , then build it using this time <PROJECTNAME>/<VERSION> :
sudo git clone https://github.com/DIGImend/digimend-kernel-drivers.git /usr/src/digimend-6
sudo dkms build digimend/6
sudo dkms install digimend/6
Reboot your computer. The tablet should now start to work better, smoother and being listed as "TABLET Pen Tablet Pen stylus" when entering this command in a terminal:
xinput --list
The digimend driver should be listed among other modules after typing:
dkms status
Icing on the cake, you can now remove the USB cable (used to charge the tablet), connect the wireless USB dongle, and use the tablet in wireless. The tablet is still here with lsusb.
## Add a custom X11 rules:
We need a way to now configure the tablet, the buttons. We will add a X11 custom rule to make the Digimend driver use the Wacom driver command line tool to setup our non-named <TABLET>.
Call your text-editor in admin mode:
sudo xed /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-huion.conf
Then paste this inside, save and close.
# Huion tablets
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Huion class"
MatchProduct "TABLET"
MatchIsTablet "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "wacom"
EndSection
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Huion buttons"
MatchProduct "TABLET"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "evdev"
EndSection
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Huion scroll"
MatchProduct "TABLET"
MatchIsPointer "off"
MatchIsKeyboard "off"
MatchIsTouchpad "off"
MatchIsTablet "off"
MatchIsTouchscreen "off"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "evdev"
EndSection
Reboot your computer. After that, the tablet should appear in the configuration tool xsetwacom:
xsetwacom --list
Congratulation! You're done with the driver part.
## User preference, buttons, settings.
Now, let configure the tablet with xsetwacom.
For this, we can load xsetwacom command. But they are not persistent avec restarting computer.
So we need to store this collections of commands in a bash script and call this bash script when the system open.
mkdir scripts
xed ~/scripts/Huion_WH1409.sh
... and inside paste and customize the script under. To know the list of special "key" you can map on buttons, look at [this list](https://pastebin.com/aXGDkJTU "this list" ). Don't forget to change the screen size to your screen size (the tablet is not 100% same ratio than 1920x1080, it needs code to force good vertical and horizontal ratio so when you trace a circle on your tablet, a circle appear on the screen, and not an ellipse potato ). And comment or delete all the line you are not interested.
#! /bin/bash
# Setup HUION WH1409, after bridged to wacom driver with Digimend Kernel module.
# License: CC-0/Public-Domain license
# author: deevad
# Tablet definition
tabletstylus="TABLET Pen Tablet Pen stylus"
tabletpad="TABLET Pen Tablet Pad pad"
# Reset
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" ResetArea
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" RawSample 4
# Mapping
# get maximum size geometry with:
# xsetwacom --get "$tabletstylus" Area
# 0 0 55200 34500
tabletX=55200
tabletY=34500
# screen size:
screenX=1920
screenY=1080
# map to good screen (dual nvidia)
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" MapToOutput "HEAD-0"
# setup ratio :
newtabletY=$(( $screenY * $tabletX / $screenX ))
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" Area 0 0 "$tabletX" "$newtabletY"
# Buttons
# =======
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" Button 2 2
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" Button 3 3
# ---------
# | 1 | 2 |
# |---|---|
# | 3 | 8 |
# |=======|
# | 9 |10 |
# |---|---|
# |11 |12 |
# |=======|
# |13 | ? |
# |---|---|
# | ? | ? |
# |=======|
xsetwacom --set "$tabletpad" Button 1 "key Control_L" # color picker on ring
xsetwacom --set "$tabletpad" Button 2 "key Shift_L" # resize brush
xsetwacom --set "$tabletpad" Button 3 "key KP_Divide" # switch /
xsetwacom --set "$tabletpad" Button 8 "key e" # eraser
xsetwacom --set "$tabletpad" Button 9 "key z" # undo
xsetwacom --set "$tabletpad" Button 10 "key y"
xsetwacom --set "$tabletpad" Button 11 "key tab"
xsetwacom --set "$tabletpad" Button 12 "key r"
xsetwacom --set "$tabletpad" Button 13 "key m"
# Xinput option
# =============
# for the list:
# xinput --list
# xinput list-props 'TABLET Pen Tablet Mouse'
xinput set-prop 'TABLET Pen Tablet Mouse' "Evdev Middle Button Emulation" 0
# alternate way to map to a single screen
# execute "xrander" in a terminal to get the screen name ( DVI-D-0 in this example )
# xinput set-prop 'TABLET Pen Tablet Pen stylus' DVI-D-0
[](data/images/blog/2017/06/2017-06-15_scanner_raw_21h3623_net.jpg)
_The various IDs of buttons I identified.
... and the three non-working._
When your script is finished you can save it. Then give it execute permission: In the file-manager ; right-click on it again > Properties > Permissions > and in front of Execute check the box for 'Allow executing file as a program'.
You can now double click and run the script. Test and adjust to your needs.
Your key on tablet will be mapped for the active session. To keep the settings accross reboot, you'll have to auto execute the script at start-up. To do this, go to 'System Settings', then 'Start-up application'. A user interface will propose you to add your script as a start-up script. You can also create a Menu entries if you need to run multi-scripts (right click on the menu button > Configure > Menu (Tab) > Open the menu editor to create a custom menu entry).
[](data/images/blog/2017/06/2017-06-15_screenshot_234805.png)
_Interface in Linux Mint to add the Huion script_
## Review of the tablet
**What doesn't work:**
\- The three last buttons of the tablets. But with 9 working and fully functional, I'm not complaining.
\- Assigning special button on the stylus: I'm used to put Ctrl to color pick on the first button, but I can't: it trigger a middle-click+left-click interpreted as a right-click. Color picking on Krita shows the pop-up-Palette...
\- Small glitch when switching tablet to mouse, and mouse to tablet. The system sometime has difficulty to 'leave' the table mode, and let the mouse work.
**What's is 'meh' with this tablet:**
\- No GNU/Linux official support.
\- Near to dead Digimend project.
\- This smooth plastic "peach skin" coating on the stylus; they often turn sticky as hell after 3 or 4 years.
\- The nibs of the stylus are floating a little bit inside the tube of the stylus tip.
\- No eraser at the back of the stylus. (I'm not using it often anyway)
\- No tilt/rotation sensor ( i'm not using them too )
**What's surprisingly works better than I expected:**
\- The stylus need a battery, but this one doesn't impact the weight. The stylus is as heavy as a Wacom battery-less one.
\- The buttons on the pad, I expected them to be cheap things with horrible keypress sound and too-hard or too-sensitive. They are in fact better than on all model of Wacom; easy to press almost like on a flat keyboard.
\- Wireless. I never thought when I started this adventure this feature would work. My previous tablet , the Cintiq 13HD had a so massive wire and dumb connector the marketing of Wacom removed it on all the picture of the product ( even showing the tablet running with the screen 'on' without any power supply... marketing lie). Wireless for a tablet is a new comfort.
\- Pressure sensitivity: the stylus is a bit more firm than my previous Cintiq13HD, it has more control over the pressure because you need to press physically more on the stylus to reach 100% of pressure, that's an advantage if you like glazing with low opacity , or need dancy line with many variation of line width.
**What's cool:**
\- Size of the active area: with 35x22cm / 13,8x8,6inch ; I'm more near to a 1:1 ratio between my tablet and my 21'' 1080p screen. I can draw small details, small circles, little high-light without having a dancy cursor on screen.
\- coating of the active area: smooth as Intuos3, my favorite coating (note: it might feel too-smooth for artist liking a little grain)
\- Design: no big padding around the active zone, wireless and black. Looks good on a desk. Large enough to put the keyboard on it when not drawing and typing.
\- Price for a large tablet. In the last 15 year, this is the first time I see this. It should open large tablet to a non professional audience.
\- No "touch" option or necessity to add a switch to turn it on/off. I like tablet without "touch"
\- Stylus diameter, tubular design, not pear-like ergonomic design as Wacom do.
## End note:
It's in overall a good tablet but hard to advice it to a beginner on GNU/Linux. Really. It looks like running this hardware will be harder and harder with time. On my side, I'll keep this tablet in production for the next webcomic to give it more hours. Let see if this thing can handle more than three episode of [Pepper&Carrot](https://www.peppercarrot.com/ "Pepper&Carrot" ).
If you already have feedback about it, questions, tweaks, advices, feel free to share them here.
## Sources:
[http://quandtum.weebly.com/home/how-to-change-mouse-button-functions-in-linux](http://quandtum.weebly.com/home/how-to-change-mouse-button-functions-in-linux "http://quandtum.weebly.com/home/how-to-change-mouse-button-functions-in-linux" )
WRITTEN_BY David REVOY -
-
8 comments
[youtube]cTb1_w8hvqY[/youtube]
[**Link: official page of the Morevna Motion Comic project here**](https://morevnaproject.org/pepper-and-carrot/episode-6/ "their official page for the project" )
Congratulation to the [Morevna](https://morevnaproject.org/ "Morevna team" ) team for finishing their derivation : a full Motion Comic episode done with only open-source tools and based on the episode 6 of Pepper&Carrot (original webcomic[ here](article471/episode-6-the-potion-contest "original webcomic here" )). If you don't know what a motion comic is, you can read this definition:
> _"A motion comic (or animated comic) is a form of animation combining elements of print comic books and animation. Individual panels are expanded into a full shot while sound effects, voice acting, and animation are added to the original artwork. Text boxes and sound effect bubbles are typically removed to feature more of the original artwork being animated." _ [Motion Comic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_comic "Motion Comic , Wikipedia" ), Wikipedia.
>
The project started 9 month ago after a successful[ Indiegogo campaign](article580/motion-comic-project-by-nikolai-mamashev "a successful Indiegogo campaign" ). I think the result is honest in regards to the initial 4000$ low budget and also in regards of the individual skill of the team. The project mostly respect the art style of my drawings even if I found a lot of patch painted over my original drawing a bit rushed, or deforming a bit too much facial expressions of my original drawings. I wasn't involved into reviewing the movie or art direction before release. I'm glad they used FLOSS tools: Krita, Blender, Papagayo-NG, RenderChan on GNU/Linux workstations. Congratulation also to all the supporters who made this result possible; the voice over were really professional quality!
**License:** This work is licensed under the terms of [Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed "Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0" ) license.
WRITTEN_BY David REVOY -
-
12 comments
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-06-12_00_saffron-six-step-header_net.jpg)
_The workflow in a single picture, click to enlarge_
Here is an article about the full steps I used to draw the episode 22 of Pepper&Carrot "[The Voting System](https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/article412/episode-22-the-voting-system "The Voting System" )". I describe on it what worked, what did not and what I learned. It was a production with a heavy focus around traditional penciling and the first time I used the [colorize[smart-coloring]](article324/smart-coloring-preview-of-a-new-gmic-filter "colorize\[smart-coloring\]" ) Gmic filter far all an episode. This article contains a lot of visual and notes already communicated as extras to my patron during the production of episode 22. Now the episode is released, the article, visual and link can be public.
## 1\. Storyboard
On thin and cheap 80gr/m² A4 (21x29,7cm or 8.3x11.7inches) paper; I pre-printed with my inkjet printer a thin black frame at the same proportion than my digital comic pages, and at the real scale of the printed comic book. I wanted to compose my panels in a WYSIWYG fashion. My tool, a simple soft pencil (2B) with a rounded tip and not a lot of pressure. I used a lot the eraser for moving parts and sometime full panel or character expression. Having a physical version of my storyboard with this flexibility to easily do quick changes was great to re-read often and modify the story. It was also convenient to get feedback from friends visiting home without going in front of the computer and correct it on the fly directly until we could read smoothly the storyboard. But it wasn't easy to share it with the online collaborators of Pepper&Carrot and I designed sometime long vertical panel that make sens for the printed version but made the on-screen reading a bit more difficult. Next episode, I'll try to revisit my approach with digital storyboarding and keep the best of both world.
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-15_01_storyboard_net.jpg)
_Storyboard of page 7, page 4 and page 2._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-02-07_screenshot_220307_net_001.jpg)
_Ball-pen sketch aside the storyboard to brainstorm visually panels:
from left to right: Coriander, Camomille and Shichimi._
## 2\. Blue rough
On a new smooth cardboard paper (Clairefontaine 205g/m² "Fiches Bristol" A4) also preprinted with a light blue grid maximised to use all the size of the A4, I sketched my panels with a first pass of a large blue pencil (Faber-Castell Polychromos, light Phthalo Blue) with a lot of gesture and focusing on the composition, the main lines. Then I added a pass with more details using a mechanical-pencil filled with Pentel 0.5mm blue lids. This blue pencils are harder to erase than normal graphite gray pencils. When the drawing was ready, I used a kneaded eraser over all the drawing to fade-out the line, making them very bright but still visible. This step worked perfectly and I was happy with the results and productivity of this pass.
[](data/images/blog/2017/04/2017-04-12_ep22_04_blue-planning-with-storyboard.jpg)
_page 5, storyboard (left) and blue rought (right)_
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-06-12_screenshot_130816_net.jpg)
_Scan of the blue sketch (first pass)._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-06-12_screenshot_130402_net.jpg)
_While drawing the two pass of blue over page 8_
## 3\. Penciling
I cleaned my bright blue drawings with graphite pencils ; I used mid-hard tip from a range of 3H to HB (Staedler, Mars Lumograph. The blue drawings were unfortunately maybe already too detailed and I had the feeling to just clean-up artwork. I started to focus a lot on the quality of the line itself and unconsciously made a result almost "inked". I wanted to obtain this sharp line and I applied a lot of pressure on the paper. It wasn't a good idea; I feel like it made my drawing a bit too rigid and also it was painful for my hand at the end of the cleaning and I probably spent more than ten days cleaning this pencil step. In the end, I used mainly a lot the H sharpened a lot to obtain a very thin and precise line. I used a special sharpener for this, the "Kum long point" and it was perfect for the result of long pointy pencil but also it increased my consumption of pencils because I was sharpening almost ten time a day. I used four H pencils but the pencils are not totally finished and are still long enough to be used with a pencil extender. During the production I bought a black one in metal of the brand Derwent to try to reuse the last centimeters of my pencils but I couldn't: the grip part of this extender is made of small metal spikes hurting the fingers more than really helping. I'll try to find another extension-technique to reuse my small used pencils.
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-15_02_crayons_net.jpg)
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-15_04_crayons_net.jpg)
_while penciling page 7_
[](data/images/blog/2017/04/2017-04-12_ep22_01_photo-workspace.jpg)
_Penciling first page_
[](data/images/blog/2017/04/2017-04-12_ep22_06b_completing_the_pencil_pose.gif)_
1. blue rough: mannequin
2. drawing
3. second pass for line width corrections
4. background and environment_
## 4\. Scan and cleaning
I scanned my pages at 600dpi, sRGB using my new CanonScan Lide220 bought in March. I color corrected it with ArgyllCMS and a R110112 color target from Coloraid.de . I scanned the page using a a small bash command-line script I made because all the scanner app with a GUI had issue with getting the color-profiling right. Once the page scanned, I cleaned them with Krita using the technique of removing the bright blue lines I show [in this old tutorial here](http://www.davidrevoy.com/article239/cleaning-blue-lines-sketch-in-krita "in this old tutorial here" ). I also transformed and deformed sometime the artwork when it was necessary and removed small dots and dust. I obtained a cleaned grayscale image with white background and clean lines.
[](data/images/blog/2017/04/2017-04-12_ep22_02_krita-after-cleaning.jpg)
_First panel cleaned in Krita. I have a new scanner and it was long to find the right setting._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-15_03_scan_net.jpg)
_A set of cleaned pages with warm gray texture to see the border-less white frame panels._
## 5\. Merging page in the translation system
Pepper&Carrot runs a complex setup and pages needs to be setup with very precise standards and format to be compatible with the translation system. I scaled down the page to insert them in the final page template Krita file and started to create the vector white square around artworks draw the white panel's frame around. Working with white borderless panel and speech-bubbles over white background is impossible, so I added on the top of the artwork a layer in "multiply blending mode" with a warm gray texture, to better see the positioning of the borderless white elements. Then I linked all external SVG files to make the text layer and started to do the lettering thanks to the notes on my storyboard, doing a lot of way and back between Krita and Inkscape for positioning, rescaling and make the two pass working together as if they were done in the same software. This is a tedious step I really hope I'll be able to skip in the future when Krita will get the vector and text layer compatible with SVG; it will be then possible for me to compose the text over the artwork and then only export the layer to SVG to be integrated in the translation system. Anyway, the pages joined on the first Git commit for the correctors and translators with this black and white textured aspect. During many weeks, we all get used to work on this version of the episode 22.
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-15_05_lettering_net.jpg)_Texts and sounds effects are done with Inkscape: all string of text must be vectors objects to be dynamically changed later._
_This way the comic can be translated._
## 6\. Preparing coloring
While the translation and correction community effort was starting in background, I kept production for coloring the artwork. I inverted the panel's frame color to get black frames, I removed the gray warm texture, and copied the merged result to GIMP. Gimp has a more recent GMIC plugin than Krita, and it was necessary for me to get a very recent version to use the "Colorize (Smart coloring)" filter. Fortunately it's easy to select-all in Krita, copy the line-art, and paste it as a new document in GIMP. Gmic "Colorize (Smart coloring)" filter tries to auto-detect the area and auto-fill them with a random color, trying also to close small gap in when the shapes are not well closed. I applied the filter and this one output the result with two layers: the line-art not modified and under it an aliased color map. I only had to select the colored map layer and copy it from GIMP back to Krita. Then, with the help of an aliased tools ( brush presets in my kit ) and the fill tools ( and selection tools with tool option in 'anti-aliasing turned off') I started to clean the map and replace the color area. I decided to limit myself to 9 shades and a simple palette. ( skin in bright peach color, hair in a watermelon pink, to blues for props and clothes, 3 greens for backgrounds, and 2 yellows for special effects ). Nine shades to be able to perform selection quicker later 'by color', and getting "all hair", "all clothes" or all background selected with a magic wand selection tool click. The "Colorize (Smart coloring)" filter did help a lot to accelerate this step but don't expect it to solve everything; there is still a lot of manual cleaning to do but probably far less work than doing all from scratch. When the color-map work was over, I selected the one of the characters, background, Fx, and sky and split them on separate layers. I took probably to much time to do this 9 color map, and not used it a lot at the end. Maybe a better idea could be to directly replace the GMIC random color with the flatting and skip this extra step.
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-14_screenshot_070818_net.jpg)
_GMIC 2.0 loading my favorite settings for smart-coloring filter and preview on viewport._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-14_screenshot_070842_net.jpg)
_The result applied and rendered into GIMP, two layers output._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-16_screenshot_174344_net_net.jpg)
_A successful result output of the GMIC filter.
It almost draws the volume of the palm of the hand out of nothing.
\--black-magic-- ;-)_
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-16_screenshot_210142_net.jpg)
_The random color map generated imported back in Krita: ready to be colored with the fill tool._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-15_04b_area.png)
_The nine colors used to cleanup all the pages_
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-15_screenshot_154451_net_net.jpg)
_A prepared page: using only nine colors to split artwork ( skin, hair, two for clothes, background..etc...)_
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-16_screenshot_222535_net.jpg)
_An overview of Krita files with the large thumbnail proposed by PCManFM
while preparing my comic pages._
## 7\. Color flatting
I decided to keep my colored layers over the line-art (and not under as usual). I grouped them all and put the whole group named "col" to a multiply blending. This way I was still able to pick the proper ground or color with the "R layer picker" shortcut key in Krita. ( This is hard to do if the line are above the color zones because the "R layer picker" can pick often the line-art layer itself). I was happy with this small improvement. Then I started to complexity the color-map with a real color palette. I colored as I would color a comic with Old-School flat area only. I kept the color bright and not too saturated to let breath the drawing. I also colored a bit my pencil line-art to be a bit warmer and also I blurred them a tiny bit with the GMIC Smooth\[Nlmean\] filter. Doing this step after the color preparing was boring. I was just spending mode time with the fill-bucket tool than with a brush, it's days of being trapped into a "coloring-book" process, keeping the area clean and sharp. It's hard to express any artistic personality in this step.
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-22_screenshot_211809_net.jpg)
_Replacing prepared area with flat colors in Krita._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-22_screenshot_185552.jpg)
_Colored pencil and smoothed grain thanks to the GMIC Smoothing\[nlmeans\] filter
( default setting on a duplicated layer with 50% opacity, then merged down )_
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-23_screenshot_173511_net.jpg)
_Zoom on a panel: not all is flat ; I used also a gradient for all backgrounds._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-23_screenshot_222744_net.jpg)
_An overview of all the pages with flat colors (with page1 already shaded)._
## 8\. Color shading
All my grounds of colors (fg/bg/sky) get quickly sub-grouped with Ctrl+G ; and I added a layer with the "grain merge blending mode" on the top, alpha inherited and filled with a 127/127/127 RGB pure middle gray ( pure transparent for grain merge ). Then I shaded on this layer; warm bright gray for lights, dark cold grays for shading. "Grain-merge" can shade and brighten, and also introduce a color influence, but it also increase quickly the feeling of 'burnt' shadows and overexposed/saturated lights. My shading method: First pass general with large airbrush; then smudging the shadow with an expressive bristle brush ; then go to the details with a thin brush and create new details expressed only by the shading and not the line of the artwork. Thanks to the area of color cleaned and with alpha protected, it was surprisingly hyper fast to shade this episode. Maybe one of the rare time in my production where I meet my deadline before my estimation. I understand better why artist in French/Belgium comic studio often use this type of workflow: managing the pencil/ink them-self, get a colorist for the scan/clean/prepare/flatting and only take care them-self of the shading. It's fast and visually quickly rewarding to sculpt the shapes when the flat color area are already clean under and all edges of the lines and shape protected. Even with a dirty shading pass, the result still looks really clean. Making the shading pass expressive and not clean is even mandatory to break a bit of the too digital and smooth steps before this one.
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-25_screenshot_113042_net.jpg)
_Shading page 2 with layer stack growing._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-28_screenshot_210943_net.jpg)
_shading one page 4: using a "glob" layer over my stack in grain merge
to manage the global mood of warm and cold colors._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-28_screenshot_223955_net.jpg)
_Shading special effects._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-28_screenshot_183557.png)
_Color grading with GMIC each ground one by one. A bit hard:
The GMIC plugin of Krita can't save "favorite/bookmark" system and can't "apply again" last filter.
Applying color grading on 4 layers x 10 pages quickly grow as a full afternoon of work._
## 9\. Color adjustment, post effect.
I'm flatting my subgroups (fg/bg/sky) to can do color correction on each of them. It is still impossible to use a filter on group with Krita, and so it's hard to manage color filter on all the stack without flatting them back together. It's always hard to crunch flexibility of editing and data carefully split into different layers to get the advantage of using other features, but necessary. I used the GMIC filter color>color grading on all grounds to fix the burn of saturation caused by my usage of the "grain-merge blending mode" as a shading layer. I also adjusted the general color mood with Color balance and adjustment curves. Each layer are also corrected with direct paint-over when necessary and with a normal brush at low opacity to fix the shading edges. The Final touch was three new layers on the top of my stack: dof ( lighten blending mode, for depth of field, sfumato, smoke, color of the air ), fx ( addition blending mode, for hight lights, glows, special effect and direct source light ) and glob ( grain merge blending mode, just big gradient over the image to unify the colors, and give a cinematic mood to each panels : vignette darken border, corona of source light). Before publishing, I also added two adjustment layers on the very top of my stack: a classic one to sharpen my details at low opacity, and another one to prevent the crushed black by raising the value and blue channel in the very dark tones of the artworks; it brighten a bit the color pass and give more room for the penciled line-art to express itself with bluish cold tones. This step was really frustrating because it was hard to perform good color correction with Krita, especially handling the replacement of an unwanted color. Krita has an HSV/HSY/Chroma adjuster, but this one only apply to all the pixels, and can't target a range of pixels ( eg. A certain range of hue to replace a green-yellow to a golden one, or to a range of value to desaturate shadows a bit too burnt by excessive red saturation). Also, applying this color correction layers by layers in a long stack is far to be WYSIWYG at a part of the workflow where every change for the mood and atmosphere needs subtleties and measurement. Applying color adjustment filters on groups and get a recursive effect on all sublayer would be very useful for this type of workflow. Also, I wanted to add more post-effect dynamically on top of my artwork (color/chromatic aberration , shifting the channel a bit to benefit a subtle vibration in the bright parts of the magic effect) but this type of filter exist only in GMIC and would require to flat down all the layer stack to use them. This give me ideas of feature request for a distant future.
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/2017-05-30_screenshot_103222_net.jpg)
_Drag'n'Dropping a sharpen filter layer at 40% opacity over the ten pages.
10GB of RAM memory are necessary to tile the page side by side in Krita like that._
[](data/images/blog/2017/05/en_pepper-and-carrot_by-david-revoy_e22p08.jpg)
_Page 8 , final, with all the stack of shading, effect, sharpening and text._
For more visual of the final version
just visit [the final episode 22 on www.peppercarrot.com here](https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/article412/episode-22-the-voting-system "the final episode 22 on www.peppercarrot.com here" ) .
## Conclusion
Using a "logical workflow" was a rich experience and a good teacher: I learned to keep the discipline of applying logical steps over the 10 pages, trusting the next step to bring something 'better' over the previous step. This workflow is clearly an industrial approach, the research of something I can reproduce at 100% and even split into a set of task within a small team. I wanted to experiment with this idea of a small webcomic studio. It works. But making a comic this way alone was also really boring and most step were like 'cleaning pixels here or there' : robotic and full of constrains. This way to handle things is not really related or in sync with my core passion for drawing or digital-painting. However, the logical steps did help me to get a cleaner (and sometime faster) workflow than what I'm doing usually. For this long story of ten pages, it was probably the best choice. To use a metaphor: this technique is a bit similar to the step necessary to build a pyramid adding a cube step by step on each other waiting to get final "Tadaaa♬ ♪ ♩" effect at the end when adding the last cube at the top. If the base of the pyramid is weak (the pencil artwork, preparation of color map) there is no way to save the stack at the end and the last cubes will fall. It's probably something totally inverted compare to my speedpainting in grayscale, coloring, and detailing at the end. For the next episode (23) , I'll try to not over-react to this experience and not go to a fully organic workflow, sketchy, speedpainterly and chaotic. I'll try to keep the same steps with a bit of more room for creative freedom and I have already an idea how... But that's another story on my quest for the next episode 23.
Thank you for reading!
WRITTEN_BY David REVOY -
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14 comments
I spent the first week of June here to finish a side project: an open comicbook project for Pepper&Carrot to be sold and printed. I finished the beta version of book 1 last night in Scribus and the book is now ready to be proofread, exported and printed. The [Gitlab (Framagit) repository is here](https://framagit.org/peppercarrot/book "git repository is here" ).
Why did it take me a full week? ... Here is my report if you want technical details:
[](data/images/lab/2017-06-09_book1project/2017-06-09_book01project_a1.jpg)
_Screenshot: two instances of Scribus 1.5.4dev running side-by-side on my Linux Mint desktop:
Inner pages on right, cover on left._
The Pepper&Carrot comic mainly uses Krita (for artworks, Krita kra files exported to flat JPG at 95% quality) and Inkscape (SVGs for speech bubbles and text, exported as PNG). For the book project, I used Scribus. Scribus is the only free/libre open-source software to provide a multipages CMYK workflow with advanced text and layout tools. Scribus is a very solid project, and I planned to overlay my artworks and my speech bubbles in it. But Scribus also has a lot of traps: many format (\*.pdf, \*.eps, \*.tiff, \*.jpg, \*.png) do not really react as expected in the first place and you cannot know it until you try it. One must do the mistakes, do trials-and-errors, export after export, to learn how to prepare in the best way the media before being able to export a good and solid CMYK hi-resolution PDF output ready for the printer. If your project has a small amount of images, it's easy to switch formats and encodings for each of them; but if your project needs a renderfarm to fusion hundreds of Krita files with thousands of SVG files to output the correct files, it can quickly become a tedious exercice.
[](data/images/lab/2017-06-09_book1project/2017-06-09_book01project_b1.jpg)
_Dual screen screenshot while scripting and re-rendering translations._
So, it was a long and difficult task to find the best recipe and adapt all the other parts of Pepper&Carrot to be dynamically linked to the book project. The book project is designed to be fully dynamic with the other parts of Pepper&Carrot: if a user submits a correction on one SVG for the webcomic in the git of an episode, the change will be propagated to the book's files. The book project can also switch translation, to ease the work of many micro and local self-publishing effort.
For the book, I used Scribus 1.5.4dev daily build: it was the only way to work around a Dpi problem in the released version making the UI too big or too little. The software is stable and has good ergonomy. It's really easy to use if you have an experience with this type of software (eg. QuarkXpress/Indesign, I was a prepress layout graphic artist in a past life) and has many features, especially for text, paragraph, advanced layout and color management. One specific issue I met with Scribus was related to the PNG hi-resolution I generate with the renderfarm. This PNG are generated from the SVG sources by Inkscape and then handled by Imagemagick and couldn't be read by Inkscape without getting [dark edge artifacts](https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=14842 "dark edges artifact" ) around speech bubbles. All pages were affected, no exception. A solution was found in the way PNGs can be encoded, but this change required me to re-render all 5,800 SVG translations of Pepper&Carrot to get the new PNGs...
[](data/images/lab/2017-06-09_book1project/2017-06-09_book01project_a2.jpg)
_Issue I met with PNG transparency: speech bubble is a PNG inside an Image Frame laid over the artwork. _Full[, bug report and solution here](https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=14842 "bug report here" )._
Since the creation of Pepper&Carrot, I never ran a full re-render of all the sources; I just keep a good render besides the source. I only regenerate this render in case of a modification of the source. Langage by langage, with review of the translator after the render, this system was working. But I started to get more and more export problems with newer versions of Inkscape.
[](data/images/lab/2017-06-09_book1project/2017-06-09_book01project_c1.jpg)
_A common mix of two rendering SVG issues: buggy border radius (bold effect) applying to only a part of the text. Episode 6 is translated in 34 langages, and sound effects like this appear 4 times in this episode. 136 file to manually fix. If you can fix a file in 2min, it's 4h30 of non-stop work. It was done for all 22 episodes._
Let's be clear: It's not the fault of Inkscape's developers: I have a very wide variety of SVGs like no other project around. I'm totally out-of-the-scope of many common uses of Inkscape because yes, Pepper&Carrot is now super-complex and has the most challenging base of SVGs you could find on the globe (except maybe for [Openclipart](https://openclipart.org/ "Openclipart" ) and [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page "Wikimedia Commons" )). I'm using special font effects, special text boxes and rare combinations of filters to workaround specific speech bubble shapes and typography on the sounds effect. I also have in the repository source SVGs saved from Inkscape 0.48 to 0.92, from MacOS, Windows or Linux versions, from many different computers with different local settings, with left-to-right langages, right-to-left, using experimental open fonts. It's not a surprise then if this large SVG database is sensitive to breaks: I'm simply pushing the limits of the Inkscape SVG file-format too far!
[](data/images/lab/2017-06-09_book1project/2017-06-09_book01project_c2.gif)
_Original VS Re-rendered translation, with a combo of many new bugs I met:
Right-to-left support punctuation issue + bold radiusx2 + offset in position + missing sound effect._
I first tried to find a way to re-render all within the same Inkscape version; the latest stable is 0.92.1 and converts every previous version while keeping the look of the original. But I had too many failures even with the help of an Inkscape developer directly on the [Pepper&Carrot IRC channel](http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=%23pepper%26carrot "Pepper&Carrot IRC channel" ). So I decided to build a script to compare before and after versions; cycling over all the SVGs and with a smart automatic detection process to guess when the render was similar and acceptable. I received precious help from the community to build this type of complex script. The script tried to auto-fix everything, taking around 7 second by SVGs analyzed and about 15 hours to cycle over all the database with all my processors screaming their 100% usage on my desktop computer. But many renderings were too different, writing in my console "Irregular rendering issue found" in red. Out of 5,800 SVGs, I had more than 3,000 bad renderings (script sources available [here](https://github.com/Deevad/peppercarrot/blob/master/utils/svg-upgrade_91-to-92.sh "here" )).
[](data/images/lab/2017-06-09_book1project/2017-06-09_book01project_b2.jpg)
_The script used to identify problematic rendering in action. Console on left, Image viewer in the middle showing a detected issue, and on the right a little GUI to interact. "Is this OK? .... huh ... No!" 3,000 files had to be reviewed/fixed this way._
Another computer script was able to quickly display the "before and after" in a [quick gif animations](extras/forum/ar_Pepper-and-Carrot_by-David-Revoy_E03P07_compare.gif "quick gif animations" ) at the center of my screen and propose a Yes/No interface for the 3,000 irregular SVG renders detected. The idea was simple: the gif pops up on the screen, blinks the before/after versions with a pop-up: Is this OK? Yes or No. If yes, the file commits itself, if no the software opens Inkscape for manual fixes. After days and nights of a brainwashing repetitive work across hundreds of file comparisons, I could only fix a bit less than 300 irregular SVGs and started to get a massive headache (and also loosing any passion for Pepper&Carrot!). 300 files solved for days of work is a tiny dust if I compare to the 3,000 problematic SVGs detected. My first week of June was already finishing, still not a page of the book was done and I was clearly wasting a lot of time to workaround Scribus being picky with PNG encoded background color in transparency. I was also screwing all the database, my health, and in general... my passion for the project.
It was emergency time and I decided to stop: for a single man, fixing this alone would be equal to a full month brainwashing death. I [reverted all](https://github.com/Deevad/peppercarrot_ep03_translation/commit/914ba4a0b99fbc68b7796275821fa206e88f081d "reverted all" ) the converted files even validated, because I was really affecting the quality. I then decided to take another cheap workaround: I installed on my machine multiple versions of Inkscape and [made the renderfarm](https://github.com/Deevad/peppercarrot/commit/d18ae05d42c86ade4695023668214d4c0e24defd "made the renderfarm" ) detect the version of the SVG input and redirect the render to the right version of Inkscape. This makes my renderfarm script now super hard to install because you need this setup of special Inkscape versions and having multiple versions of the same software on GNU/Linux is hard. I simply now render 0.48 and 0.91 SVGs in Inkscape 0.91 and 0.92 SVGs in 0.92. A simple way but not a elegant or a long term solution. Anyway, I wasn't loosing the original project: doing my Scribus book 1, and I could continue with this patch. I was able to finally re-render all the speechbubbles in all langages to workaround my original PNG problem in Scribus and I could get the good PNGs white-backgrounded transparency. Something only Imagemagick can do with special flags.
[](data/images/lab/2017-06-09_book1project/2017-06-09_book01project_c3.jpg)
_The inner pages of the book project in Scribus. Totally in sync with the source of the webcomic_
Finally, what a story and difficult time! I had the feeling to meet cascading issue a bit like in the famous scene of "Malcolm in the middle" where the father attempt to [ "Replace a lightbulb" (Imgur gifv link)](http://imgur.com/gallery/rQIb4Vw). I hate when this happen and I feel this type of big things will only attack more and more the project. But let's see the bright side: the book project was an opportunity to review the state of all the SVG database, find many bugs in software and SVGs and it will probably make the future brighter for other artists taking the open-source way.
Thanks again to the developers of Inkscape and Scribus, always giving a lot of their time, giving me detailed information and being around when I have to solve this type of big problems. Now the situation is stable again, maintained but at the price of running multiple Inkscape versions on the renderfarm. This situation will not be possible to keep forever and I already feel the subtle long term pressure of this Damocles's sword. Every SVG translations (especially from episode 01 to episode 12) will need at one point a manual review, file by file, and I'll need help from contributors. I'll publish a little how-to about it in a near future.
Now let's turn the page of this big chapter and let's start the next step with the book project. On my side, I'll start the production of tutorials and Episode 23, I can't wait to **draw Pepper&Carrot** instead of **debugging Pepper&Carrot** !
Thank you if you could read it all, If you have questions, please comment: I'll be around.
WRITTEN_BY David REVOY -
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1 comment
_Photo: front door of the bookstore "Les petits Ruisseaux"_
Do you live around Toulouse, France? Then this message is for you: this **Sunday, May 21st 2017**, I'll do a signing session at the bookstore "Les petits Ruisseaux" (11 rue Villeneuve, 31000 Toulouse) **between 10h and 13h**.
It's a perfect event to meet Pepper&Carrot readers, friends and free/libre lovers around Toulouse :-) I'll sign all of your Pepper&Carrot books (and draw something on them if I have time). More info (in French) [on this post from SqueeekGPS](https://framasphere.org/posts/3151134 "on the post of SqueeekGPS on Diaspora here" ).
So, see you on Sunday?
[](data/images/news/2017-05-16_peppercarrot_autograph-in-toulouse_02_map_net.jpg)
_Screenshot of OpenStreetMap ([open this view here](https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=11%20rue%20Villeneuve%20Toulouse#map=19/43.59840/1.42909 "open this view here" )) with modification to underline the location of the bookstore in red.
Address: 11 rue Villeneuve, 31000 Toulouse (Metro [A] Saint-Cyprien)_
WRITTEN_BY David REVOY -
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10 comments
_Cover of book 2. Copyright: Glénat (custom logo and font). The artwork is Free/Libre/CC-By and you can find it [on the sources](https://www.peppercarrot.com/static6/sources&page=artworks "on the sources" )._
Today April 26 2017 is the release date of the second Pepper&Carrot book printed and published by Glénat (in French). [The first book](article578/derivation-publishing-by-glenat "The first book" ), published at the end of August 2016 was a success and my contact at Glénat told me they **re-printed it** **four times!** Amazing... A big thank you if you own a copy of book one. You'll find in this second book 66 pages of comics from episode 12 (the black-hole of Potions) to episode 21 (the first part of the Magic Contest). The book starts with a page containing a complete list of attributions and ends with two pages listing the names of the patrons; a good formula.
I remind you **I'm not earning any percentage of the sales** of this book. I'm earning money only via the [patronage](https://www.patreon.com/davidrevoy "patronage" ) of Pepper&Carrot. Thanks to this model, the comic keeps a low price of around 10€ in bookstore but it's still hard to communicate to the book's audience to do this optional extra step (I'm far from having 10 000 patrons, but I know 10 000 copy were printed and sold :-P ). To offset this a bit and also to help me boost the production of book three, **Glénat decided to** **raise their patronage from 350$ to 950$**. They also directly commissioned me for the creation of the cover of book two and accepted to release the illustration as CC-By. So, Glénat and Pepper&Carrot are on the way to building a nice relationship and that's really cool. Mixing Free/Libre and open culture with industrial interest is still experimental -a first case in the small (web)comic world- and it's nice to see it working so far at the scale of a country and its bookstores.
By the way, if you want to purchase the second book, please consider buying it in your local small comic bookstore. It's important to support the small comic bookstore owner to survive. On my side -and to be consistent with my philosophy- I refused more than 10 prestigious invitations to sign autographs at big comic events and commercial festivals. Instead, I'm prioritizing autographs in local, small bookstores and Free/Libre events. That's why I'll be **signing** **autographs on Sunday May 21st in Toulouse** at the bookstore "Les petits Ruisseaux" between 10h and 13h. More info (in French) [on this post from SqueeekGPS](https://framasphere.org/posts/3151134 "on the post of SqueeekGPS on Diaspora here" ).
That's all! I hope you'll like this second book and that the relationship with Glénat will keep going the same way to produce a fantastic third book!
**More photos:**
[](data/images/derivations/2017-04-26_glenat-book-2/2017-04-26_glenat-book-2_02_net.jpg)
_The latest episode 21 is also the last episode of book two._
[](data/images/derivations/2017-04-26_glenat-book-2/2017-04-26_glenat-book-2_03_net.jpg)
_Side by Side, all my printer Pepper&Carrot at home: Glénat book one and Glénat book two in French, and the [Breton language book by ArGripi](article598/breton-publishing-by-ar-gripi) An official English version with the Krita Foundation is still [work-in-progress here](https://github.com/Deevad/peppercarrot_print_book01 "work-in-progress here" )._
WRITTEN_BY David REVOY -
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6 comments
_click to enlarge (4K pixels), [sources here](https://www.peppercarrot.com/static6/sources&page=artworks "sources here" )_
Four day ago, I published a [blog-post about the burglary of my house](article608/my-house-has-been-robbed "blog-post about the burglary of my house" ). Following this post, your reactions have been amazingly great and I received many messages, support and help. That's why I want to tell you today **a big Merci** for this. You can't imagine how it helps me to keep positive and zen. **Thank you!**
_Bonus! mini work-in-progress_
[](data/images/news/2017-04-22_merci/2017-04-22_merci_WIP01_by-David-Revoy_net.jpg)[
](data/images/news/2017-04-22_merci/2017-04-22_merci_WIP02_by-David-Revoy_net.jpg)
[](data/images/news/2017-04-22_merci/2017-04-22_merci_WIP02_by-David-Revoy_net.jpg)
WRITTEN_BY David REVOY -
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47 comments
Bad news: while I was traveling to visit my family for Easter, my house got robbed... A lot of stuff was taken: my new Wacom tablet, our laptops, photo camera, external disks, and jewelry (cheap items, but some with strong sentimental value). The main door of my house was broken and all the shelves at home were emptied on the floor. It's a really difficult situation to manage and right now I'm still spending a lot of time cleaning, filling administrative paperwork and trying to recover calm and serenity.
On the bright side: Noutti and Tigrette -our cats- are both healthy and fine. I also haven't lost any important data: I kept a fresh backup with me during my travel and the only data I lost were my "long term archives" on disks at home (bye bye things before 2010...). Another good surprise: I still have my desktop PC at home and my two LCD screens. They were probably too big and too old to be stolen quickly (screens were also fixed on Ergotron mount arms). I reconnected an old Intuos4 Medium tablet to it that I was saving in the attic, a bit small for production but better than nothing. Also, my furniture, clothes, bed, etc, at home were spared by the cruel and gratuitous destruction. So, I do my best to adapt my productivity to this new situation and not rush the next long episode of Pepper&Carrot. I think it will be ready in the beginning of May instead of the end of April (10 pages long! A new record! because it's the core of "the magic contest #2", an important one).
How can you help? If you want to support me, thank you! Just support the production of the next episode of Pepper&Carrot [via Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/davidrevoy "via Patreon" ) (or alternatively: [Liberapay](https://en.liberapay.com/davidrevoy/ "Liberapay" ) or [Tipeee](https://www.tipeee.com/pepper-carrot "Tipeee" )) if you can. It will help me get more resources to replace what I lost. (I sincerely doubt my cheap house insurance will pay me back the tools I lost, or even a fraction of their original price...) I appreciate your contribution if you can help or if you already do! And a special thanks for the feedback, advice and help I received in [this thread on Mastodon](https://framapiaf.org/@davidrevoy/94018 "on my Mastodon timeline" ) when I first knew I have been robbed.
Time for zen music, pumping back confidence... and continue production.
WRITTEN_BY David REVOY -
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8 comments
[youtube]zvC1P6rXTQg[/youtube]
_Video: demonstration of the playable alpha 0.1 version_
Today, I want to highlight a derivative Pepper&Carrot video game and open-source project named "[Pepper&Carrot - Endless Runner Game](https://github.com/WinterLicht/PepperAndCarrotRunningGame "Pepper&Carrot - Endless Runner Game" )", made by [WinterLicht](https://github.com/WinterLicht "WinterLicht" ). A first **alpha build** was released not long ago for both desktop computers and Android devices:
### Desktop computer:
[PepperCarrotEndlessRunner_v0-1alpha_for-desktop.jar ](https://www.peppercarrot.com/extras/videogames/PepperCarrotEndlessRunner/PepperCarrotEndlessRunner_v0-1alpha_for-desktop.jar "PepperCarrotEndlessRunner_v0-1alpha_for-desktop.jar" )
_(Java, MD5checksum: 287777fd9a2c797c2a8fe0e6cb710684)_
**Playing on Ubuntu 20.04LTS**
The game works with Java 8 and Ubuntu 20.04 has Java 11 installed. To launch the game, I installed :
sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk
Then I setup java default environment (to ensure to continue to use 11 as default after the install of 8)
sudo update-alternatives --config java
Then I could also manually launch the game
/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java -jar PepperCarrotEndlessRunner_v0-1alpha_for-desktop.jar
(src: Thanks MoonDragon-MD investigation on [the related issue on Github](https://github.com/WinterLicht/PepperAndCarrotRunningGame/issues/12))
## Android APK:
[PepperCarrotEndlessRunner_v0-1alpha_for-android.apk ](https://www.peppercarrot.com/extras/videogames/PepperCarrotEndlessRunner/PepperCarrotEndlessRunner_v0-1alpha_for-android.apk "PepperCarrotEndlessRunner_v0-1alpha_for-android.apk" )
_(Android, MD5checksum: e69b06b0b93f2b887adc01777e7d50b3)_
All the code and assets of this game are Free, Libre and Open-Source (code under GPLv3 and assets under CC-By 4.0), and are available [on GitHub](https://github.com/WinterLicht/PepperAndCarrotRunningGame "on Github" ). But I'll also host here a snapshot ZIP just in case.
([sources](https://www.peppercarrot.com/extras/videogames/PepperCarrotEndlessRunner/PepperCarrotEndlessRunner_v0-1alpha_source-code.zip "PepperCarrotEndlessRunner_v0-1alpha_source-code.zip" ),MD5checksum: a76ca1a32ff0585e174c1f316ec87c43).** WinterLicht is looking for new contributors!** (musics, sound-fx, code, packaging, graphics, website, etc...) So, if you have related skills and want to help a beautiful project, feel welcome to improve something. This little open-source game deserves love and attention :-) Thank you WinterLicht for all the work done so far!
WRITTEN_BY David REVOY -
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21 comments
[](data/images/news/2017-03-31_march-refactoring/02_march-refactoring_net.jpg)
_mm... OK, let's talk about March._
March 2017 is ending and I thought I'd write this blog-post today to let you know how I invested my time and why episode 22 is still not around. As you have seen, it took me almost six months to produce the last three episodes of Pepper&Carrot. In general, my productivity has become extremely low and that's a major problem for the project. The cause of this low productivity are multiple and come from several sources.
[](data/images/news/2017-03-31_march-refactoring/01_march-refactoring_net.jpg)
_Bugs!... Bugs EVERYWHERE!_
So this month I started to review all the problems, make priorities and form a plan. Once the problems were identified, it was easier to work on them and build an action plan: step by step, little by little. _(Note: The tiny software [TreeSheets](http://strlen.com/treesheets/ "TreeSheets" ) was helpful here to organise my thoughts)._
[](data/images/news/2017-03-31_march-refactoring/03_march-refactoring_net.jpg)
_Clean all the taaaaassssks!_
**Artworks:**
I'm used to correct my artwork too much and rely on too many digital post-fixes and corrections. This process is just too long and not rewarding. So, I started to draw on paper every day to fix my understanding of proportion and anatomy (skeletons, pelvis, skull, chest) and improve my ability to draw, more spontaneously, any type of drawing. I'm making good progress and I spent about 1/3rd of March on this process as I identified it to be one of the core production bottlenecks. I also developed a new passion for the pencil. (Note: I still plan to color my drawings on Pepper&Carrot later with Krita). Visible test: a [model sheet of Pepper](article602/model-sheet-for-rgba-studio "model sheet of Pepper" ), and a test artwork [Rainy day](article603/rainy-days "Rainy day" ). More to come soon.
**Scenario:**
After an epic fail on the first storyboard draft for episode 22, which ended up too long and too compressed, I started to write more often and to storyboard many little stories. Now, I found a good one for the new episode 22 and the process did help me understand what type of stories I want to tell, how I like to cut them, and what is more important to me in a Pepper&Carrot episode: fun and uniqueness for each episode.
**Community:**
The amount of derivations and community activity are really taking off around Pepper&carrot. This floods my mailbox and notification systems all around. I managed to reply to 200 old emails but I had to drop probably 2000 (sorry!)... Unfortunately with this amount of emails and questions, I started to build anxiety about not being able to reply to everything. So I decided to pick priorities, and spend some time publishing a series of full articles to answer F.A.Q (the first one is the [best practice for attribution](article605/best-practices-for-attribution "best practice for attribution" )) More to come soon.
**Tablet:**
After more than 10 years of very intensive service, my favorite tablet -a Wacom Intuos 3 A4- couldn't be fixed anymore... I was used to changing the stylus and the overlay-sheet every two years but the products got discontinued in Wacom's eshop. I decided to replace it with a Wacom Cintiq 22 HD and that was a catastrophe. I didn't like drawing or doing digital painting on it at all and this drained my productivity. I sold it after less than a month of poor usage and this device ate a lot of testing time. Then I tried the smaller Cintiq 13HD but drawing on this type of hardware is definitely not my cup-of-tea. Painting/coloring on it is ok if I'm using it as a regular tablet mapped to an external screen so I'll keep it. I'll probably write a review with photos about my test later.
**Software:**
Pepper&Carrot depends of the health of many upstream project: Krita, Inkscape, Kdenlive, Blender and various GNU/Linux distros and Operating Systems. Regular regressions and bad updates hit badly and frequently my productivity. I decided to inspect more GNU/Linux distributions to find one with a good balance between stability, flexibility and good tools to downgrade versions when it breaks my (complex) setup. This research is still work in progress and I tried to improve the things I distribute on my side: [my set of palettes](http://www.davidrevoy.com/article327/krita-palettes "my set of palettes" ) and [my brushkit](http://www.davidrevoy.com/article319/krita-brushkit-v8 "my brushkit" ). I also updated the [security of the website](article604/peppercarrot-is-now-ssl-secure "security of the website" ).
**Life-style:**
Being constantly in a "lack-of-time loop", I ended up not sleeping, building anxiety, being at work non-stop and collecting repetitive small illnesses. To fix that, I started to slow-down, take the necessary time to process each task with quality, prioritize and take time for myself: I'm running every morning now and finally decided that evenings were a good time to relax and nights a good moment to sleep :-)
[](data/images/news/2017-03-31_march-refactoring/04_march-refactoring_net.jpg)
_I'll manage... I'm controlling perfectly the situation!_
**Is everything fixed at the end of March?**
Unfortunately no :) Many things in this list are still work-in-progress and couldn't be totally solved in a single month. Doing good and solid tests takes time. Transforming ideas into new habits takes time. Trying new technologies and getting out of my comfort zone takes time. But I'm on the right track toward an evolution for fewer problems and it makes me feel better and more optimistic about my future productivity.
That's all for this special March 2017, and many thanks again to all the supporters of Pepper&Carrot, contributors, translators, publishers and all of the community! I'll keep communicating about this quest: let's see in the long run if this evolution brings more happiness, calm, zen and serenity.
