Full and long video tutorial: a Comic page from A to Z with Krita
Full video 1h46min, or watch it directly on Youtube .
Resources
- A zip pack with everything linked in this video is available here
- Deevad Brushkit version 8.1 bundle for Krita
- Comic page template Krita file (updated 2022, for Krita 5).
- Perspective star grid PNG image file.
- Speechbubble library and template SVG Inkscape file.
- Lavi Font TTF Font file
Jump to chapter:
0:00:06 Introduction
0:01:00 Chapter 1: Interface of Krita
0:01:53 Chapter 2: Preproduction
0:13:51 Chapter 3: Drawing
0:34:37 Chapter 4: Inking
1:00:03 Chapter 5: Adding text with Inkscape
1:17:06 Chapter 6: Color sketch
1:27:34 Chapter 7: Colored Lineart
1:32:59 Chapter 8: Detailing
1:36:51 Chapter 9: Post-production
1:44:32 Epilogue
Why a free tutorial of this length?
I'm sponsored by a community of patron on Patreon to produce new Pepper&Carrot episode. A lot of them gives between 1$, 3$ to 5$ per webcomic published (I publish maximum one episode every 2 monthes, something between eight or six episodes per years). Between episodes I often jump into the creation of free bonus for the community. It can be a Youtube tutorials, articles, brushkit, making-of, etc... My patron encourage me to publish the result online for everyone, because we don't like the concept of paywall (subscription with payment to get access to a content). For sure, selling this as a DvD or using gumroad or another way to make you pay with a trailer and more could have been a lot more efficient to receive money. But that's not my philosophy. So, if you consider my system more fair, encourage it! Become my patron today on Patreon. All money received will be carefully invested to grow my art and my involvement into the production of more free content and bonus.
Note: Full license info and details at the end of the video
58 comments
Dude, a big thank you!!! awesome video.
Nice one, David. You are ever so generous and don't worry, we love your "Frenglish" :)
Hello ,
Thank you for all the big help you give us :)
i would ask you if you use the mouse on drawing ?
because it's hard , i suffer using the mouse on drawing so it gets me nervous when i want to release my imagination :( !!
bonjour,
merci pour cette video comment vous faites pour mettre le flow opacity et size du brush sur la barre sans avoir a toujours cliquer sur la flèche moi j'en n'ai que 2 barre
awesome tutorial ! thanks for your sharing, i want make my own comic XD
this very help, once again, thank you david :) ^__^
It is awesome to see this kind of content with floss. I knew you since long time ago and you always surprise me with innovative stuff. And of course is a pleasure to see you painting. Thanks for the hard work.
Hey Thank you Ramon!
We were talking about you yesterday at KritaSprint2016 diner in Deventer, we missed you around!
Have fun making your comic! thanks for the feedback
Yes, I'm using a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet . Mouse is too hard to draw or paint.
thanks!
Merci!C'est dans Settings > Configure Toolbar ;
il faut ajouter dans sa barre:
Brush option slider 1
Brush option slider 2
Brush option slider 3
Et ensuite , on peut personaliser les trois barres pour afficher les settings qu'on veux. ( petite flêche à droite des 'slider' dans la barre )
i am preparing my wedding so i am very busy but i hope to be more online in november, when everything goes normal again. ;)
A wedding! Wow! Have fun :)
Thank you for the video David! It is very helpful, I've never seen the comic process detailed like this and I love your work so it is much appreciated.
One thing - you went over the writing process fast and I personally would love to hear more. It was already helpful to see how you break down the story into process but would be cool to see more of that.
Anyway, it is quite a wonderful video, thank you for being so generous!
Eh, super tutorial, je suis encore en finissant de lui regarder.
Je peux comprendre tout que vous disez, juste comme vous probablement pouvez comprendre à moi et mon français gauche. xD
Je sais vous êtes encore en train d'apprendre l'anglais, mais c'est le plus raison pour que je vous porte un conseil: éviter le uptalk/upspeak. Je ne suis pas sûr s'il vient de la hésitation (c'est naturel) ou d'avoir assimilé le dialecte d'autres gens en parlant, mais cela est un motif récent de les Américains que rend plusieurs de gens fou. Bref, c'est finissant toutes les phrases avec un ton d'interrogation, comme si vous faisiez une question, pas une affirmation. Très clair example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj4EIGje4dA
Keep up the great work, David, thanks so much for this amount of effort you put into making free resources and showing just how free software has all it takes nowadays to make great artwork!
I see you had some trouble with recording/voicing over, have you checked out Open Broadcast Software? It's my go-to tool for this kind of job. Cheers!
Hey, thank a lot for the nice feedback, for writing in french and for taking time to critic and give tip how I can improve my english accent and overall way to avoid 'uptalk' , I think yes, it comes from hesitation ; and and probably be affraid of being too affirmative and 'closing' the end of the sentence. I'll work on it on the next video ; I hope you'll hear me doing progress ! :) OBS is really cool, I tried it for Twitch, but for recording desktop while painting I prefer SimpleScreenRecorder ; I have less glitch for a unknown reason ( maybe openGL version, sync of Xorg/Xfce, dual screen nvidia .... ).
Merci David de partager les secrets de ton art avec autant de dévouement, de précision et de patience. Tu es un ambassadeur hors-pair pour Krita et la communauté "Open Source".
Vraiment, tu n'as pas à t'excuser pour ton anglais. Personne ne se moquera jamais de quelqu'un qui donne de son temps sans compter pour les aider à apprendre!
Thank you for this video. The "glossy points"/white points (@ around 1:39:00) are called highlights (or "specular reflections").
Hey David,
This video inspired me to get into digital art. You are a very talented artist, and I love your style. I hope I can support you in Patreon soon.
Congrats to your Pepper & Carrot comics.
Thanks
Awesome work on the video! This was really helpful to improve my art skills. Thanks for creating it.
wow.. thats a lot of work :) very nice.. I watched parts of it but have to get back to it this evening when more time...
one thing I noticed, isn't that left hand on panel 3? she is holding the ring on right hand in other panels :)
.b
Thanks!
hehe, yes for the switch of hand.
Let say, she switched hand between the two panels :-)
Hi, really thank you for the video. I'm starting to draw since last month, unexpectedly drawing is quite fun :)
I have a question: Why did you not use the vanishing point assistant on Krita? Is it not good enough?
Thanks! Just a question of habit ; when I see a perspective grid I can easier see the 'available space' to draw stuff. With the assistant 'on' I just have two or three lines dancing around the screen and my cursor ; and I feel it obtrusive a bit to draw.
I like to use the vanishing point for effect with lines ( eg. speedlines as in manga )
Hi, it's me again. I'm using your comic template. I want to ask about the layout stroke.
I can't seem to get stroke correct, the line is not straight smooth.
I thought it might be because some border coordinates are in comma so I've tried changing the coordinates and size of the border, and make them multiply by 10 but I still get the same result.
I've also tried changing the stroke size but it's still not working.
Here's the screenshot: http://imgur.com/a/94g4u
The weird stroke on 'inside' one is quite noticeable.
Any clue how to fix this?
Thanks before :)
Sorry, I forgot.
Happy new year! :)
Happy new year!
mmm... I sounds like a bug of graphic driver, or Krita canvas. Can you fill a bug with it ? It might be specific to your hardware/drivers.
( Maybe blending mode 'Multiply' can be switch to "normal" if you use 100% black ; it takes less time to compose the final render without this blending mode I guess)
The final image(jpg) also looks like that. I've tried switching the blending it to 'normal' too.
Also a bit annoyance, everytime I reopen the krita file, the frames turned back to the grey background again and the strokes are gone(I've saved the file before). Maybe this is a bug?
Thanks for the reply :)
Yes, now your description confirms it's definitely a bug.
You can report it here: https://bugs.kde.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=krita
It might take time: a lot of bug are queued , but it's important for developers to know exactly what's happen on specific hardware and graphic driver. ( add to the description your graphic card, driver version, system version, krita version) good luck !
Merci beaucoup mec!
I downloaded your brush kit a while ago because I was getting bored of the default Krita brushes, but watching you use them is so much more helpful than just my messing around. I have to say, there is no better way to learn to use tools than to watch skilled people use them. Thank you so much for this! Someday I hope to be as good if not better than you! (That's still a ways off tho)
Finally watched this fully... it's great David, thanks a lot for your hard work ! Definitely I will use some of your tricks in my workflow, that you already inspired a lot ;)
Merci Nylnook! :)
Very nice work, hope you still make tutorials in the future. Doesn't have to be long as this one, but some short tutorials with tips on drawing, coloring, shading, gesture, practice, etc... is always welcome. Love your style of drawing. And just subscribed to your youtube channel. And if you make now and then videos on youtube, more people will come because you give good art tips and people love tips on art and see making of art. And yes i read all the episodes of pepper and carrot.
Hi David!
Thank you for a very inspiring video! It's great to see your workflow, thank you for sharing. I'm trying to learn Krita for real, so all advice and tips are appreciated. And not only the video, thanks for sharing other resources too, like the brushes. I use them practically every day!
Regards
Martin
Thank you!
Splash, splish or plop would be the sound effect for water. Pick should probably be flick. I was really confused when I saw that at first. I don't know if you already know the sound effects though because I'm just a little bit late.
I actually found your site randomly while searching up how to create customized brushes and because Krita's explanation was a some people that just assume people know keyboard shortcuts and things you don't see happen on screen and I always get confused by how they did something or other. You explain everything really slowly which is nice because it takes time for my brain to process things and actually remember them. I know the slowness is probably because you aren't a native speaker though. Anyway, thanks for the great tutorials! Your accent is easier to listen to for me because many accents grate on my ears but yours aren't one.
Dang, I wrote a lot.
*...Krita's explaination was a bit confusing. Some people...
Merci beaucoup David :) I've watched the video twice trying to learn the workflow and I've applied it in a few artworks :D one thing I'm still struggling is how to paint proper values in the grayscale painting, since when I move on to apply color with the "ice cube" adjust color brush, sometimes I get pale colors (e.g. when painting skin) and then the only solution I find is to repaint with other brush... Nevertheless thank you so much for putting that much detail and effort in making this video, I've learned a lot (not just in this video, but in your past tutorials and workshops like the ship modeled in Blender and then painted) and I hope to support you in the near future in patreon.
Thank you for the feedback Jose:
Yes, it is the real weakness of this workflow: it need a little training to accurately predict the right value for being colored next.
It's.... a training and it come with time, with trial and error. Somehow ; here I can predict better and better grey shade to get good skin shading afterward with minimum of adjustment. But you also have to accept with this method it will never be the perfect gray value for the color you imagined. It's always need cooking ( darkening/ englighting parts ) and adjustement. It's rarely easy like coloring a grayscale photo with a quick recolor pass. It needs sometime full paint-over. That's why its important in my opinion to not polish too much the greyscale artwork underneath.
Thank you! :)
Hi, these panels aren't taken from a Pepper & Carrot episode, right? Do you intend to publish them separately? Are they a part of some story?
Hi Sal; these panels are not part of any episodes of Pepper&Carrot, they were written only to do the tutorial.
Maybe one day if I write more about Shichimi as a main character, I'll play to reuse the sequence for a wink to the followers of my blog :)
Thank you!!! This is so wonderful. Please so not stress of your Frenchlish, it is great. I really enjoyed the wealth of your tutorial. What dimentions and resolution are good to set up a comic book/page in?
Hi! Thank you.
For European comic page; the minimum requirement is around A4@300ppi resolution. It often mean roughly a bit more than 2400x3200 pixels.
Right now I'm working a bit larger : 2975x4202. In this tutorial , I probably had something a bit lower.
Do you still have the source files for this or did it disappear with the break-in?
Hey TappedOut, you speak about the comic page itself? I still have it. I might post the page in the 'Sources' of peppercarrot.com; in 'misc' categorie later today. The data I lost were my archives; two or three 500GB 2''5 hard drive stolen with on it zip of freelance projects around and before 2010 (eg. my work on many board game and book cover, I hope the publishers keeps the high-res preciously).
The source page is now available here: https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/static6/sources&page=artworks
Awesome; I've been thinking that art would make an awesome playmat.
Hey David ! so glad you gave this tuto. It's of good help, but sadly I can' use correctly the svg balloons files. I am on Mac, and when copying one ballon and pasting on the Inscape file, it goes with a white rectangular form only. Why ? Thank ou for you kindly answer.
Hi Franck; Thanks!
For your issue, I have no idea but if I had an issue like that; I would investigate the content of the clipboard memory (where Command+C store the selection). It can come from Inkscape no copying correctly or Krita not pasting correctly. A workaround could be to open the SVG with Krita directly; this is something new in 4.x series (this tutorial was published before) and now vector object in Krita are native SVG objects. It could works from a Krita windows to another Krita windows maybe (using tabs mode or subwindows mode in Krita).
Merci David. je regarde ca d'encore plus près ;-)
Hi David! Thank you for all your work, you are truly an inspiration for the free software and free culture world! I saw you speak at LibrePlanet 2020 and it inspired me to dust off my tablet and start drawing with Krita again.
I've been following along with this tutorial, but seem to have a bug with the comic page template. I'm guessing its because it was made with an older version of Krita? When trying to resize the composition layer like you do at 14:28 or so, some of the guide lines just disappear.
Is there a newer version of this template, or do you have a recommended way to fix it easily?
Again thank you for your work, I'm planning to become a patron as soon as I can!
Hi Grant!
Thank you for your nice words about LibrePlanet and the livestream. I'm really smiling to know this last minute organisation with Libreplanet had effect!
Thank you for reporting the bug with the composition guides/vector objects. You are right: meanwhile Krita totally refactored the vector engine and switched from OpenOffice odf type of vector to SVG type of vector in Krita files. The retro compatibility was built-in, but with two years now since this change, I guess it starts to collect bugs as not many old Krita files with vector object are around and tested. My template is one of those. I'll note on my To-do to refactor those to SVG after the release of episode 32 of Pepper&Carrot. I don't think there is any easy way to fix it; maybe it just need to be retraced; maybe a simple export to SVG in the layers and reimport could work, Maybe a Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V on a new vector layer. I'll have to test.
If you happen to find how to do it, feel free to tell me! That will help.
Hi David!
Thanks for your response :)
I've tried a couple of different things and nothing seems to work. Copy/Paste, export/import, redrawing it myself. The best results came from trying to redraw it on a vector layer using the polyline tool, but even then some of the lines seem to just disappear when resizing them. I have a feeling it might just be a bug in Krita itself.
I really like this idea of composition tools that are flexible as in your tutorial, so perhaps its just time to find out what solution would work in Krita. I'm very new to it, but i had a thought that perhaps there's a way to script something where you could make a rectangular selection and then run the script to draw the vector lines based on its size. We'll see how much time I have to invest in Krita, but meanwhile I think I will just keep practicing my drawing.
By the way, I wanted to comment on your comic strip "L'héritage en couleur", but the comments are turned off on that page. It really moved me, and brought me to tears. Thank you for capturing the deep world of children and how emotions in the home can steal all the color away from childhood. It was beautiful and touched part of my own life. Thank you again for your work David.
Bonjour David,
Merci déjà pour tout ton travail e tpour ton partage qui nous offre une belle vision du monde.
Juste ce commentaire pour savoir si le "template" est toujours actif car je n'arrive pas à le télécharger.
Bien à vous
Mathieu
Merci pour le retour! J'ai du me louper dans une manipulation du fichier; quelqu'un m'a demandé la semaine dernière de le mettre à jour pour Krita 5 (il n'était plus compatible et ne s'ouvrait pas, venant de Krita 3.0 )ce que j'ai fait mais ça a du mettre le bazar dans les liens. Je vais inspecter ça de suite.
J'ai fixé le lien, c'est http://www.peppercarrot.com/extras/videos/2016-08_comic-page-from-a-to-z/comic-page-template.kra ; ou depuis l'interface https://www.peppercarrot.com/extras/?dir=videos . Merci pour le retour.
Merci David,
J'ai copier l'adresse du lien et ça a fonctionné. Merci vraiment pour tout ton travail et la magie de ton dessin qui nous replonge avec plaisir dans notre enfance : il crée une ambiance cocooning quand on se retrouve devant son ordi (et je ne suis pas fan des ordi...) Ton travail est tout simplement salvateur pour les novices en dp comme moi. Je suis en Bretagne et je passe à l'action sur un livre jeunesse sur la natation (je suis un amoureux de la mer et passionné de dessin). Je partagerais quand j'aurais avancé. Bon début d'année et bonjour à Carrott...
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