Krita is a free and open source cross-platform application that offers an end-to-end solution for creating digital art files from scratch. Krita is optimized for frequent, prolonged and focused use. Explicitly supported fields are illustrations, concept art, matte painting, textures, comics, and animations. Developed together with users, Krita is an application that supports their artistic needs and workflow. Krita supports open standards and interoperates with other applications.
Type of Material:
Development Tool
Recommended Uses:
The best use for Krita is with individual efforts, homework, and self-paced sketching and painting tasks. It could be used in-class to demonstrate particular digital painting techniques.
Technical Requirements:
Operating System:Windows 8.1 or Higher, OSX 10.12, LinuxRAM:Recommended 4GB or higher Optional GPU:OpenGL 3.0 or higherGraphics Tablet Supported:Wacom, Huion, Yiyinova, Surface Pro
Note: Krita works better with a graphics tablet. General image-manipulation is possible with a mouse, but patience is needed.
Identify Major Learning Goals:
Although it has features that overlap with other raster editors, Krita's intended purpose is to provide a robust tool for digital painting and creating artworks from scratch. Keep in mind that it is not intended as a replacement for Photoshop. This means that the other programs may have more features than Krita for image manipulation tasks, such as stitching together photos, while Krita’s tools are most relevant to digital painting, concept art, illustration, and texturing. This fact accounts for a great deal of Krita’s design.
Target Student Population:
High School, College General Ed, College Lower Division, College Upper Division, Graduate School, Professional
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
No prerequisite knowledge or skill is required to use Krita. However, having an understanding of how open-source programs are developed, supported, and updated will help the user.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
Krita is specifically designed for digital painting and offers a good range of ready-to-go brushes to use immediately. It also has a brush engine for users to create customized digital brushes of their own. Features in Krita include brush stabilizers, pop-up palette, mirroring tools, drawing assistants (ellipses, curvilinear perspective, etc.) and layer management.
Concerns:
None.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
Krita can be used by amateurs and professional artists and both 2D and 3D arts, texture artists, illustrators, and visual effects artists. The fact that Krita is open-soource and free makes this digital painting tool very accessible for student learning. Krita can be used in a variety of ways to develop digital art. Krita comes with an online user manual (https://docs.krita.org/en/?pk_campaign=startup-sceen&pk_kwd=documentation-site) that also include general concepts, tutorials, and howtos. Krita FAQs are also on the site. Krita also has a choice in some templates including comics and camera formats to help the user get started. Having immediate access to all of these in one location makes independent study and work in Krita efficient and immediate.
Users with digital art tools could easily generate project pieces that could relate to any content topic.
Concerns:
None.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
Krita's layout is easy to use and intuitive. Most tools are just one click away. See the new Krita YouTube channel to learn about new brushes and techniques. Share artwork and ask questions on the Krita artists forum. Free learning resources for users on the Krita.org website include: Getting Started, Basic Concepts, Animations, User Manual, User Interface, Drawing Assistants, Tutorials, and Layers & Mask. Krita does not have a built-in printing feature, but users can export images a jpg to print from GIMP or Scibus.
Concerns:
None
Creative Commons:
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