Changelog 2024-12-01 Significant edits to add clarity, information and more to this post. A basic re-write. A Problem One of my biggest ‘problems’ with digital art is the fact it has more constraints than non-digital (analog) art. When working with analog art I usually have a sketch book and some kind of composition book or journal handy so I can cross reference ideas with my actual drawing or reference materials. With digital, all this falls apart and becomes A Problem as digital forces less ‘scattered about the pages’ and more ‘hierarchical folder and file structure’.
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Digital Writing Tablet Mini Review
This post is about 2 different writing tablets. The Wacom One and XP Pen G430S. Both are very small drawing tablets.
I bought both of these recently to help me with note taking on my computer. For my $dayJob I do a lot of implementation work and I regularly receive PDF specifications that I need to annotate. I’m also a remote worker (work from home) so I can’t just print the files and use a pen to annotate.
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Convert PDF Coloring Pages
If you have access to imagemagick you can quickly convert a PDF coloring page(s) to grayscale PNG using the below procedure and notes.
Notes The pdfimages will get you a dpi listing for each page in the PDF that has an image, use that value instead of 300 in the below, if it is present. The -type Grayscale parameter can be removed if you need color output. Conversion Install imagemagick pdfimages -list shipspage1.
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Color Palates
Change Log 2023-02-27 Cleanup text and add a basic text description of the page. 2023-02-26 Replace exiting page with a better list, add new Krita palettes and remove palettes eclipsed by current set Palettes Below you’ll find a link to a color palette generator I use as well as a number of Krita color palettes I’ve created.
The zip files can be extracted into the Krita palettes directory for use. Please see the Krita official docs for more detail on how to setup a new palette.
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Digital Coloring and Drawing
Figure 1: An in-progress coloring page
Changelog 2023-04-05 Tune Krita S Pen config 2022-12-11 Added information on how I use Krita (Sketchbook is still VALID) 2022-11-13 Make tags more consistent with updated site tags Analog? Yes, I tagged this post Analog despite the topic being digital. [Edited 2022-11-13 to make tags more consistent with updated site tags] I’ve spent a long time staring at my sketchbook and wanting to draw and color but… my desk situation is such that I’d have to spend at least 5 minutes getting it cleared enough for drawing/coloring, then I’d have to put it back the way it was so I could type when I was done, I’d have to turn on the light at night (I like dark).
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Zentangle Template Images
The attached files are files I created as a ‘Zentangle Template’. It’s setup to be a 3.5" square with a 2nd ‘circle’ layer if you’d like to create a circular Zentangle. These are aimed at the digital artist who wants a basic canvas to start from.
Download Krita (kra) File
Download Photoshop (psd) File
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