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A couple of days ago I dusted off my Veikk tablet and installed the latest version of Krita.
As per post title, my goal is to have fun with digital painting and drawing; but at the same time I'd like to get a bit better at it and produce something nice to look at - satisfying although not professional.

I watched several Krita tutorials, but most of them, though very useful, are (understandably) mostly concerned with teaching us how to use Krita and all its options and tools, assuming 'I know what I am doing', whereas actually I do not know anything about the art of painting / drawing itself.
So I'm not sure I am going to improve at all if I just play around with it, without any 'structure' in my approach, and perhaps trying to 'run before I can walk'.

A brief Google search showed that the possibilities are endless, of course. Easy to get lost in too much unstructured information.

So I was thinking: like in many other fields, where you need to learn some fundamentals first, and in a very specific order, maybe in this case too there is a 'standard' process / sequence of steps I need to follow, to do this properly. Is that so?

E.g., should I learn first about colours?
Hand-eye coordination exercises? (suggested by some YouTube tutorials)
Drawing techniques?
Materials (maybe not so much for digital painting, but who knows)?
...?

If you can give any advice regarding the correct way to approach this, and/or can suggest any websites / resources / tutorials that could help in that sense, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

PS

So far I have found the posts below in this forum, which seem partly related to what I am asking; if you think there is nothing new to add, OK. But my point is more about how to structure the learning process in time.

Resources for digital painting

Which drawing technique should I take when learning to draw?

What is the best way for an (almost) complete beginner to learn Digital Painting?

Where is a good place to learn graphic design for beginners?

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    for example Ctrl-Paint from an answer in the first question you've mentioned covers a lot of courses for beginners — you can use a list of topics as a reference for a structure (or the free videos themselves)
    – Sergey Kritskiy
    Commented Feb 5, 2021 at 20:34
  • Thanks, I'm checking it out!
    – user6376297
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 8:54
  • I watched several videos. This one: ctrlpaint.com/videos/the-tiny-study talks about painting directly in colours. But several other videos, including this one: ctrlpaint.com/videos/sketching-lines show that you get better results if you start with a very rough sketch and then build more refined layers on top of it. I'm mostly interested in landscape painting than in sketching close-ups of objects, animals or people, so I would be more drawn to the former approach, but then I find a preparatory drawing helps me a lot. What would be your advice?
    – user6376297
    Commented Feb 8, 2021 at 11:53
  • Just to exemplify what I mean, I like all the 'classic' impressionists like Monet, Degas, etc, and other styles like those of Raoul Dufy (e.g. christies.com/en/lot/lot-6129681 , pointpassion.com/… ), André Derain, Edward Hopper, Denis Frémond...
    – user6376297
    Commented Feb 8, 2021 at 12:04
  • Different people like different approaches. For example for me it's easier to start in volume, then add a color, then use line art for specific details. Some people feel more comfortable starting with lines first. So you'll have to try different approaches to see which one works for you
    – Sergey Kritskiy
    Commented Feb 8, 2021 at 13:01

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A quick piece of advice to have fun are:

  • Take one image as a background, let's say a vector-based image of your favorite character, and paint over it.

  • Do the same with a photo, a portrait.

Just two examples.

There are different applications for this kind of programs

  • Photo adjustments: brightness, saturation, etc.

  • Photo correction: Eliminating something unwanted, etc.

  • Photo styling: making one photo look cartoonish, etc.

  • Image composition: taking different elements into a new scene.

  • Textures

  • Drawing

  • Painting

  • And some more...

So explore any tutorial and do stuff.

The point is that you need to put yourself some objectives. If it is for a hobby I would recommend that you learn things like the color as you need it.

Do not get lost in only "reading". Invest time in doing.

But for drawing, I would recommend using a lot of paper, not only digital.

Take a look at the video of this course: https://www.domestika.org/es/courses/647-fabrica-de-personajes-ilustrados does not matter is in Spanish.

One thing I want you to see is the process of taking simple shapes and converting them into characters. That kind of stuff is really interesting to do.

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  • Thanks! I had indeed tried your first point. I pasted a photo as a reference image in Krita, traced the contours on a 'sketch' layer and then tried to 'colour it in' on a 'paint' layer with a very soft charcoal tool (of various colours, not just black). The thing is, I really do not know what sequence of application of colours will result in the desired light/shade effects, illusion of 3D, etc. I watched tutorials like this one, but what the guy does is miles above my head, I've no idea how he decides the steps he takes in putting it together.
    – user6376297
    Commented Feb 6, 2021 at 8:38

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