I've tried promoting this software, as much as I can because I love it. I love the open source idea. The more people, the more healthy the community and steady amount of donations and tutorials. But I will be blunt, a lot of people still prefer to buy Clip paint studio and Sai because of anime. It's no secret most anime style artists prefer them over Krita. Medibang even has some kind of agreement with Shonen Jump. Heck CPS was literally called "manga studio" once.

I am an artist and I am 100% aware that this software is perfectly capable of creating anime. But I don't think young artists think of Krita as software that can do anime. It doesn't "feel" that way because most art promoted is basically either super realistic or "painterly".

So that's why I suggest pushing the anime angle more.

Take a peek at Medibang's social media
https://twitter.com/medibangpaint_e?lang=es
CPS's:
https://twitter.com/clipstudiopaint?lang=es

A lot of anime.
Now look at Krita's:

https://twitter.com/Krita_Painting?lang=es

Notice the lack of anime style there and in the official page.

Sai is pretty much used for anime, and in fact, often pirated for that reason.

Sai and medibang are not opensource and aren't half as good as Krita. But anime gives the popularity edge

Granted, of the mascots, Kiki is animesque. And Sure, Pepper and carrot's teenage girls are animesque (though it's mostly painterly). But the promo art is mostly super realistic/painterly in everything else. Don't get me wrong, I love realism. Realism is awesome and so is "painterly". But for better or worse, anime is very popular, and it would be a great idea to also showcase more anime and manga style works and artists.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying you should ditch painterly or realism in promotions. But a healthy dose of both wouldn't hurt. Plus for those worried about artistic integrity, you should know that "anime style" is just a gateway for artists to find their own voice that might even be realistic down the line

It's simple really. Young arists want to draw their favorite characters from tv shoes or "waifus" much more than a pretty landscape like a forest or a master study.



Thank you for considering.

Hi,

We do not have the money to hire a Japanese animation studio to create an animation that will then be outsourced to a Korean animation studio for the inbetweens and will be voiced by any voice actors. This is strictly, what an Anime is.

Our artworks used for promotion are made by actual people using the software. There is in fact several Japanese artists on the gallery page, and we have a decent presence in Japan. However, this art is donated by our users. If our users are not drawing stereotypical manga style characters so you and your friends can recognize them, there's very little we can do.

I am also not quite sure if I would want to discourage artists who just do their own thing from trying Krita. Open Source also tends to not be beholden to the popularity contest as much as proprietary software is due not needing to meet sales quotas. Slow growth is possible for us. As long as people who want to draw digitally know where to find Krita then that's good enough.

Edit: Ah, I hadn't seen you were looking at the twitter page. I am sorry, but those are just really stuff people post on twitter and we retweet it. If people don't tweet manga-style art, there's no manga-style art to retweet.

I've never heard of Open source software that can afford to advertise.

Those japan products use anime for Marketing because that's what Japan is well known to outsiders.
That's the strength of their marketing and that's hard to compete.

I saw people are very interested in Tutorial marketing. CSP and Medibang post a lot of tutorials on Social Media.
SAI already had tons of tutorials on DeviantArt which may be reason it's popular among anime artists

The only marketing advantage Krita has is word of mouth by Community(that includes artists and developers)
I use Krita tag when uploading my artwork online so people could check out what software I used.
That seems to work.
One day a friend asked me is Krita good. I answered it's not bad and you should try out because it's free.
Unfortunately, I don't want to persuade him to Krita because he wants to draw manga and text tool in Krita is not in desirable state.

TheraHedwig wrote:Hi,

We do not have the money to hire a Japanese animation studio to create an animation that will then be outsourced to a Korean animation studio for the inbetweens and will be voiced by any voice actors. This is strictly, what an Anime is.

Our artworks used for promotion are made by actual people using the software. There is in fact several Japanese artists on the gallery page, and we have a decent presence in Japan. However, this art is donated by our users. If our users are not drawing stereotypical manga style characters so you and your friends can recognize them, there's very little we can do.

I am also not quite sure if I would want to discourage artists who just do their own thing from trying Krita. Open Source also tends to not be beholden to the popularity contest as much as proprietary software is due not needing to meet sales quotas. Slow growth is possible for us. As long as people who want to draw digitally know where to find Krita then that's good enough.

Edit: Ah, I hadn't seen you were looking at the twitter page. I am sorry, but those are just really stuff people post on twitter and we retweet it. If people don't tweet manga-style art, there's no manga-style art to retweet.

Not really, I am referring to "anime style" which is a common term used by artists. Sorry, as a developer of an art program, I thought you would be familiar with the term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime#Anime_style
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/animesque




In any case yes I am aware the twitter account just retweets art sent to you. But really my points none of your promotional art has anime style art. Your official site has none. I just used twitter as an example. I'm aware you don't have a marketing team, but you do showcase art in the little places you can, and do.

My suggestion was just showing it more, as I am sure you have may submissions. That's it. For example the loading screen of krita showcases David revoy's art which is great.

I've never heard of Open source software that can afford to advertise.

There is a thread below of a merking person offering to do just that for free. But, I am not suggesting that though. My suggestion was just showcasing more anime art, as the official site has almost none.

Sorry for the confusion, But Nobody is suggesting spending money in a marketing campaign. I just suggested showcasing more anime art in the channels you already use, that's it.

Edit: I can see the negative already, so I guess I will just remain grateful for the awesome software, despite our disagreement. Have a nice day.

Honestly, we're also getting complaints that our mascot Kiki is _too_ "anime" and will put people off. There are people who complain that our twitter page art is too "anime" and will make people think Krita isn't a serious application that can be used for all kinds of art.

And indeed, there's a very real risk that any application that shows too much "anime" will end up in the same ghetto as medibang, clip studio or sai and simply won't be used by anyone who isn't interested in copying "anime" illustrations. I know there are quite a few people who are into that, but there are many more people who aren't into that. And once you're in the "anime" corner, it's really hard to get out.

I guess it's best to promote the most beautiful and professional-looking artwork, no matter the graphic style involved. And having different styles is generally a plus, because it shows the versatility of the software.

Software that aim too much at a specific style, whether it's manga or something else, tend to be overlooked as not really professional. Associating a tool with a specific style gives the wrong idea that the purpose of the tool is limited to copying that style.

The example of Clip Studio tells a lot... This program still pays for its poor marketing choice: the fact that it was at first branded as "Manga Studio" for the worldwide market (it was called Comic Studio in Japan)... So almost nobody outside the manga community took it seriously. But slowly, steadily, pro comic book artist are learning that it's a capable and versatile tool for illustration/comics in any style and not just Manga, and the fact that they now include artwork from all graphic styles in their marketing probably helped quite a bit.

redj wrote:The example of Clip Studio tells a lot... This program still pays for its poor marketing choice: the fact that it was at first branded as "Manga Studio" for the worldwide market (it was called Comic Studio in Japan)... So almost nobody outside the manga community took it seriously.

Exactly.