Hi, this is my first time using Krita and I absolutely LOVE it. However I cannot, for the love of all that is good, get either alpha's working and doing what their meant to do. The image posted above is a screenshot of my Krita page and I hope it is enough to figure out what is wrong with either Krita (or me).

Basically the gist of the problem is that whenever I try to paint inside my outlined sketch I either press alpha inherit and it just paints normally over everything(not what I want) or I press alpha preserve and it does absolutely nothing, like nothing at all. It seemed and "drew" like it was working but in truth it was like I was painting with invisible paint.

Now, I have drawn on Krita before the drawing above, and I used both alpha inherit and preserve flawlessly. This image below is my drawing previously mentioned.


If I'm just being stupid and not using Krita properly I apologize, I have watched a BUNCH of tutorial videos, but obviously I cannot get the grasp on layers and alphas to save my life. If this is the case please instead of directing me to a tutorial video, precisely teach me what i'm doing wrong (doesn't have to be super lengthy, concise but str8 to the point)
Thanks for your time!

If I understood you correctly you want right click on your layer, then select Group->Quick clipping group and then draw on a Mask layer.

@Inkus
Nope sorry, that didn't seem to work. When I tried painting on the mask layer like you told me to, the ink was not visible(I tried all inks). However, like last time, I was clearly drawing on the layer/mask b/c it showed the strokes I was drawing on the little layer icon down at the layer bar. But it wasn't visible on the actual drawing until I unclicked alpha inherit , which when I did my strokes still hovered over and my drawing and outline. I want it to just paint where my outline is, not going over and effecting the other outlines/lines outside my selected outline.

It might have something to do w/ my background and canvas layers(I think). Below are all the settings I've tried for background and canvas

I'm not sure if I understood what you trying to achieve, (sorry for that). Do you want to color the inside of the face in your character? If so, the way you are using layers is not going to work.

Inherit alpha: It only shows (in the layer that is been activated) what ever pixel is underneath, and (as the name suggest) inherits the transparency of any layer below, note, if any layer below is fully opaque (no transparency) the inherit alpha will not have a visual effect on the painting = will show every single stroke you are painting.

If below the layer you are using with the inherit alpha has only the line art or outlines of your character, nothing will show except in (top) those lines (try a bright color to see). thus you will not be able to color inside the face with this approach.

Like wise, if you lock the alpha channel on any given layer, you can't paint on any transparency at all (but only for that layer), that's the lock symbol on the square next to inherit alpha, this function has no interaction with layers below/above and doesn't preserve the full stroke, only what's been painted over opaque pixels.

The step where you group the layers is correct when you want to use the inherit alpha function as suggested by Inkus, but once again, that's for the purpose of not showing the strokes anywhere except on top of any painted pixel below. (think of it as inverse mask).

Note that on your second picture, (female character) the layer order is different from the one in question. inherit alpha takes in account all layers below unless on a group.

If you want to (for example) fill up the hair that you just outlined, use the fill tool instead, make sure if it is in a different layer that "limit to current layer) is not checked.

@Quiralta
Thanks a buttload!
You really helped me out a ton, it really did turn out that I was just being dumb. Thanks again for the clarification.

In all fairness, this may not be the way other programs do it (I'm not sure actually) and is not something we figure right away the first times we use Krita, the manual covers many of this topics by the way, some with examples. Eventually you will get used to the workflow