After writing this post, and looking on what is on the wiki on Krita's end use as a comicking tool, I kept thinking on what that page was missing and how much is probably known. I figured it was best to do an analysis of typical comics workflow, and let people think along.

Story Design and Thumbnailing:
Usually when creating a new story, a world bible is made. These are documents containing: the world-building, the character profiles, timelines and story outlines.
This can be a text file, traditionally writers have a map or shoebox with assorted notes, but I've seen projects use wiki-software, and in my own experience with tiddlywiki this(and software like Tomboy-notes or Evernote) makes most sense digitally.(Because you have several seperate ideas that are linked together)
In that perspective, there is no need for Krita to try and do this better. However, it may be a good idea to look into improving exchange of information with this type software.

The next step in comics-creation would be scripting / thumbnailing. I'll redirect you to this thread to see how many amateur comickers handle this aspect.
As I stated before I find the thumbnailing to be the most important part of comic creation, due the ability to experiment with different layouts, also it separates design work from the actual drawing work, allowing the artist to just focus on the drawing afterwards. Indeed, in the topic I reffered to, several people skip the scripting stage and write dialogue while setting up the layout, it's a much more visual approach. Scripting is still very common in the industry, where it works very well in a team setting: The artist can use the script to sketch the pages, yet at the same time the editor can change the diaIogue without the two interfering with eachother's work.

Now I'm done rambling about that, let me point out the existing problems with this stage:
1. As of yet, there's very little to no software that facilitates making thumbnails, layouts, and storyboards.
Digitally, people have been doing it by making a new image each page or scene-setup they need.
This does not facilitate reading order, and especially not the need to edit that reading order.
For some reason, software like Manga-studio and Mangalabo pretend this stage doesn't exist, preferring that you start with the sketching stage. (I suspect they avoid it thinking the stage is unnecessary due to pixels being cheaper than paper)
However, this means loading a 300-600 dpi A4 every time you make a new page or edit view, which frankly kills workflow.
2. The second method is to take a page on which there's a bunch of miniatures of the preferred end format on which to draw.
The benefit is no loading, but you're stuck doing tedious cut out and resize work which can't quite be automated.
Mypaint is good for this when you set a background with a miniature of the preferred end format.
example
3. Using note- taking software like Xournal & s-note.
Benefit: fast to work in, easy page editing and resizing the pages to print size(batch processing)
Disadvantage: Xournal has dynamic page sizes, but no text-export and the pdf export is really weird. S-note does have image export and text-export, but no dynamic pagesizes. Dynamic page-sizes are needed for double-pages and comics that tend toward the infinite canvas style and are thus decided upon panel-by-panel.
4. Few of the previous methods involve the text as a string object, meaning the text can't be exported or imported and has to be reentered in the print copy.

You could consider making a layout-option(you can save ui layouts in Krita, right?) for distraction free thumbnailing:
-There would need to be the standard brush and eraser option.
-A text tool.
-option to add a new image, and link it through the previous with the help of the flipbook?
-option to reorder the sequence of the images.
-an option to batch resize these images.
-an option to export all text within the images.
-an option to import a pdf and let it result into a flipbook.(For those who'd prefer using xournal or other note-taking software to thumbnail)
-and with that, an option to export it as a pdf(or other multi-paged formats) for easy sharing the editor and teammates.
-letting the refference open text files so people can look at the script while thumbnailing.

Sketching
Sketching comics in Krita is generally well provided for. It is, after all, very similar to sketching for anything else. There are, however, a couple of problems that crop up:
1) For some reason or another, it's just not as easy to draw perspective on a computer compared to on paper. My theory is that on paper, technical drawing involves the use of both hands, one for adjusting the ruler and the other for drawing the lines. On the computer you're stuck with one hand due to no support for multi-touch in this manner. I think Deevad had an example of perspective tools that were fairly similar to Manga Studio's tools. With my own experimentations with those tools, the biggest bother was switching between snapping and free lines. There's also the solution found in firealpaca and layerpaint: you can set a vanishing point and snap to that.
Krita's perspective tool is interesting, but snapping in Krita is very inconsistent, and it's difficult to see if something is an assistant or not.
Finally there's the option of making a 3d model, which allows for the background to be reused. In fact, my old 3d teacher got into modeling for this exact precise reason. Manga-studio facilitates this by having an internal 3d renderer, and Mangalabo has a simplistic scene builder.
Of course, one could just go into Blender or Sketchup and pull something together and make screenshots. The disadvantage is that 3d modeling is downright arcane to many traditionally trained artists, and those that do have the knowledge know that making models is time consuming.
And of course, there's people who have done this.
2) The second problem is cut-off.
Keeping everything within panels is solved by using clipping and masking techniques. However, when a panel only shows a part of a person, it's useful to draw the rest of the person as well. Again, for some reason this is much easier to deal with traditionally.
Adobe Illustrator and Mangastudio solve this by allowing you to treat a layer or a panel as a seperate picture(double clicking a panel or layer put you into a sort of distraction free drawing mode for that layer)
In general, I think Krita would benefit from a sort of 'view mask' mode like gimp has.
3) Refference and consistency: Krita has a reference window, which is excellent(Though it could use some interface improvements). Mangastudio 4 ex allowed you to save snipets of art to reuse later, which I guess was interesting, though I don't know if very useful.
4. Regarding panels again: in digital comic making they are usually created in this stage, but as of now, the vector tools of Krita don't snap to assistants, nor is it easy to have them consistently have a specific sized gutter between them. This is a little annoying in the realm of consistent gutter and margins, and digitally inconsistencies are much easier to see.
Manga studio has their tools for this.
Mangalabo doesn't really... Gimp allows you to set up guides, solving the margins problem, so do the Adobe products and Inkscape.

Inking
Manga studio 5 has solved pretty much every inking problem out there, by including every solution, and once the demo is out, I suggest you sample it.
Inking is difficult. Because the only way to do good inking is to practice and get a confident line.
The problems are:
1) Shaky line from being unconfident. (solved with smoothing)
2) Lines being near perfect but too long, while drawn in an error prone area(solved in manga studio with vector tools and an eraser that can smartly erase parts of the line)
3) Lines being too thin or too wide(solved in editable lines in vector tools)
4) Lines needing pressure sensitivity(solved with raster brushes, or the calligraphy tool in Krita and Inkscape(however, with those later two, you can't edit the curve sensitivity to tablet pressure and speed))
5) Lines having horrible anti-aliasing(solved by brush engine adjustments, or finetuning each brush)
6) Aquiring lines that aren't emulating ink(solved using raster brushes, or vector lines on which a raster image is projected onto)
7) Spotting anti-aliased lines(solved with smart filling tools, Krita's getting there with it's expand one pixel, Inkscape's and Adobe Flash's close gap being useful as well. Manga studio 5 has a plethora of tools for this as well)

Text
As noted during the thumbnail section, it would be damn useful if text of a comic could be exported and imported for editing and translation purposes.
Manga-studio, despite it's strength in inking is fairly weak here: Their current tool has bad support for western typesetting(italics, fontweight), and furthermore while the text-object can be centered to a balloon, it doesn't support making automatic linebreaks so text can be centered typographically. I think this may be because in Japanese, they don't really have this tradition of centering seperated lines like how we have that in western comic forms.
As I mentioned in the previous post I made about text-balloons it would be awesome if there's a way to set up a handlettering assistant fairly easily.
This would also be useful for sound effects. (A deformed "WHAM" to draw over, for example.) There should also be some consideration for setting fonts as favorites or having commonly used fonts easily accesible: a common computer has easily 30 fonts on it, a designer's computer many many more. Inkscape has recently been making advancements in this area.
Finally there's making easy balloon-tails and making sure there's options besides 'circle' and 'rectangle' (using an svg to decide upon the look of the balloon?)

I would like to hear your opinions on these ideas, and whether there's problems and options missing. My apologies if this is the wrong place to be discussing these kind of things.

Niiiice! It makes me think that Krita could prepare specific workflow pages, to document what exactly could be useful for each. Thus coming up with very specific solutions.

TheraHedwig wrote:Now I'm done rambling about that, let me point out the existing problems with this stage:
1. As of yet, there's very little to no software that facilitates making thumbnails, layouts, and storyboards.

You could consider making a layout-option (you can save ui layouts in Krita, right?) for distraction free thumbnailing:
- There would need to be the standard brush and eraser option.
- A text tool.
- option to add a new image, and link it through the previous with the help of the flipbook?
- option to reorder the sequence of the images.
- an option to batch resize these images.
- an option to export all text within the images.
- an option to import a pdf and let it result into a flipbook. (For those who'd prefer using xournal or other note-taking software to thumbnail)
- and with that, an option to export it as a pdf (or other multi-paged formats) for easy sharing the editor and teammates.
- letting the reference open text files so people can look at the script while thumbnailing.

Hmm... well, one of things I thought could be useful for Gimp is the concept of "Workspaces." (oh right, Krita already has basic workspaces, just needs to hide extra tools and filters )

Workspaces are basically customisable UIs suited for a specific task that hide all excess tools and filters, leaving you with the important ones clearly at the front, at optimal settings, etc. I've always thought that such a concept wouldn't be needed for Krita though because its default interface is quite suited to painting, though it would be a useful concept to have if it ever implements animation. What you described could be presented as a Thumbnailing workspace though. So then:
- Some of the missing functions you've mentioned could be presented as specific dockers
- Krita could also implement some glorified element management system, that allows you to manage separate frames for use here and there. That'd be useful for animation. So, you can edit the specific element, then have it appear where you tell it to.
So, basically, I have no idea what I'm trying to suggest *headaches*.

SketchingI think Deevad had an example of perspective tools that were fairly similar to Manga Studio's tools.

Oh yeah, we totally need this:
http://www.davidrevoy.com/data/images/b ... ign_02.jpg
http://www.davidrevoy.com/article159/de ... ctive-tool

I actually have a "Guides" proposal that could solve this in part:
viewtopic.php?f=137&t=109979

Basically, perspective templates. And symmetry templates. Radial symmetry templates too. And grid templates: draw a whole row of windows at the same time. B) They can work on an image-level, or on a layer-specific level as "local templates" (they are on a special type of layer like masks or local selections), and they could stack (draw a whole row of windows in Perspective, freehand!). So, draw your building on a layer with a local perspective template. Draw your character on one without. Easily toggle the guide feature on and off with a button on the layer, and/or shortcuts.

Finally there's the option of making a 3d model, which allows for the background to be reused. In fact, my old 3d teacher got into modeling for this exact precise reason. Manga-studio facilitates this by having an internal 3d renderer, and Mangalabo has a simplistic scene builder.
Of course, one could just go into Blender or Sketchup and pull something together and make screenshots. The disadvantage is that 3d modeling is downright arcane to many traditionally trained artists, and those that do have the knowledge know that making models is time consuming.

Yeah, the problem here is that the artist first has to lean 3D modeling either way. T_T The "local templates" concept I thought of is meant to, in part, make this task easier.

Boud has mentioned another thing he is working on, though: transformation masks. So, you can revert an image to a pre-transformation stage, for the side of buildings for example.

2) The second problem is cut-off.
Keeping everything within panels is solved by using clipping and masking techniques. However, when a panel only shows a part of a person, it's useful to draw the rest of the person as well. Again, for some reason this is much easier to deal with traditionally.

How about alpha-inheritance? I like those: place the frame underneath and the rest is hidden by itself. Darn easy to toggle too.
http://userbase.kde.org/Krita/Tutorial_ ... parency.29

4. Regarding panels again: in digital comic making they are usually created in this stage, but as of now, the vector tools of Krita don't snap to assistants, nor is it easy to have them consistently have a specific sized gutter between them. This is a little annoying in the realm of consistent gutter and margins, and digitally inconsistencies are much easier to see.

Ah, yeah, vector tools are not Krita's strong point right now. That part of the code is quite unmaintained.

Manga studio 5 has solved pretty much every inking problem out there, by including every solution, and once the demo is out, I suggest you sample it.
Inking is difficult. Because the only way to do good inking is to practice and get a confident line.

Ah, yeah, line form is something I've pondered a while too. That and precision drawing (for those annoying buildings).
http://community.kde.org/Krita/Drawing_Tool_Ideas

Several things that could be nice for drawing comics would be:
- A thinning feature
- A "map to path length" when drawing with vectors (to precisely map brush effects)
- And, now that I think about it, it'd be awesome if in fact, they could be automatically rendered as vector powerstrokes like Inkscape's powerstroke when used as vector.

As noted during the thumbnail section, it would be damn useful if text of a comic could be exported and imported for editing and translation purposes.

I find text a bit awkward in Krita right now, I admit I spam Inkscape whenever there are stuff to move around and add stuff to. >.> But anyway, as I said earlier this post, Krita could get an advanced "element management" system, but I have no idea what it'd look like. :S

But, such management could be very useful for animation management later on. Ack, this is not one of those UI stuff you think up in 10 seconds.

valerievk wrote:Niiiice! It makes me think that Krita could prepare specific workflow pages, to document what exactly could be useful for each. Thus coming up with very specific solutions.

Yes, this was the intention. And perhaps find solutions for problems in multiple use-cases as well .

Hmm... well, one of things I thought could be useful for Gimp is the concept of "Workspaces." (oh right, Krita already has basic workspaces, just needs to hide extra tools and filters )

Workspaces are basically customisable UIs suited for a specific task that hide all excess tools and filters, leaving you with the important ones clearly at the front, at optimal settings, etc. I've always thought that such a concept wouldn't be needed for Krita though because its default interface is quite suited to painting, though it would be a useful concept to have if it ever implements animation. What you described could be presented as a Thumbnailing workspace though. So then:
- Some of the missing functions you've mentioned could be presented as specific dockers

Yes, I had forgotten their name in Krita.
Ideally, if we manage to figure out the tools for each different use-case for Krita, we'll be able to create default workspaces to ship with Krita, like there are in PhotoShop, allowing people to get started with their work right away.

- Krita could also implement some glorified element management system, that allows you to manage separate frames for use here and there. That'd be useful for animation. So, you can edit the specific element, then have it appear where you tell it to.
So, basically, I have no idea what I'm trying to suggest *headaches*.

I think flash and Toonboom studio have something like this. Mangastudio 4 Had a similar feature, though I personally used it little.

SketchingI think Deevad had an example of perspective tools that were fairly similar to Manga Studio's tools.

Oh yeah, we totally need this:
http://www.davidrevoy.com/data/images/b ... ign_02.jpg
http://www.davidrevoy.com/article159/de ... ctive-tool

I actually have a "Guides" proposal that could solve this in part:
viewtopic.php?f=137&t=109979

Basically, perspective templates. And symmetry templates. Radial symmetry templates too. And grid templates: draw a whole row of windows at the same time. B) They can work on an image-level, or on a layer-specific level as "local templates" (they are on a special type of layer like masks or local selections), and they could stack (draw a whole row of windows in Perspective, freehand!). So, draw your building on a layer with a local perspective template. Draw your character on one without. Easily toggle the guide feature on and off with a button on the layer, and/or shortcuts.

yes, I saw that, I was reminded of mangastudio's rulersystem

Finally there's the option of making a 3d model, which allows for the background to be reused. In fact, my old 3d teacher got into modeling for this exact precise reason. Manga-studio facilitates this by having an internal 3d renderer, and Mangalabo has a simplistic scene builder.
Of course, one could just go into Blender or Sketchup and pull something together and make screenshots. The disadvantage is that 3d modeling is downright arcane to many traditionally trained artists, and those that do have the knowledge know that making models is time consuming.

Yeah, the problem here is that the artist first has to lean 3D modeling either way. T_T The "local templates" concept I thought of is meant to, in part, make this task easier.

Boud has mentioned another thing he is working on, though: transformation masks. So, you can revert an image to a pre-transformation stage, for the side of buildings for example.

You have a link to that?

2) The second problem is cut-off.
Keeping everything within panels is solved by using clipping and masking techniques. However, when a panel only shows a part of a person, it's useful to draw the rest of the person as well. Again, for some reason this is much easier to deal with traditionally.

How about alpha-inheritance? I like those: place the frame underneath and the rest is hidden by itself. Darn easy to toggle too.
http://userbase.kde.org/Krita/Tutorial_ ... parency.29

I actually meshed that with masking and clipping techniques,
The problem is seeing the full layer to be clipped, while not having to deal with all the other panels & layers. Perhaps a 'show only this layer' or 'show only this layer group' button? I'm trying to find a solution against clutter.

not one of those UI stuff you think up in 10 seconds.

well, of course, why would we bother to discuss them otherwise?

similarly, I haven't replied to everything yet, because I still want to think about them.

Huh, unfortunately, I have no idea how Flash and Toonboom work. I used Flash during summer camp like... over 10 years ago, and that was it. That and basic animation in Gimp (which were such a pain to do that I stopped).

You have a link to that?

Unfortunately no, he only mentioned it in Chat.

The problem is seeing the full layer to be clipped, while not having to deal with all the other panels & layers. Perhaps a 'show only this layer' or 'show only this layer group' button? I'm trying to find a solution against clutter.

viewtopic.php?f=156&t=110535&p=261734#p261734

I started thinking up an Elements system. It should mesh well with Krita's flipbook feature. You will basically be able to draw the frames individually, have them appear in a layout page as "elements", and adjust masks, alpha etc. from said layout page. To adjust the frame contents, just click on the corresponding document in the flipbook. When you go back to the layout page, everything is updated live! Script separation feature included!

It will also save you from the horrors of having one document with a gazillion sub-layers to search through.

hello everyone, excuse me if I do not post in the good topic, but this is my first visit at the kde forum and...I'm a little bit lost ^^'

I have a comic project and my director wanted me to produce in CMYK profile, and TIFF files...so does not gimp. although the separate plugin seemed very hard-to-use to me =\
I just discovered krita, and Im very pleased to see that level of graphic software available for free. my photoshop trial ends in five days =') but krita doesn't save in TIFF files, this is embarassing. I have to convert from 32-to-8-bit to save in PSD, then open photoshop to save in TIFF.
and there is a fat lose in color quality:

http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/7941/tiffetpdf.png
-on the left, pdf saved by krita
-on the right, TIFF saved by PS

but maybe the lasts versions of krita fixed this? saving in TIFF is not the only request I have with krita, but I think it's the most important in comic creation.

sorry my english is bad, it's not my native language =P

Hm, that is very strange, since Krita actually supports saving as tiff files very well. What is the exact color model/channel depth you are using?

thanks for answering so quickly =)
I use CMYK / FOGRA 27 / 32-bit float.
but, I actually use a windows krita version at the moment, maybe that's the problem? It must be the 2.4 or something like
I'll be glad to install krita on my ubuntu but this is not possible right now ==> so windows D:
so the latests version can save in tiff?

Okay, that's your problem. The tiff file format, as far as I know, cannot handle 32 bit float/channel images, so our tiff filter doesn't handle that either. More recent versions of Krita, like http://heap.kogmbh.net/downloads/krita_2.6.8.8.msi tell you exactly what the problem is.

I only have access to Photoshop CS2, but that doesn't support 32bit/floating point channel CMYK either. I think you'd best use either 8 bit or 16 bit integer/channel.

(It's possible that you might got tripped up by the "32 bit" in the drop-down: sometimes 32 bit is used as a description for 8 bit/channel rgba or cmyk images since 4 channels of 8 bits make up 32 bits per channel, however, 32 bit/channel means your pixel is 128 bits wide.)

the windows version you shared doesn't save in tiff. anyway, I just installed linux mint and the latest krita, it cans actually save in tiff (but it appears that it's the pretty same version) my problem is fixed
even if the linux version doesn't save in psd, i can save in .kra and rely on the windows version.

thank you very much /)^-^/)

To get back on topic.

I too am very interested in improving the comics features of Krita. In the past I've used good old fashion paper, Manga Studio EX and Gimp for comics creation, and tried many other tools too. I've also written a plug-in for Gimp, called Gimp Book, for handling multiple pages, similar to Manga Studio's story mode, and have been using that for my latest comic. You can get Gimp Book here http://ragnarb.com/toolbox/gimp-book/.

My workflow tends to be something like this.

1. Procrastinate
2. Jot down ideas, plan and do random design sketches (using paper, emacs, drawing rough ideas using paper, Krita, MyPaint, Gimp, whatever).
3. Write a script (usually I write this in screenplay format...which is probably not the most common way to do it).
4. Draw a rough (same as thumbnailing stage, but I tend to do it at full res, but with extremely roughly drawn stick figures).
5. Sketch/Pencil
6. Ink/Paint

For 1, 2 and 3, are not relevant to discussing features in Krita. I tend to edit page layouts and story elements all through stages 4 to 6, though I try to do most of it in the early rough stages, as it gets very timeconsuming to do later on.

Here are some of my thoughts on different solutions for doing comics in Krita:

Rough/Thumbnailing
I think this stage varies a bit from artist to artist. I used to do this stage on A5 sheets of paper, where I could easily juggle scenes and pages around. Now I do it using Gimp Book. Gimp Book lets me juggle around pages, delete pages and import new ones as needed, but it lacks a next/previous page option, so I always have to go to the page thumbnail view to load up the next one. It also means it reloads the image, so if working at full res (e.g. A4, 300dpi), there may be a short loading time for each page you open. Of course, in Gimp you can keep several pages open in different tabs if you want to.

Gimp Book lacks any batch functions that would let you run operations on the original .xcf files, such as resize the whole comics once you were done with the thumbnailing stage (it can be worked around by exporting the comic, and importing it again, as the export/import options in Gimp Book support rescaling and adjusting margins). One downside when working like this, moving panels between pages becomes more work.

If you like working like I do, with multiple pages, something like Gimp Book for Krita could do the trick nicely,, with a few improved features, such as resizing and next/previous page controls. Hmmm...maybe it's time I learned Qt and C++.

For artists who like to do many thumbnails on one sheet of paper, it might be an idea to create a tool that draws up a page grid in one big document, and another tool that can split this grid up into separate documents afterwards. This could be similar to using Guides and the Guillotine tool in Gimp (I'm new to Krita so don't know the comparable tools there). Though I haven't worked like this in the past, it actually sounds like a nice and flexible way to work, as you can freely drag stuff around in your comic, and have a clear overview of the whole thing.

I don't find being able to import and export text to be important. Manga Studio can do this, but I find it hard to use. The problem is that text in a comic may often have line breaks at random places, to fit into oddly shaped balloons, and may use different style and font for individual words. It would also be hard for Krita to determine the correct order in which the text should be exported, and I don't know if many people would really use this feature.

Panel Borders and Gutters
Here Manga Studio really has really some great tools. You create one panel edge (box) around the whole drawing area, and then you simply cut it up by dragging a panel ruler across it any way you see fit, snapping to vertical or horizontal as needed, or dragging diagnolly across if you want. If I remember correctly it even supports different gutter width for vertical and horizontal cuts, something that is quite commonly seen in manga.

In Gimp I would do the same by creating one main square selection, and then cutting it up with Marque Selection tool with fixed width or height. For diagonal cuts I do freehand clicking with the Lasso tool, which means I have to measure the width by eye. Once I have all the panel areas selected, I can simply convert them to paths. Paths can then be made into strokes using any brush using the Stroke path fuction. They can also be converted to selection, for masking off the panels. It's not as smooth as the panel tools in Manga studio, but it works.

I'm actullay not sure how you would go about this in Krita, but that probably has more to do with me being new to Krita.

Panel Layers
As mentioned earlier in this thread, Manga Studio lets you break out panels into their individual sub-document. While this works, it's a bit of a hassle to work with when you've got overlapping and oddly shaped panels, or speech bubbles that connect across panels. They are also a bit complicated for artists to understand how to use. It does have two advantages, firstly it helps keep things organized, and it makes the document lighter, as it just displays a preview of the panel on the main page, and only renders it fully when you export the pages. On the downside, it would probably break the current Krita file format (manga studio stores these Panel Layers in multiple files), and it's a bit pointless, as Group Layers already cover keeping stuff organized nicely.

Speech Bubbles and Text
Speech bubbles are actually a bit tricky, because their shape and style tend to vary quite a lot. Manga Studio does have ones that wrap around the text within it, and include a simple tail you can drag out, but I tend to not use them as they don't give me the control I want. Simply having good vector tools is probably the best solution here.

3D and Perspective
Actually having support for 3D can be quite handy, especially for complex mechanical things that you have to draw repeatedly, such as motorcycles or cars. Even something as "simple" as an .obj import and a 3D layer, with basic translate, rotate and scale, plus camera lens and position adjustment would be very nice, and would be easy to use for traditional non-3D artists. Creating your own models from scratch is hard, but just importing and placing a pre-existing model in your drawing, would be easy. There are literally 1000s of free and for $$$$ models available online, that artists could use.

The rendering of the 3D could be as simple as just default phong shading and maybe basic texturing, at least if just using them for tracing and/or reference. Manga Studio does let you render 3D models with outlines and screen tone shading, but personally I find the end result to be too mechanical and they tend to clash with the hand drawn lines. I don't think Krita should try to do any more advanced form of 3D rendering. If you really want fully rendered 3D in your drawing, you probably know how to and are better of using another program, such as Blender, that supports all sorts of advanced lighting and shading techinques.

Black & White
This is not something I expect Krita to ever implement, but thought it was worth mentioning anyway. Manga Studio is mainly a 1-bit drawing program. It has lots of tools designed for working with black and white images for print. A lot of print comics, especially indie ones, are still being made in black and white, because of the extra cost of printing in colors. Working with 1 or 2-bit (black, white and transparent) layers, is much faster than color layers, as they consist of much less data. In fact, if doing black and white comics for print, you don't want to work in grayscale. Anti-aliasing on your lines will just create fuzzy looking lines when printed, you really want to work with sharp lines, of 300dpi or more.

.

Phew...that was a longer post than planned.

Krita is really turning into a great tool for artists, and adding some comic specific functions to it, would attract even more artists too it. Personally, I'm planing to use it for my next comics, once I'm done procrastinating.

well, Krita has implemented the 'file' layer since I wrote this, and that does sorta cover the panel-functionality I was talking about.

Gimp has this nice 'newspaper filter' that saves time on creating dotprint tone patterns. But outside of that, I can only imagine the contrast tools to be of use in removing anti-aliasing. Krita doesn't really support indexed colour at the moment.

Having improved vector tools for this woule be really great as well. I believe Animtim has already been championing this idea. For me, the ability to edit the presure-sensitivity-curve of the calligraphy tool would already work wonders. (Though inkscape's powerstroke implementation makes me curious from time to time)

EDIT: You're the guy responsible for the JOT-exporter

The Jot guy, that would be me.

The File Layer has a small bug, that currently means it can't be used for panel layers, or anything that updates the file used in the File Layer. I reported it here https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=325686, so hopefully it will get fixed soon.

That said, the File Layers (once fixed) could cover the 3D part quite nicely, as you could simply link to the render output from Blender. And each time you do a new render, it would be replaced in your Krita drawing. It does require a bit more of the artist though, as he/she has to be familiar with a 3D package, but at the same time you would have much more shading and lighting options than we're ever likely to see in Krita.

As for screentones, the new Screentone brush in the current alpha is really cool. It's basically the same as Hatch_cross_regular in the stable release, but with a dotted pattern, rather than crossed lines. The more pressure you apply, the bigger the dots get (you really need a tablet to see the effect). I guess it's possible to make more custom variations of that brush, for a variety of different screentone patterns.

Ah, I hadn't come across that bug yet. I'll need to check if that happens for me as well.

As for the screetone brush. Yes, that's Deevad's brush .
But, there's one little weakness to that: You can't draw pure linear gradients with it.

And I just realised G'Mic contains a nice halftone filter, so not much worry about that

The only thing I have against the Gmic halftone filter is that I'm unsure how well it would work with printing. the inability to adjust the lpi angle ect. plus when printing in color if desired the ability to seperate the dots into a CMYK profile would probably be desirable (I know krita supports CMYK just unsure how well separating filter dots would work with it.

I could go into detail about comic screentones yet there are better references online about the subject.
http://loominate.deviantart.com/art/Screentones-with-Loom-2-Anatomy-of-a-Halftone-295789691
http://manga-apps.deviantart.com/journal/Screentones-Resource-Compilation-228075401
http://www.rivkah.com/?s=printing+dpi

The effects of using halftone filters wrongly can give digital toning a bad name,
although its perfectly fine if
used right,
lol heres a rant by shojobeat comic artist about digital toning.

http://www.rivkah.com/2004/09/digital-toning/
If Krita did implement a halftone filter hopefully it would come with easy to use print friendly settings to prevent
moire etc.

I am really enjoying this thread TheraHedwig thanks for posting.