Coloring is one of the most time-consuming parts of digital art. Unbeknownst to many users, Krita has a tool that is capable of reducing the coloring process to just minutes. You can easily color your own drawings and make digital masterpieces with the help of Krita’s Colorize Mask tool.
1. Add a Colorize Mask Layer to Your Lineart
Before you may get started with Colorize Mask, you’ll need to prepare suitable lineart. You should draw your lineart on a completely plain layer using the brush of your choice. Aliased brushes may offer slightly better results due to their sharp, defined edges, butblurry anti-aliased brusheswill work just as well as long as you clean up the edges later.
You aren’t limited to coloring just one piece of your lineart. Colorize Mask is a particularly powerful time-saving hack when you use it whileanimating in Krita.
Once your lineart is ready, right-click on your lineart layer and selectAdd>Add Colorize Mask. Your lineart layer will become the parent to a Colorize Mask layer.
Next, you’ll need to find the Colorize Mask tool and select it from the options in the leftmost column. Finally, select a suitable hard-edged brush from the brush options.
2. Fill In the Colorize Mask
Now you’re ready to begin coloring your drawing. You can plan out andcreate a color palette with Procreateor any other tool first if necessary.
Select your color, and add small strokes of color to each section that you would like to be a particular color. Make sure to add color in the small areas of your lineart or else Krita may color them incorrectly.
If you want a portion of your drawing to be transparent, select a distinct color to represent transparency and fill it in. Leave this as is for now.
After you’ve colored your lineart, you’re ready to render! Select theTool Optionstab and deselectEdit key strokes. Finally, click theUpdatebutton and watch as your drawing renders. Krita will fill in each area with the designated color.
You may need to add color in a few spots to tweak the drawing. you’re able to adjust this by reenablingEdit key strokesand pressingUpdateas you add new colors.
You should enableLimit to layer boundsin the Tool Options panel if you are rendering one small section of a large drawing. Enabling this option is helpful because it will make each Update render significantly faster.
3. Set the Colorize Mask Transparency
Before you move on any further, you will need to adjust your Colorize Mask so that the distinct color you selected to represent transparency is actually rendered as such.
Scroll down through theTool Optionstab until you see theKey Strokespanel with swatches for each color in your drawing. Select the transparent placeholder color and then click theTransparentbutton. Finally,Updatethe drawing to add transparency.
4. Convert the Colorize Mask to a Paint Layer
The final step you’ll need to take after finishing your Colorize Mask is converting it to a paint layer. You can easily accomplish this by right-clicking on your Colorize Mask layer and selectingConvert>Convert to Paint Layer. Krita will quickly process the change and convert the layer into an ordinary paint layer. With this, you’re ready to start shading and rendering your drawing.
You can make the process of rendering your drawing even easier by splitting the new paint layer by color. SelectLayer>Split>Split Layerfrom the top row of options. Use the default settings and pressApply. Finally, holdRand left-click on the color of your choice to easily select different color layers. Doing this will allow you to select and render each individual color in your drawing.
Speed Up Your Workflow With Krita’s Colorize Mask Tool
Colorize Mask is an incredible tool. By adding just a few dots of color in each section of your drawing, you can easily render an entire drawing in color within minutes.
The best part is that it only takes a few simple, easy-to-memorize steps. Once you become skilled with Krita, you can even pair it with other specialized drawing apps to develop an incredibly efficient drawing workflow.
