Two versions of a watertower - a comparison in functionality and workflow between Rebelle and Krita

I have been drawing and painting in krita for many years, and have always enjoyed its open source mentality, as well as the workflow of painting in it.
The biggest thing lacking for me however is how it approximates traditional media.
This is not exclusive to krita, but rather a defining trait of digital art software.
Rebelle is a different beast altogether, it is a software dedicated to mimicking how traditional media and surfaces work.
For that reason it has fascinated me for quite some time, and since version 5 I have dabbled in it.
Recently I got a really good discount on version 7, and I was excited to do a painting in it.
The thought came up that it would be interesting to compare the two, hopefully to inspire the developers of both softwares to look into the other.
This is of particular importance because I often notice that people in the krita community tend to favor painting workflows over drawing.
Bear in mind that Krita is offered for free on their website, and a Rebelle 7 license costs 150 Euro.

I would like to make clear that I am in no way biased towards any of the two, as I see them both as really strong softwares, but also distinctly different tools, for maybe different philosophies.

Version made in Rebelle:

Things I miss in Rebelle compared to Krita:

Shortcut problems:
- shortcuts can not be appointed to a lot of things, stands out compared to krita
- no search function in the keyboard shortcuts preferences
- shortcut for selection feathering is missing
- no shortcuts for the different selection modes, resulting in a clunkier workflow
- no way to hide the selection 'marching ants'

- color wheel customization is very limited
- no way to set canvas rotation to a wheel on my tablet
- hard to be sure if the cursor is in the exactly right spot on the canvas
i.e. starting a line, to find that it is a little bit above where you expected it to be
- adding lightness to a color through a shortcut will go out of hue (problematic)
- when increasing or decreasing brush size, the red dot doesn't do it for me, feels redundant

Version made in Krita:

Things I miss in Krita compared to Rebelle:

- the guides function on the rebelle reference tool is great, and intuitively combines the functionality
of a reference tool with that of a perspective assistant
- reference tool functionality in krita is severely lacking in comparison
the current reference tool is very limited in its functionality, compared with the former reference docker, but especially when you compare it with the rebelle reference tool
- the idea of water in Rebelle is an absolute gamechanger which approximates a watercolor
workflow in a way uncomparable to that in Krita, things standing out are the ability to wet and
dry your canvas and to tilt it to have the water flow in a certain direction
The result is a far more painterly experience
- brushes in krita hardly respond to canvas texture

Painting experience:

I did the piece in krita after the one in rebelle.
In the past I have worked in rebelle, but that was a few versions ago.
The workflow in rebelle felt very intuitive, it often made me forget my usual digital workflow.\
At the same time I found myself using more layers than I usually would.
When I started doing the same thing in krita it took me a bit longer to get the colors the way I wanted them to be,
which resulted in taking a lot more time and layers.
I'm not really sure if it has to do with krita itself, but I can say that my process in rebelle went quicker than usually in krita.
Regardless, it was a lot of fun working in both softwares.
The brushes used in rebelle are the default brushes, all of them are tailormade to mimick a traditional feel.
In krita I found myself using third party brush packs pretty soon.
I initially did try to work with default brushes, but couldn't get the painterly feel, this may also have to do with my prior experience
with the third party brush packs for krita.
That said, the krita brushes lacked a good oil paint approximation in my experience.

Hi Konstrukto

> "- shortcut for selection feathering is missing"

You can find it under the 'Edit' menu section - default is "," (comma)

> "- no shortcuts for the different selection modes, resulting in a clunkier workflow"

Do you mean the different selection tools like rectangle etc.? There are shortcuts at the bottom of the 'Tools' section. For the modes like add or subtract you can hold 'Shift' or 'Alt' respectively.

> "- no way to hide the selection 'marching ants'"

You can hide them, but only if selection tool is not active - shortcut is Alt+Q.

> "- no way to set canvas rotation to a wheel on my tablet"

There are shortcuts for clockwise and counterclockwise rotation. Don't know which tablet you're using, but in my XP-Pen driver I can assign those to either direction of the wheel.

> "- hard to be sure if the cursor is in the exactly right spot on the canvas
i.e. starting a line, to find that it is a little bit above where you expected it to be"

Hm, I haven't observed this at all. Can you elaborate (which brush, size...)?

> "- adding lightness to a color through a shortcut will go out of hue (problematic)"

Haven't seen this either. What mode (HSV, HSL etc.) are you using? Do you see the hue shift in the value of the colour slider, or is it that you perceive it (which might be related to 'Pigments' mixing)? If there's really an actual hue shift happening, this should be investigated.

A comparison of Rebelle and Krita is certainly interesting. I think both have their strengths and weaknesses - Krita is hands down the more complete and feature rich application while Rebelle aims at being more realistic, intuitive and fun. The EM devs have a vision and mostly focus on features that support realism. Krita is more of a swiss army knife, but also goes quite deep in some departments like the brush editor.

Hi Dreamkeeper, thanks for your response

> "- shortcut for selection feathering is missing"

You can find it under the 'Edit' menu section - default is "," (comma

Ah yes, I found it.
There was no shortcut applied to it, but that can be done, so no problem.
However, I tried it and ran into a problem.
Setting the feathering to a radius of 5 still gave me a hard edge.

> "- no shortcuts for the different selection modes, resulting in a clunkier workflow"

Do you mean the different selection tools like rectangle etc.? There are shortcuts at the bottom of the 'Tools' section. For the modes like add or subtract you can hold 'Shift' or 'Alt' respectively.

> "- no way to hide the selection 'marching ants'"

You can hide them, but only if selection tool is not active - shortcut is Alt+Q.

I found these shortcuts as well, thank you.
Unfortunately you have to be in the selection menu for them to work, which means that two shortcuts are needed at least.
To me that is clunky.
The same thing applies to hiding the 'marching ants', having to go in and out of the selection menu has you pressing shortcuts all the time.
This will slow down work or at least will take a lot of getting used to.
An example from my regular workflow: I select, then hide the selection, then paint, then deselect.
In krita I can do all of these actions by single shortcuts.

> "- no way to set canvas rotation to a wheel on my tablet"

There are shortcuts for clockwise and counterclockwise rotation. Don't know which tablet you're using, but in my XP-Pen driver I can assign those to either direction of the wheel.

I use a Huion tablet, I couldn't find the shortcuts for clockwise and counterclockwise rotation in the software, so I googled them.
Applying them to the wheel of my tablet had no effect.

 > "- hard to be sure if the cursor is in the exactly right spot on the canvas
i.e. starting a line, to find that it is a little bit above where you expected it to be"

Hm, I haven't observed this at all. Can you elaborate (which brush, size...)?

This was a quick example on the express oils liner brush.

> "- adding lightness to a color through a shortcut will go out of hue (problematic)"

Haven't seen this either. What mode (HSV, HSL etc.) are you using? Do you see the hue shift in the value of the colour slider, or is it that you perceive it (which might be related to 'Pigments' mixing)? If there's really an actual hue shift happening, this should be investigated.

I experienced this using the alt+L shortcut, but tried to reproduce it just now and it worked as intended...
No clue why that was the case.
Let's skip it for now, and if I experience it again I'll immediately try to capture it.

> "Setting the feathering to a radius of 5 still gave me a hard edge."

Try higher values. It seems that Rebelle's feathering works a bit differently than other apps.

> "Unfortunately you have to be in the selection menu for them to work, which means that two shortcuts are needed at least.
To me that is clunky.
The same thing applies to hiding the 'marching ants'..."

That's strange. For me they are working fine without having to be in the selection tool first. One strange thing though: initially the shortcut for ellipse selection (Ctrl+Alt+E) didn't work at all. Only ofter deleting and binding again, which then read Ctrl+Alt+€ (german keyboard layout), it worked. Maybe ask support about it?

Regarding that brush offset: I tried all kinds of things, but I can't replicate it - for me the stroke always appears exactly at the center of the brush cursor with the 'Express Oils - Liner'. Do you use a display tablet (I don't)? Could it be an issue with its settings? Do you use Windows Ink or WinTab? Also, your brush cursor looks strange to me. Another thing that irritates me: there seems to be a mouse pointer before you draw. For me, the very moment I hover over the canvas, the pointer changes to the brush shape immediately.

> "Setting the feathering to a radius of 5 still gave me a hard edge."

Try higher values. It seems that Rebelle's feathering works a bit differently than other apps.

> "Unfortunately you have to be in the selection menu for them to work, which means that two shortcuts are needed at least.
To me that is clunky.
The same thing applies to hiding the 'marching ants'..."

That's strange. For me they are working fine without having to be in the selection tool first. One strange thing though: initially the shortcut for ellipse selection (Ctrl+Alt+E) didn't work at all. Only ofter deleting and binding again, which then read Ctrl+Alt+€ (german keyboard layout), it worked. Maybe ask support about it?


My intent is to make a comparison, and point out things I think work better or worse in the other software.
I'm going to assume that issues discovered in the process are noticed by the developers.

Regarding that brush offset: I tried all kinds of things, but I can't replicate it - for me the stroke always appears exactly at the center of the brush cursor with the 'Express Oils - Liner'. Do you use a display tablet (I don't)? Could it be an issue with its settings? Do you use Windows Ink or WinTab? Also, your brush cursor looks strange to me. Another thing that irritates me: there seems to be a mouse pointer before you draw. For me, the very moment I hover over the canvas, the pointer changes to the brush shape immediately.

I had my tablet set to wintab, switching it to windows ink solved the issue.
The cursor first appearing as a mouse cursor has to do with the software used for recording, it first had to select Rebelle to turn into the regular brush cursor.
What did you think looked strange about my brush cursor?

> "My intent is to make a comparison, and point out things I think work better or worse in the other software.
I'm going to assume that issues discovered in the process are noticed by the developers."

Sure, I understand. What I was getting at: there must be a reason why on my system the shortcuts are working the way you want but not on yours. Maybe EM can get to the bottom of this. It could be a good idea to post about this specific problem in the Support Topics section, so it doesn't get overlooked.

> "I had my tablet set to wintab, switching it to windows ink solved the issue."

Great! That goes to show how different systems are - for me Windows Ink doesn't work, because tilt rotation is inverted then. Curiously enough, in Flame Painter I have to use it - WinTab doesn't work there at all for me. Go figure...

> "The cursor first appearing as a mouse cursor has to do with the software used for recording, it first had to select Rebelle to turn into the regular brush cursor."

Ah, OK! Thanks for clarifying.

> "What did you think looked strange about my brush cursor?"

Not quite sure, the outline looked somehow like a thick ring. But that might be just because I had to zoom in quite a bit to see what's going on. Though now you've solved it, that's not relevant anymore. Happy painting! :)

> "My intent is to make a comparison, and point out things I think work better or worse in the other software.
I'm going to assume that issues discovered in the process are noticed by the developers."

Sure, I understand. What I was getting at: there must be a reason why on my system the shortcuts are working the way you want but not on yours. Maybe EM can get to the bottom of this. It could be a good idea to post about this specific problem in the Support Topics section, so it doesn't get overlooked.

I don't know exactly what's going on with this, but I tested this on my work pc, using a Wacom tablet.
The same issue exactly, the default shortcuts for selection tools either don't work, or only use when selection mode is toggled.
Making a new shortcut broadens the use beyond it.

> "Setting the feathering to a radius of 5 still gave me a hard edge."

Try higher values. It seems that Rebelle's feathering works a bit differently than other apps.

Meaning that it only starts to feather beyond a certain range, right?
So that makes at least radius 1 to 5 redundant.