Charcoal KA. Best charcoals ever created for Krita by their community

[RamonM]

EDIT 2025.

Mastering New Charcoal Brushes in Krita and More! Techniques Await ;)

Hi, Ramon here. If you like figure drawing and traditional media…Welcome to the best 25 Charcoals created by the Krita’s community. Is a long Thread full of supercool things. Enjoy them One of the best experiences I have had making brushes

Video explaining the brushes with a demo. https://youtu.be/l9wtk5BWtC0?si=EwTXzCKKwy7eX2-t
DOWNLOAD the BUNDLE directly here: https://files.kde.org/krita/extras/charcoal/Charcoal_KA.bundle
DOWNLOAD the Paper directly here:
https://files.kde.org/krita/extras/charcoal/Simple%20DinA4%20fibers%20toned%20paper.kra

LICENSE
License Agreement for [Charcoal KA]
Author: Ramón Miranda
License: Based on Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) with specific modifications

Terms of Use

1. Free to Use for Painting – You are allowed to use these brushes to create illustrations, digital artwork, and any other type of creative work with no restrictions on devices, installations, or time.
2. Commercial Use Allowed – You can use these brushes in commercial projects (such as illustrations, comics, video games, etc.) without the obligation to credit the author.
3. Free Sharing Allowed – These brushes were created with community’s support and can be freely shared with others. As default or modified.
4. No Resale or Unauthorized Redistribution – You may not sell, sublicense, or distribute these brushes as part of a paid bundle or service.
5. No Conversion Allowed – You may not modify, extract, or use these brushes to create new brushes in other software or platforms.
6. Optional Attribution – Credit is not required, but it is appreciated if you choose to mention the author or link to the original source (YT video here:https://youtu.be/l9wtk5BWtC0).
7. Guaranteed to Work in Krita – These brushes are designed and tested to function properly in Krita. Compatibility with other software is not guaranteed.

No Additional Warranty – Apart from Krita compatibility, these brushes are provided “as is,” without any other guarantees of functionality.

THE NEXT TEXT WAS WRITTEN DURING THE MAKING OF THIS BUNDLE. Keek it for curious people.

Are you ready for this kind of challenge?
Hello, Ramon here. I want to create the better charcoals for Krita and i have already good ones (see at the bottom of the post), but i want to make you part of this, because the result could be epic.

i will record a video for youtube using the brushes we have created And explaining some good tips for charcoals. As a reward ALL the collaborators will be quoted in the video. Sounds nice?

As this may sound too complex i have starting point with lot of things. so don’t be shy and show the world what Krita users can do when the gather resources. We can learn a lot and also find things to be improved.

I hope you like the idea. So are you in? This is going to be fun

------------ FAQ ------------
Here i will update the most asked questions.

How this is going to be moderated? I am not the chief here, this is a collaborative work. if you have ideas post them. But remember Krita has its own character and don’t need to be a copy of another software. So we are going to be focused in use real artists, real media.

Can anybody collaborate? YES! but please, understand time is limited so don’t overpost and read the previous posts to see if your contribution will be helpful. That will keep the thread clean

And to show you this is going to be fun, here is a sneak peak. (things can change a lot)

some artwork that you can already see as samples.

Charcoal Experiments

Here i am going to publish only the latest Charcoal pieces. If you want to go further go here and let me know your opinion and ideas EDIT: Now this is part of the Charcoals for Krita challenge! More coming soon! now is weekend

NOW IS YOUR TIME!

If you are not familiar with brush making. here you have some help.
How to create brushes.

Creating a basic brush
https://youtu.be/eSun4h23wqQ?t=1405

Creating variants from another brushes (Watercolor brushes) with icon library.
https://youtu.be/drYOrnG0Ui0?t=739

Things related with brush rotation and drawing angle.
https://youtu.be/PlAlQ_RgYTY?t=478

How we can make RGBA brushes with oil behavior. Understanding a bit Masked brush.
https://youtu.be/FxjCk-yTIzI?t=164

How to Create Animated Brushes. Random
https://youtu.be/VTlh2KhkOM4?t=611

Importing Brushes, not bundles (remember you need to have the brushtips loaded, but if the brush use the default Krita 4 resources you don’t have to do anything else. When you import the brush, is done.)
https://youtu.be/drYOrnG0Ui0?t=869

Concepts used in pencils. Scatter, Pattern, Fuzzy Dab or Stroke
https://youtu.be/HtBzzXulIr0?t=302

Concepts used in Shading brushes. Scalable, Easy to change the texture, not detail oriented (this one can be discussed , Controllable with the roughness feature )
https://youtu.be/HtBzzXulIr0?t=481

First Reference to charcoal in the videos. With my Nathan’s copy.
https://youtu.be/HtBzzXulIr0?t=563

Tablets supported
https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/list_supported_tablets.html?highlight=tablets

Adjust the pressure to your needs
https://youtu.be/HtBzzXulIr0?t=256

RESOURCES USED

BRUSHTIPS
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16UdKKawiuLwKsPT9WuilJZvp6xIpsLJM?usp=sharing

PATTERNS, i used these but we can improve them. Nothing is written in the stone, yet
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pQBRP7U3I6pNhPdhNUU9RBGvJmbiheo4?usp=sharing

Before you continue reading, if you are less than +18 you must be outside of this thread because we have to respect the law and in some links some artistic nudity can appears in some ref artist’s portfolio.
Please respect this. Anyway I will try to moderate that.

So if the link you post contains nudity please put NSFW.
If this produce any kind of problem, I will consider seriously to delete the thread. THANKS

[Bleke]

Before embarking on an adventure like this I’d want some resources on how to make brushes from scratch.

I’ve never done it so I wouldn’t know where to start.

Maybe you could have a list of tutorials in the first post?

[daroart37]

This is super, I will do my best to participate, great things will come out!!!

[RamonM]

I have updated the first post to help a bit if you want to learn how to be a master in brush creation… tomorrow i will publish all the material needed, but it would be really cool to see What would be your desired goal for this technique first. Everything is allowed. (artistic terms)

[Bleke]

Thanks! It would at least be interesting to have a stab at making a brush.

[daroart37]

here are some arts and artists to inspire us
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/L252Ol

Fausto Hault

Chris Petrocchi

Marcin Warzecha

Yizheng Ke

[daroart37]

https://www.instagram.com/jiegaoart/

[RamonM]

Awesome artists @daroart37.
Let me say that i knew some of them but others not, and man This is going to be lot of joy and learning.

[daroart37]

if you know of other charcoal artists show the links for more inspiration, please!!!

[Mythmaker]

I know Nathan Fowkes teaches charcoal portraits on Schoolism. https://www.nathanfowkes.com/

Cesar Santos has some nice charcoal works: http://www.santocesar.com/on_paper

[fizzyflower]

Your charcoal brushes look so amazing!!!

One of my favorite charcoal artists on youtube is Zin Lim. He has a lot of videos demonstrating portrait and figure drawings with charcoal. And tutorials on how to render with this medium.

How to Draw Head in 5 Value: Step by step process.

How to use 5 Value System for Head Drawing.

[RamonM]

Zin lim is impressive. I did some previous studies following some of his videos. So yeah is a good contribution.
This is my personal list.
There are tons of artists using this technique so i have selected some of them that personally like. Others are here because they add variation in the style too. From realism, to expresionism.
Nathan Fowkes. Clean

Exclusive Interview with Nathan Fowkes - ArtStation Magazine

Zin Lim. Already posted
Zimou Tan. Works from blocks of mass Can contains some nudity. NFSW(for me is one of the best)
Yim Mau Kun. His demos with nitram are awesome.
Robert Kelley
Lane Brown NSFW
Steve Carpenter. He publish minidemos . NSFW on YT
Jeff Haines
Yong Chen
Zhu Kai i think he is digital

Ok there are a lot. And they are masters, but our goal is not imitating them completely but understand what can we learn from them OK? So i think this is quite good for the project… and I don’t know if they are woman or man, for me is irrelevant, we talk about art and skills. Also i remember again that this thread can contain some nudity like in figure studies so if you are not allowed by the law of your country, please get out of here. ok? And for anybody else please consider this before you post anything.
If this produce ANY problem, automatically i will consider to delete all the thread seriously Ok ?.

[RamonM]

OK HERE WE GO. GATHERING THE NEEDED RESOURCES FOR THE TESTS
You need Krita 4.3

1.Download the images inside this link
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16UdKKawiuLwKsPT9WuilJZvp6xIpsLJM?usp=sharing

I think everybody knows already how to load brushtips but if not:
2. go to settings/manage resources/import brushes
3. A window appears so look for the images files you have downloaded. These are the brushtips we are going to use for this week… And after you click in ok or accept, You are ready for the next step.

4. Download the .kpp files in this link
   Same operation to load the presets (.kpp files that describe the brush behavior)
5. go to settings/manage resources/import presets
6. A window appears so look for the .kpp files you have downloaded. These are the presets we are going to use for this week… And after you click in ok or accept, You are ready to use them…

Obviously the icons are not correct yet, neither the names :S but this is how i create all the brushes i do. so here we go with Charcoal Pencils! First Week!
You can change whatever you want in parameters and share here your tests and ideas.

Remember in the first post there are links to parts of videos where i explain how to create brushes and much more. Today’s evening i will givesome info about these brushes

[RamonM]

If you need PATTERNS, i used these but we can improve them. Nothing is written in the stone, yet
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pQBRP7U3I6pNhPdhNUU9RBGvJmbiheo4?usp=sharing

[kacart]

Wonderful Plan. I will be watching eagerly!

[RamonM]

Watching and also you can suggest ideas or try the new brushes

[daroart37]

here I leave you a quick test of an eye of the imagination using only @RamonM brushes, I still cannot give a consistent opinion because I have to illustrate other things and try more, in this case I used it with 100% black, I do not use gray alone black, I think it’s going well but I still don’t know what the brushes need to improve.

[Mythmaker]

*I’ve edited my posts as the problem has been solved.

There was an issue with the labelling on the brush tips due to the way the forum works; I’ll keep this post here just in case anyone wasn’t aware and already saved the brushes.

If your brush tip images (not the presets) have long random names - you might need to re-download the brush tips via Ramon’s link above ^ and import them into Krita (delete the previous ones).

[RamonM]

Now is fixed (i think) I didn’t realized of that problem when you download the images from here they have different names. Thanks a lot for let me know it. Maybe you could delete your post to have this cleaner? if you dont’t want to do it, no problem. It was my fault.

Also it is possible to create links here that open a new tab ?