In the Krita 5.2 beta support banner topic people started talking about Kiki mascot and there were some interesting points brought up.
I really like Kiki and drew her plenty of times but shes not why I use krita. Also my art of her never contributed to visibility of Krita.
Some people find image of Kiki giving wrong impressions about Krita as a whole. Like its not professional program. I can understand where they come from.
Cute mascots are usually good way to market things for children doesnt work for adults (mostly) and for sure wont work for professionals that care how program performs.
So it seem for me that Kiki doesnt have much positive impact on Krita image but there is (some?) negative impact and even some people completely discarding Krita as a program because of Kiki.
1.Do you guys like Kiki?
2.Do you ever draw her?
3.How about instead of Kiki splash Krita would feature some cool art Krita Artists are making (similar to blender way).
i think Kiki is a great mascot and another good example of Tyson Tan’s amazing design skills
of course! ive drawn her a buncha times, shes fun to draw when youre out of ideas
while i think that would be nice, i also think Tyson Tan’s art has already been doing an amazing job at showing Krita’s capabilities, its a tradition at this point to have Tyson create a new drawing for each new major Krita release.
I find it a bit ridiculous that some people find Kiki to be a bad mascot, i think shes a fun concept and could easily be changed or drawn differently based on the artist drawing her, kind of like Hatsune Miku. theres plenty of companies that have mascots that could be considered “childish” and yet they are still taken seriously. ive seen Blender recently use more mascot-like models and even make merch based off them, despite them looking cartoony and “childish”.
of course this is just my opinion!
I used Krita for years before I even knew Kiki was an official Maskot. I’m pretty sure most people don’t even care, it’s not like she’s in the logo or something. If one selects software just by their mascot then they are actually not really professional, in my opinion.
Krita advertises itself as a software made by atrists for artists, and it would be pretty suspicious if a software with that slogan came bland and boring.
The last one is from a person who is called father of concept art. So clearly kiki is of least concern for these proffesionals. I have heard the the new spiderman movie has some parts done in krita. Clearly kiki didn’t demotivate them from picking krita.
Over the years I have seen countless review videos of krita, not once I have seen anyone criticize the app due to its mascot. Even the negative review where the reviewer gave 1-2 out of 5 kiki was not mentioned.
I find the people who have issue with kiki are people who have issue with anime. I ignore these people.
Well, being an anime-crazed person that I am, I personally love mascots and I find Krita having Kiki very nice. I also appreciate these splash banners that you can see in Krita and Blender. It’s always exciting to see if there’s new art with a new version release. I understand some people hating the character (probably a very minor minority…), but I don’t think it’s a reason to even consider getting rid of her. I think the design is beautiful and “safe”.
@Zer0Frost I love your Kiki designs! They look awesome! This red-blue one somehow reminds me of Ryuko Matoi from Kill la Kill I mean this expression, the attitude!
Im professional artist (maybe not at the top of skill like one that you posted) And of hundrets artist (art is their work) that i personally know only me and one other use krita. And most of people actually like kiki.
So what you posted reminded me that there are lot of people with different tastes.
And i feel like krita main focus is more for fine art/traditional than for anime ( amout of realistic brushes added and we still dont have fix for color banding in gradients which is critical for anime style (actual thats one issue for me preventing krita reaching perfection))
So i can imagine traditionalists that like traditional look (that krita is going most for) are the one having problems with anime.
People that love anime hate furry characters so i wouldnt put them in the same sack.
Were here in echo chamber because what i want to touch is about people that (maybe) bouce off Krita because Kiki gives them bad impression. So ill will be trying to play little devil advocate.
And I have to reitterate that i Love Kiki and dont want her go.
Its just for a sake of the argumen
Krita is so much more and offer so many posibilities for crating fine/ralisting/classic looking art and its mascott is Cute-Anime-Furry character.
Hard to judge if thats common occurance but if it is thats tragic.
I really like Kiki. Her personality is amazing and her positivity is so nice. I would acctually not mind her having a bigger presence.
If I had to say anything I just on idea that her design fluctuates too much over time. It is like too many moving pieces not just a new outfit. She was extremely simple and had a sudden boost in complexity. 5 her already.
Someone who thinks he can tell the quality or professionalism of a software by its mascot surely also knows that Rolls-Royce and Jaguar produce toy cars for children, and who would want his car to fly away like an elf, or jump through the world chasing other cars, that can only be children? Does the stylized crane of Lufthansa mean to these people that they fly there in narrow, airplanes with tattered wings? I trust such people to think so, but I can not perceive these people for fully sane. To argue that such brands and products should be avoided, that they are undoubtedly unprofessional and inferior, I find splendid (barmy).
For me, there is no doubt, the only unprofessional are these people!
But the most important thing in all this is to realize that no matter what logo or mascot you choose, you will always find people who don’t like it. If you start to give in to the first desire for change, then it probably wouldn’t take long for there to be criticism of the new logo or mascot.
The consequence can therefore only be to stand by one’s own decisions, in this case Kiki, in order not to be classified as a fickle, unreliable product. You simply can’t please everyone!
True. Seeing new Kiki from Tyson is one of reason to get excited for new versions of krita xD He doesnt post much of his art lately ;(
Her design changes so much i feel liberated to go crazy xDD
Yea i can imagine only hardc*re fans of old masters having problem with kiki and anime alltogether. Krita is really good at imitating this classic painting looks so its sad if those people are the one that discard krita because of her mascot.
Yeah I have read about the people who do not like kiki on reddit and sometimes on irc too. The reason they say is that they think it is anime. Which you already know.
I shared these artist profiles because it shows that professionals do not care about mascots. What they care is how the software works.
How much importance we need to give to the people who do not like kiki I do not know.
As I agree with what you want to say and that standing my Kiki is one right way your analogy doesnt fit.
Imagine car company that their logo is toy car. Or car company with some cute anime girl for a logo. That would be odd wouldnt be?
Comparing Kiki to:
Is kinda missing the point.
Also people that discard Kiki do that due to prejudice and oh boy let me how much of that is in “professional art” field.
True Kiki is great! And i would love to see more people appreciate her <3
Thats true. Personally I see that as invitation to change her littlebit myself or use design that i like the most
Even if you draw her in simplest form she will still look like the same character
!. I love her, she’s super cute, in fact when I go evangelize about Krita to other artists she’s one of the things I mention as a cherry on top of my pitch package lol… like “also the mascot is adorable!”
2. Yeah, sometimes, admittedly not so much 'cause I’ve yet to find a design for her I find easy to draw
3. The Kiki splash I would argue already features some cool art! But I could certainly see the argument for that, and wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that if it if that became a change.
I can understand that some small minority of people will get a negative impression from Kiki for looking too “furry” or “anime” or something. Honestly, I’m not worried about that at all- I could only laugh if they decide not to use Krita just because of that. I think everyone deserves professional and powerful art software that they get to use without being at the merciless whims of a pure profit-driven corporate company that owns it, but that’s kind of their own fault at that point
As I see it, Kiki is just a fun bonus iconography to already amazing software. She doesn’t hinder (nor necessarily benefit) the visibility/reputation of the program. She’s like a country’s flag, but cooler. x3
I’ve been in the anime bubble for half of my life and this is absolute news to me. This is at least a very simplified generalization. There are enough Anime fans who like furry characters otherwise things like Wolfs Rain or BNA would not exist. Although there is certainly a disdain for Furries (the fandom).
Maybe you should ask this question in a more neutral or at least not Krita friendly space to get better results for your question, then.
Giggle, this was a no less stupid argumentation on my part, like that of the critics of Kiki, and that intentionally!
With it, I achieved two things, firstly justified criticism of my argumentation. Secondly I pointed out with it that, if one wants it, one can always pull some flimsy reason, like the magician the rabbit out of the hat, out of the hat, and with both, the magician and me, nobody knows where the rabbit or the flimsy argument come from. So I thank you for reacting as I hoped you would.
I have to add that, as you do the job of devil’s advocate here, I like to publish deliberately provocative or at least openly questionable posts to provoke reactions that get people thinking.
I never gave it a second thought to be honest. I noticed each version of Krita had a variation of the character on the banner, but it didn’t influence what I thought of the programme at all. I barely noticed it. Infact, I found and started using Krita without realising at all that it HAD a mascot. And I only discovered yesterday that she’s a cyber character.
Makes no odds to me at all.
I think i have everything explained pretty well especially where i come from with this.
I dont think you read any of it tho just looked at Title and felt provoked
I mean this expression, the attitude! 
