Two versions of a watertower - a comparison in functionality and workflow between krita and rebelle

Develop
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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:

watertoren_6
watertoren_61920Ɨ2716 734 KB

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 ā€˜marching antsā€™
  • 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 doesnā€™t do it for me, feels redundant

Version made in Krita:

Watertoren_kra
Watertoren_kra1920Ɨ2716 573 KB

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

Rebelle_7_vi9Aenifdr
Rebelle_7_vi9Aenifdr885Ɨ503 280 KB

  • 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.
Iā€™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 couldnā€™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.

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The thread on the forum of Escape Motions, Rebelleā€™s developer:

https://www.escapemotions.com/community/forum/t/42446/two-versions-of-a-watertower-a-comparison-in-functionality-and-workflow-between-rebelle-and-krita

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Hello, as Rebelle is often sold with some reduction price, we can consider itā€™s ā€œrealā€ price is not 150 US$ - wait for Black Friday if you plan to buy it.

I tested Rebelle and I consider itā€™s impossible to compare it to Krita. Rebelle is the most logical way to paint (in watercolor) if you come from traditional art as the developers began to work on water on paper effect. Itā€™s not the way other programs are built. So there is no chance Krita will add such water management before a long long (long) time because to do so, you have to rebuild completely the painting engine.

Iā€™m not super fond of Rebelle. The sensation of traditional art is not very satisfying as you have to do things that are not traditional - clicking on buttons.
All the painting programs try to render something ā€œrealisticā€ but the way you obtain the result is completely artificial. The good is that you have a ton of features to alter, modify, undo, copy and so on very quickly your work, something difficult in traditional art. Rebelle does not have all the features Krita offers and so, itā€™s not very fun for me to use it. Last time I tried it, the result was quite poor. I would have a more ā€œrealisticā€ rendering with Krita with some dedicated brushes.

There is no hope Krita will work as Rebelle but itā€™s nice to have different programs with different approaches.

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I have also been doing stuff in Rebelle recently, and I am warming up to it. At first the traditional way of working felt a bit forced, but now that I started more non digital work too, using the oil paints in Rebelle just feels great. I like to challenge myself to not use the digital stuff like layers, undo and transforms. I also try to not use erase unless working on a line drawing. I found working in this way more satisfying as one really needs to consider the choices and work around mistakes. This traditional workflow can be done very nicely in Rebelle. I think the UI is very nicely designed and the brushes are the best default brushes I have seen in any program.

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The intent is not to just make a comparison in the sense of one being better than the other.
Rather itā€™s meant to inspire.
Especially a study of the functionality of their reference tool could be of great value.
However, I can imagine that pondering the idea of some of the mechanics can be worthwhile as well.
I completely disagree that itā€™s impossible to compare the two, you should just consider what to compare.

If you think I meant for Krita to work as Rebelle, I apologize for the confusion.

As it stands the software is expensive, especially for the pro version.
I donā€™t know what numbers weā€™re talking when itā€™s on sale, i.e. for black friday (a commercial concept that imo has no place in europe, but who am I to deny corporations their opportunitiesā€¦*), but I got it recently for 1/10th of its normal retail price, which was also the case with version 5.
At that time it indicated that a new version was soon to be released.
If there is one thing in which the two softwares are beyond comparison, itā€™s in their revenue models.
Pointing out things to Escape Motions will for a large part result in changes in the next version of the software, which you then have to purchase againā€¦

  • A subject on its own, that merits a discussion about ethics.