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2 ‐ Rationale
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Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more rationale /ˌraʃəˈnɑːl/ noun a set of reasons or a logical basis for a course of action or belief. "he explained the rationale behind the change"
People will question every inch of this because some have purposely alienated the discussions around it. But programmers.. you generally will know why it matters. Coders usually understand the frustration of being told they are wrong by drop-kick producers and art managers. I can assure you, you were right all along baby. MOSTLY. - Opensource means opening the lock of problems previous solved by programming, which is the common and obvious understanding for why to embrace it.
My focus is primarily the unconvinced artist. Thought it's nice to know your team has what it needs to make your life better.
Because even when you're making the programmer happy by giving them all the same shiny art tools - it's the artist who benefits. Because your programmers can build you tools to solve issue that thousands of dollars had to solve before... in seconds. Not to mention, your server guy can easily grab those art tools and run your renders and other expensive processes on their farm.
MOST of the focus will be more on how this effects the end user artist, because some artists don't programmers or the skills to code.
So this entire page is dedicated to addressing all of what my workflows offer to an artist over other solutions.
Stay with me. Your first inclination is going to be to question why Foss is such a big aspect of this.
It should not surprise any sane, rational minds who understands the nature of capitalism, to understand that there are people invested in undermining that which does not cash out up the top of the social chain. Now if you suspended your belief for a moment... and you take on this CRAZY idea of FOSS being good enough.... That's not good news for holly-wood championed VFX companies. They see this smaller company being propped up by their rivals making salary of donation alone to deliver hundreds of times more updates every month. It's a threat. They are not growing nearly as fast; close source means less people can access; less people offering code and being paid to review means less updates. They would seem to have and I believe they will continue to have vested interested in efforts to undermine and gaslight FOSS users. So with that at the back your mind and understood... that's why most people cringe when they think of Foss.
Because FOSS = Bad for being the scapegoat victim in capitalism's way. Just saying. Not against capitalism, but it's not perfect always.
Some artists are sucked into the notion that only the proprietary best is worth using. This is an illogical extreme. They tend to blow their budget on a workflow headache with too many shortcuts and UI differences before they can even practice their craft. Some artists go the opposite way and seem cult-like in their love of all things free and open source. The two fight each other like mindless orcs in the comment section... Can you blame them? they are upset that their way isn't working out... maybe so upset they cannot team up properly.
Is it then the SANE and LOGICAL thing to exist strategically between those extremes? I believe so. I believe in having free opensource software as a financial and productivity back-up, and bolstering the lesser attempts at industry standard practice; with paid software and extensions. There's a big list of things to tick that Foss cannot always handle.
Say that you struggle with the complexity of things and you're always losing track of your thought process. I give you an example: despite how I learned to sculpt anything in Blender; I tried and failed to find myself interested let alone motivated to learn all of Zbrush and Mudbox, I was actually motivated more to learn these things in Modo at the time since Modo was the closest proprietary thing I had to Blender at the time. But with Blender it was a joy and I didn't hit a lot of ceilings like I did with Modo's tools. Without the creative flow you might think you're too hopeless to get your mind around all these proprietary software, but I'm telling you there's a smarter way for less to thread the entire creative pipeline.
MOST of the software is opensource and free. Regardless, some money will need to be spent to ensure some equal footing with industry standard products.
My workflows will get you ready for an endless war against the AI tech bros by giving you true control behind the power that they weild.
The document for the following goals in the following order: Industry standard productivity, Cost efficiency, Data privacy, hardware performance optimisation, more freedom in software licensing. I make not claims that this is THE way to achieve all of that, but I can tell you I successfully rely on the workflow. I've been a pro since 2012, working in studios, freelancing and even as a high earning slot machine artist when I started introducing opensource software into my pipeline.
This new workflow is a strategically shifting guide that reflects that experience.
To somehow achieve all workflow production goals and stay competitive with other studios; I discuss the following free opensource solutions.
- I have the right to modify my OS to suit my specific studio needs.
- I prefer to spend money on the the best hardware and Linux is less picky about the hardware specs. Hardware bargains are more common.
- Why give CoPilot-like AI free reign of my intellectual property and data.
- My professional VFX work demands smarter, more cost effective use of my system resources. Scan software, and the vast amount of other background processes eat up way too much CPU and RAM. This is why Linux is preferred for about 90% of servers in VFX studios.
- Resetting critical privacy settings to protect myself against data harvesting wastes my time.
- So does Managing third party virus detection software.
- And Dealing with the general chaos that comes from automatic updates.
- I need to be present online which means I need my web services running well, and it so happens I'm not a meta user.
- Why should I pay the MS and Mac empire for something that countless more developers are working on?
- Because I OS tech like a lot of tech is used to abuse the masses when used by the few while the masses seek to improve lives.
If I could summarise: It's about freedom, data privacy, dignity and a professional level of autonomy.
https://nobaraproject.org/download-nobara/
Every Linux distribution is different, but many are similar... Why Nobara over other Linux 'distros'?
- Ready to game, and thus to game develop. Steam, Lutris, Wine and Proton pre-installed with enhanced performance out of the box.
- Works well with free stuff like Blender and paid stuff like Davinci Resolve.
- Nvidia integration: Nvidia sound cards work, hybrid graphic setups work out of the box. Proprietary drivers used to best effect. This part is way easier than most Linux distros that I've tried. The best of JACK and pipewire settings also ensure a good audio editing experience.
- In general, very simple to operate. Wacom tablets, PC games - without relying heavily on Linux wisdom. FFMPEG dependencies are also sorted, which means you won't be too limited by what video codecs you need to edit with.
- Comes with KDE which officially which for people like myself coming from windows provides customisation and operating flexibility. KDE has in my opinion the very best third party essential tools like the Dolphin file manager and Kate code and text editor.
- Has a gnome version for fans of Mac OS aesthetic and simplicity which I will not be covering officially.
- Optimised for high performance and low latency to provide more overhead and productivity to create.
I'm a game artist, and VFX creator, someone with an NVIDIA who needs it to just plug and play. And yet I require a secure link with corporate friendly ecosystems which requires a red-hat like fedora setup which Nobara is based on.
So Nobara it is a nice choice for people like me who work independently.
I use this instead of using Photoshop. Note: Photopea does the rest.
I use it for:
-Image editing and photo restoration -Texturing -Basic vector work. -Pre-comp, pre-vis -Drawing, Concepting, painting -Basic text effects -Exporting documents for CMYK print -AI generation work
"Krita" comes from the Swedish word krita, which means "crayon" or "chalk", and the Swedish word rita, which means "to draw". It also incorporates the Sanskrit word kṛta, which means "made" or "done".
Click here if you really must know.
Dude. Nobody wants GIMP. Haha. But thanks for bringing it up, because it gives me the perfect opportunity to explain why Krita is the better choice.
Before I tear GIMP a new one, let me clarify—I respect the devs and the solid foundation of code they’ve contributed to FOSS. They deserve a huge grant for that alone.
But for people who assume I should use GIMP, let me explain why I don’t.
This is not an attack—just an honest (and brutal) review. It’s thorough, and yes, it could have been boring or even triggering to some, so I’m lightening the mood with jokes.
GIMP’s biggest flaw isn’t even its outdated UI or missing features. It’s the name.
It destroys marketing potential. It makes people uncomfortable to mention it. It’s actively avoided by schools and universities.
I’m not a kink-shamer, but I do know when to expect kink. And that list ends at pornos and bedrooms. Naming an art program after a fetish? What the actual f*** were they thinking?
It’s like smearing poo on a wall to keep out people who don’t “get you.” You alienate users over a bad joke.
The name isn’t funny. It’s frat-boy humor. Like laughing at poop jokes in kindergarten.
For reference, GIMP stands for: Graphical Image Manipulation Program.
Like anyone is sticking around long enough to learn that sad little fact.
And that’s why I won’t recommend it—until they change the name. It’s symbolic of GIMP’s broader issues: stubbornness over dumb decisions.
If they can’t see how much this hurts them, why should I trust them to fix anything else?
Okay, let’s say you get past the god-awful name.
You open GIMP and—yeah, it’s still a disaster.
- UI Overload – Instead of a slim left panel, you get UI garbage clogging both sides.
- Default brushes? Garbage. – Not extensive, and full of weird, barely usable choices.
- Panels everywhere – Consolidate everything to the right, like literally every other art app.
- Outdated document handling – GIMP forces separate windows for each image unless you dig through settings. Krita? Tabs. Like a normal program.
- Multi-monitor nightmare – On KDE, cursor misalignment makes some UI elements unclickable. I've literally had to CRASH GIMP to escape unclosable dialogue boxes.
And the worst part? All of this is easy to fix.
But instead of streamlining the UI, they’re stuck in a “but Jimmy in our core team likes it this way” mindset.
You know what? Tell Jimmy to write a layout manager.
Give artists customized UI presets for different workflows.
Give us a clean, streamlined default.
Because GIMP’s default layout is so bad, I want to close it immediately.
- Wacom, Huion, and XP-Pen work better in Krita.
- Krita has multi-brush painting, symmetry, mirroring, and multi-axis brushes.
- Lacks adjustment layers, requiring destructive editing.
- No live layer cloning, meaning manual layer management hell.
- Weak Python automation support, making Krita the clear choice.
- Krita and Photoshop have vector support—GIMP doesn’t.
- GIMP only has pixel-based vector tools, while Krita has a full SVG editor.
- Every major art tool (Photoshop, Procreate, Krita) supports animation.
- Krita has a timeline, onion skinning, and playback options.
- You can import video to sketch/rotoscope in Krita. GIMP? Nope.
- Krita has real-time tiling mode for seamless textures. GIMP? Manual.
- Krita has full 32-bit HDR painting and OpenEXR support. GIMP only recently added high-bit depth and lacks key tools to make it useful for VFX workflows.
I hate saying this about an open-source project, but they aren’t listening.
If they actually considered what the community needs, they’d stop doubling down on bad choices and start fixing the core problems.
Instead? Features keep getting ported to Krita.
(Like GMIC—oh yeah, that was GIMP’s first.)
It's been my experience that Krita devs are greater in touch with the needs of the art community than GIMP is. The effect is a massive exodus away from not only Adobe, but ANY company, even one so charitable, that is not ready to fully engage the community that supports it. Krita team have historically and some would say polightly 'stayed in their lane' their lane as a painting program. The proverbial lane is massively expanding from all the interest in the project to greatly engulf the usefulness of GIMP.
To GIMP team. if you're reading this: I love you... Really. This really just my genuine critique and I held onto most of it over decades. I wish only the best things for yourself and the project. I would love nothing more than to see GIMP becoming a widely useful art tool, even if it were to focus more on certain core functionality that respects Inkscape's role as the vector tool. But right now I would not call it contemporary with the likes of even Inkscape and that is despite how crash-prone Inkscape is.
There may have been a decision to only mimic Adobe in so much as you divide work between GIMP, INKSCAPE and SCIBUS... But perhaps the trick may have been embracing more of an all in one solution that attracts more community members to make more sections of it great like the single most successful art project: Blender.
now you see why I wrapped it in a spoiler. 😉
It’s called ‘ComfyUI’ and there are times when we have more repetitive tasks where we need more manual control of the process. Particularly when upscaling large quantities of files or doing a temporal denoise on a number of renders that are lacking denoising data. Unfortunately it does not have a straight forward app, we actually run it using chromium as an applet. And it generates a local server, which we basically just need to make unique from the one that ACLY’s addon uses to prevent conflicts. That's what you'll find in the install script.
What the ComfyUI Install Script Does Sets up folders
It creates the necessary directories to store ComfyUI and its files. Downloads and installs necessary files
It fetches ComfyUI and installs ComfyUI-Manager, which helps manage additional features. Prepares a virtual workspace
ComfyUI runs in an isolated environment to prevent conflicts with other programs. Ensures all required files are in place
It makes sure ComfyUI can find the necessary tools, such as model files. Creates a shortcut
It adds a desktop and applications menu shortcut for easy access. Launches ComfyUI when you click the shortcut
The shortcut starts the ComfyUI server and opens it in a web app window.
ACLY’s stable diffusion addon uses this as it’s backend already, which is included in my Krita install. I believe it's important to have this for exploring concepts directly in a GOOD painting app. PLUS: we may leverage this further without additional downloads.
That being said, you WILL need to ensure that you have used my Krita install script first.
I am an artist who has been impacted by the negative effects of AI being released into society. So I'm neither a Luddite or a tech bro. If you want to survive these days, you too may have to take a neutral stance. I'm still pro artist... I believe artists should arm themselves with every kind of AI poison they can get to make them feel safe enough to post online. I feel no remorse if someone poisons a massive data base from stealing work I have sweat and bled over to complete. I believe we need to support and donate our art to community driven databases instead of letting big tech get a hold of it.
However: giving up on new technology is giving up on a career in digital art. I came to face the fact in my work that this technology IS going to exist where we fight it or not. Not all AI is evil or made up of stolen IP and it's not always evil to make use of AI.
Because without our helping hands, we as artists are handicapped out of the role we love so much by proverbial technology and IP vampires.
Not all tech bros are bad... but some are totally proverbial vampires. I say, fight fire with fire.
Take my advice. Take the AI. Use it to defeat the AI tech bros and take back your role as an artist. If they are going to take everyone's work, take the power back and use it to ensure artists are always required for this kind of work.
You won't properly own the IP of what you generate with AI, but you can use it to speed through pre-production and faster turn arounds on concept art and design ideas. The exception is with SOME AI like Krita's recent sketch enhancing techniques use 'Good' AI, or in other words, AI which has not been made up of stolen art, but instead: donated works.