Drawing tools and shortcuts

The drawing window gives you a brush, an eraser, a colour picker, shapes, fill tools and layers. The most important tools are one key away - which saves a lot of time in a round with a time limit. Hover over a tool and its key is shown in brackets after its name.

Which tools you see in a game depends on its settings: the game leader can decide how much of the toolbox is available. That goes for the keys too - what is switched off in a game can't be reached by a shortcut either.

Shortcuts in the new drawing program

On your own you always draw with the new drawing program, in a game when the game leader has switched it on. On a Mac, use Cmd instead of Ctrl. While you draw, ? or the button with the keyboard shows every key that works in the current round.

Tools

Brush and colours

In Krakel Mode, the plain drawing window with a single colour, neither X nor Shift + E work, D takes black only, and the brush comes in the sizes of its size buttons, not in between (no [ / ]).

Selection

More in Selecting, transforming and warping.

Layers

Clearing and filling by key only work when you can undo - otherwise a slip could not be taken back.

View

Undo, save, copy

Shortcuts in the classic drawing program

Shapes and fills

Besides the brush there are geometry tools: line, rectangle, ellipse and circle, each as an outline or filled, plus a filled lasso. You fill areas with the bucket or with a gradient - linear or radial.

Layers

You draw on layers that lie on top of each other: front, middle and back. That way you can, for example, lay out the background at the back and draw the character at the front without painting over one with the other.

Blend modes

The brush can mix with what is already there in different ways. Two of them are especially useful:

• Alpha Lock: you only paint where something has been painted already - ideal for shadows and patterns on a character.
• Erase: the brush erases with its shape and hardness.

On top of that come the familiar modes such as Multiply, Screen, Overlay and Darken. The advanced brush settings are shown and hidden with the button at the brush.

Try it first

On the try page you can draw without a game and without a time limit and get to know the tools.