Krita's UI is ASS!!! I tried using it and MyPaint to test them in a worst-case scenario if I had to say goodbye to BI for good and I just couldn't get them to do what I've gotten so used to doing in BI. There isn't even a option for gradient swatches for brushes, or in krita its buried so far deep you need to look up a 9 min tutorial on youtube, and I never had to do that with BI! I just envision what I want to do find a brush that suits my need tweak the parameters and poof I got the effect I need! it has a huge default library of gradients that are good for skies or forests or deserts and you can make custom gradients and add them. I never had to look up tutorials on BI (partly because barely anyone makes them except for Bleank and Aaron Ruten). I just kind of knew what I wanted and figured out how to do it on the fly.

I tried to work on a drawing in Krita and it crashed twice on me (this is on the Linux rig mind you, Mint 21.2 Cinnamon). I gave up and turned the old rig back on and knocked out the drawing I wanted in a couple hours (might've been faster without cat bunting me warp speed and spawn camping my arms...). Other people might swear by Krita but honestly the UI just seems too cluttered and clunky for my liking while BI's tends to be very compact and intuitive. I don't need 1000 brushes like say Ibis Paint X has where everything's ad-gated and you keep scrolling and you see ad. ad. ad. ad. ad. ad. ad. ad. when I can just find one brush in BI and tweak it to my liking and if its really good then save those parameters as a custom brush like leaves or energy beams or rocks etc.

I just now saw a update for BI and I see this little line "the DLL d3dcompiler_47.dll is now distributed with Black Ink to ensure better compatibility with Proton and Wine." I hope I don't get my hopes up so high but I would be over the moon if BI could work with Linux finally after so many years. If not now then maybe for BI2 but I swear if it does finally work w/Linux I'll buy copies for everyone on friends list regardless of whether they have two left thumbs or not. I still value the art I make myself even with a tiny little wacom where other people have these ginormous $4k pen displays, because at least I'm the one doing it rather than just spreading my buttcheeks and EXCRETING out some AI slop.

Please keep up the good work Bleank. If my internet ever improves to speeds faster than that of drying paint I will stream BI drawing till the cows come home!!