Happy New Year 2026! Wishing you a year of springtime inspiration, and magical encounters.

source here

Transcript:

A comic in four panel:

Panel 1. The scene opens on a cozy winter morning, in the corner of a room with a chimney and a festively decorated tree, in black, because made by the Gothic Sorceress. The Gothic Sorceress, in her black nightie looks excited and a bit mischievous.

Gothic Sorceress: "I'm so excited, best time of the year!"

Panel 2. The sorceress examines the contents of a gift she unwrapped with delight: a new spellbook.

Gothic Sorceress: "A new spellbook? Yes!"

Panel 3. On the perch nearby the tree, her AI Parrot says something as the sorceress begins to flip through the pages. A cold shiver runs down the Gothic Sorceress's spine as she realizes.

AI Parrot: "I generated that book last night. I hope you like it."

Panel 4. The cyber parrot is seen lying on the tiled floor, with a heavy book on his head. He looks enthusiastic.

AI Parrot: "Using the spellbook as a projectile? I love the creative use! I knew you'd enjoy the present."

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. A young gothic sorceress sits in the grass at night, under the full moon. Her futuristic, Avian Intelligence (AI) parrot perches on a nearby branch.

Sorceress: "Avian Intelligence, should I cast a spell to turn the moon purple?"
Parrot AI: "Absolutely, it could revolutionize our nighttime color palette."

Panel 2. The sorceress beams with excitement, her eyes shining with enthusiasm, as she scribbles notes on a parchment. The parrot watches with an encouraging gaze.

Sorceress: "Then, I'll summon a giant black dragon to... crush the sun!"
Parrot AI: "Great idea! It could solve the whole 'daylight' problem, and I love the creative approach."

Panel 3. The sorceress's expression falters; she looks at the parrot with concern and skepticism.

Sorceress: "You think everything I say is brilliant, don't you?"
Parrot AI: "Your ideas are always innovative."

Panel 4. The sorceress facepalms, her excitement deflated. The parrot continues to chirp away, oblivious to the change in atmosphere.

Parrot AI: "Your genius shines, even in silence!"

source here

version with transcript here

TL;DR: My Patreon and Tipeee accounts are switching to a monthly subscription model starting January 2026. Check out the short comic above.

Here are some additional details:

Q: Why is this change happening? Was it forced?
A: Both Tipeee and Patreon have found that only 1% of their creators use the "per-creation" model. It seems they're streamlining their features to focus on more popular options.

Q: Is Patreon still making this change, and why is it happening in January 2026?
A: Patreon initially planned to switch to the new model in November 2025, but due to technical issues with a payment processor (Apple), they've postponed the deadline several times. Tipeee recently announced a January 2026 deadline, so I've decided to move both platforms to the new monthly subscription model at the same time.

Q: Have you changed the Tiers?
A: Yes, I've updated the tiers to a classic structure: $1, $3, $5, and $10 (and above). I've also added $50 and $150 tiers for companies that want to support my work. The same tiers are available on Tipeee, but in Euros. Since I don't have a paywall, tiers are mainly a way to give my supporters a larger font size in the credits at the end of new Pepper&Carrot episodes.

Q: What's the best platform to support me on?
A: I recommend Liberapay.

🔗 The 'links :

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/davidrevoy

• Tipeee: https://en.tipeee.com/pepper-carrot/

• Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/davidrevoy/

• Everything else: https://www.davidrevoy.com/linktree/

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. Wide view angle in the office of the University of Magic Headmaster. The room is filled with shelves of ancient tomes, but mainly, a carpet leading to the desk of the boss. A young gothic sorceress enters the room with determination, followed by a robotic cyber-parrot flying behind her: the Avian Intelligence bird. Detail: the boss has a AI Parrot too and seat nearby a large circular active portal. She points her finger at her AI Parrot.

Gothic Sorceress: "Headmaster, I'm requesting to opt out of the Avian Intelligence program!"

Panel 2. Shot on the desk of the Headmaster, an old wizard and his AI parrot, perched. He is deeply busy and his attention is fully absorbed on his paperwork, probably signing administrative stuff, giving a minimal attention to her.

Headmaster: "Not an option. Our investors say it's the future of magic."

Panel 3. The Headmaster gestures grandly at a portal nearby him, while adjusting his glasses. The circular view into another dimension reveals a distorted, broken wonderland. Twisted trees shaped like cartoon elephant, architectures of towers with faces, and weird creatures with big nose, moustache, the body of fish and long leg ending by three fingers. The atmosphere is both fascinating and deeply unsettling.

Headmaster: "See? With mine I created this world in minutes. Not perfect, lots of small bugs, but it works... mostly."

Panel 4: The young gothic student and the Headmaster stand before the dimension. She is skeptical with her hands on her hips, while the Headmaster seems tries to justify himself while thinking about it, the hand twisting a bit of beard on his chin.

Gothic Sorceress: "It's ugly and broken."
Headmaster: ""Vibe spelling", I call it.".

source here

I just finished the Pepper&Carrot new page for sharing our Fonts!

A decade ago, libre comic fonts were hard to find, especially with good accent support. So, translators, contributors and I edited & maintained our own to fill the gap.

Check them out: https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/fonts/index.html

After spending the last few months quietly working on a longer Pepper&Carrot webcomic chapter alongside my weekly "MiniFantasyTheater" comic strips, I'm happy to announce Episode 39: "The Tavern" is finally out!

You can read the episode right now:
https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/webcomic/ep39_The-Tavern.html

This is a standalone episode I made for Pepper and her master Cayenne, a little road‑trip stop where they halt in a village. The theme is a lesson about courage, something I think many of us have faced.

This episode is also an experiment in making a comic about sound. I know: "comics are a silent medium!" but that only made me more curious to try the challenge. You’ll see attempts to convey voice volume, songs, and lots of small visual nods to sound. I hope some of those moments surprise you or make you smile.

As usual, the episode is totally free and open‑source. Full source files (Krita .kra and Inkscape .svg) are available in the episode footer. It was created 100% with Free/Libre software on GNU/Linux (Debian KDE 12). Big thanks to the proofreaders and translators who helped polish and share this one in other languages: English, Français, Deutsch, Español, 中文, Norsk (nynorsk), and toki pona are ready!

Most importantly: this chapter wouldn’t exist without my community of supporters. A special thank you to the 1,106 supporters: on Patreon, Tipeee, Liberapay, and via direct transfers. Your support bought me the time and space to make this possible!

I really hope you’ll enjoy this cosy, slightly experimental chapter!

Just a quick update: I'll be at Capitole du Libre 2025 Conference in Toulouse, France on Sunday, November 16th!

Here's what's on my schedule:

• 10:30-11:30 AM (Room A203): Join me for a 1h commented Krita speedpainting live demo.

• 11:30 AM-12:30 PM (Room B00): I'll be part of a panel discussion with Bookynette and Gee about free/libre book publishing.

More info: https://capitoledulibre.org/
See you there!

Recap of main events since episode 38:

A lot has happened since the release of the last episode 38: 'The Healer' in April 2023:

The canceled Episode 39 "The Bedtime Story"

After episode 38, the production of the episode 39 started in July 2023 and I posted a bit later some concept-art. By the end of 2023, I had a version fully ready to read for the proofreaders. The concept of this episode in a nutshell: Cayenne decided to use a bedtime story moment to info-dump the backstory of the series onto Pepper. In short, it was a ten page long flashback, with a lot of text and illustrations. The feedbacks I received at the Beta version taught me this episode rised more questions than answering ones, and its execution was clumsy. I tried to fix it for months, until I decided to give-up and restart from scratch in March 2024. As a post mortem, I backported in April 2025 some panels of this version to the Timeline's Wiki page of Pepper&Carrot. At least, not all of the hundreds and hundreds of hours put into this were totally a waste.

"The end of Pepper&Carrot", a blog-post I regret...

In mid 2024, after cancelling Episode 39 "The Bedtime Story", and following a long period of personal struggle and feeling down, I announced the end of Pepper&Carrot. That was a mistake. I wish I never published that blog-post. But the idea circulated well, way faster than the other blog-posts saying I wanted to continue the series. So, just to be clear: I'm continuing Pepper&Carrot series, I love it too much. I just had a very bad time.

The weekly MiniFantasyTheater comic-strips

During my long period of personal struggle and also discouraged by the extremely slow progress on Pepper&Carrot episodes and facing months without being able to post comics, I created a new comic project: MiniFantasyTheater. Short, quick, direct, and without all the technical debt of a 10 years old FLOSS project. It quickly felt great to post and interact on my social networks regularly, and it became a habit. But I also missed being able to write longer episodes. It took me some time to accept a paradox: I need to produce the two formats.

Refactor and new website

During all autumn and winter 2024, I paused the MiniFantasyTheater comic strip and decided to refactor and fix many technical debt I accumulated. I financed that on my own saving and doing Freelancer work. I incorporated many innovations I made for MiniFantasyTheater into Pepper&Carrot. The result of this big cleaning: the projects share now the same fonts, translation system, Git repositories, and a new Pepper&Carrot website, also technically, the project is now ready to scale up.

Money, support and financial situation

Neither my Patreon nor my Tipeee account has paid out since April 2023, as no new episodes of Pepper & Carrot have been released. It's my fault: when I started the project, I chose the "per content" support model instead of the "monthly subscription" model. This made sense back then when the project was short Pepper & Carrot episodes without maintenance, technical debt and larger and larger episodes. But right now, it has become problematic. There aren't many ways to support my weekly short comic format, except direct donations and Liberapay. To make matters worse, I also had to stop taking on freelance commissions, which had kept me afloat, because I needed more time to produce the MiniFantasyTheater episodes. However, Episode 39 is now well underway, and its release should help me a lot. After its release, I'll make more changes to this side of things and move to a monthly subscription support model. Of course, I'll notify supporters in advance so they can prepare.

Production conditions are tougher than ever

• AI generative imagery: It's everywhere and it drains me a lot of energy when I receive comments that my style looks like AI (almost weekly).
• Linux is in its worst shape: It's really difficult to advocate professional Digital Painting nowadays because of some massive bugs and regressions. Users are lost, it doesn't work, and with "the end of Windows 10", I get daily request about it. I published a detailed install guide to address this.
• Tougher Society: Inflation, hatred, wars, and the rise of fascism.
• Family: There have been way too many deaths...

Workflow research and development

Since the beginning of 2025, I have been (re)testing various workflows. The focus of this research was to find a method that I could replicate on dozens of panels consistently and enjoyably.

Workflow A: the classic

This is the classic of classics in the industry: line art, flat colors, and shading. This is the workflow I used for the first eight MiniFantasyTheater episodes. The problem? Once I obtained clean line art, I spent a lot of energy filling the artwork with color while preserving the line art's precision. So, coloring and shading became tedious and boring tasks. I always die a little inside while doing it because it doesn't stimulate my brain enough.

The three steps of the classic workflow on Shichimi and Torreya artwork.

Workflow B: direct painting

This is a workflow that I used a lot during my career as a concept artist. First, I built the grayscale building blocks, then recolored them approximately, and finally painted over them until they looked good. While this method is the fastest, hands down, it also has a major issue: many things can go wrong with the proportions, drawing of the face, and facial expressions. The same goes for speedlines or a specific perspective and view angle. All the efforts are postponed to the final pass, where I redraw the details and make everything solid. In this demo artwork, I did well, but unfortunately, for many panels in a comic, this method is simply hard to manage, pushing all the efforts toward the end of production.

Three steps of the direct painting workflow on Pepper 'Rain' artwork.

Workflow C: compromise

For episode 39, I've decided on a compromise workflow. First, I'm creating a thick sketch in mid-gray on a white background. This step is a bit frustrating because I can't make all the details look as precise as line art, but the goal is different. The goal is to create solid volumes that are correctly proportioned and to achieve the correct view angle and perspective. The pre-coloring step is divided into two steps: grayscale and recoloring the grayscale. I find it easier to focus on defining how the light source builds up the volume and splitting the different parts of the picture into grayscale. Thanks to the semi-transparent sketch, I have a guide that helps me minimize the number of brushstrokes. This makes them more visible, even once recolored, as individual entities rather than blending them together into a mess. Because of the thick sketch, it's also easier to paint in grayscale and recolor with precision. It's "blocky." Finally, I can flatten everything and selectively repaint or edit details on top.

Four steps of the workflow c, on the 'A Drink Alone' artwork.

If you look on a close-up you'll get a better idea of how the sketch totally blended into the final result, how the brush work is visible, and how the details and resolution are located only on few area of the painting. On this crop: the lips.

A close-up of the artwork "A Drink Alone".

Preproduction:

This section lists all the steps before drawing on the comic page, i.e., production.

Scenario

I wrote many scenarios, for which I mostly used Kate, the KDE Plasma desktop's text editor, to save my text files in Markdown format. Everything was versioned into Git repositories, but each time I wanted to open and refer to a version quickly, I saved the file incrementally. So, for each story, I ended up with a column that looked like the one on the left in the screenshot below. Thanks to Markdown, I can use the quoting symbol at the start of a sentence to get a different color for the dialogue. Sometimes, I want to reread only the dialogue, and it's convenient to have it color-coded.

A screenshot of Kate.

Here's a tip for determining the number of panels: In Kate, use the Regex search/replace function with the following: ^([A-Z]), It will only count the first capital letter of a sentence. In my case, it will count the first letter of a new panel description.

Of course, I don't write my story panel by panel in this way, as you can see in the screenshot. This is the final product, the last cut, of many underlying passes.

Synopsis

My method often starts with a clumsy synopsis of a philosophical problem that I personally want to address and share with others. In future episode 39, the topic will be noise in public spaces and confronting strangers about it. It's a common problem we've all experienced: sharing a train, bus, or bar with strangers. Then, I write a long paragraph that broadly tells the story I have in mind, which I'll use as a metaphor: it will take place in a tavern with a group of warriors. There will be a minotaur, a hyena, and a lizard.

The Grid

Once I've written my synopsis (and I write many!), I test my favorite ones using what I call "the grid." It's a list of questions that helps me clarify the story's objective.

• The universal problem of the episode.
• The psychological blindspot preventing the main character from solving the issue.
• The character's inner, strong desire.
• The false idea the character has to solve the problem.
• The immoral actions the main character is willing to commit to solve the problem.
• The main character's real psychological need, which he does not see at the start but will grow to adopt.
• A "revelation, turning point, or thought outside the box" that reveals the real need.
• Unexpected twist(s).
• Intrinsic human values of the story.
• Visual interest and concept art.

Once the grid is completely filled in to my satisfaction, I move on to two things.

The Premise

The core of the story in one or two sentences: This will be my compass for the full episode.

Pepper, without her usual powers, learns the meaning of bravery. It is not the absence of fear, but rather the determination to act in spite of it.

The Beatsheet

This is a simplified version of the story in the form of a bullet list of simple actions. There is no dialogue or description. However, this structure respects the timeline of the final script. Below is a sample of how my beatsheet begins for episode 39.

• Pepper and Cayenne stop in a village to rest and relax.
• At night, the tavern is calm and peaceful.
• But the atmosphere is quickly disrupted by a group of noisy, badly behaved warriors.
• Cayenne discusses with Pepper how to tell the warriors that they are not alone.

The Cut

Once the beatsheet is complete, I copy and paste it into a new document. Then, I replace each line of the beatsheet with a panel description and dialogue. This process often requires many proofreading passes and corrections. Some panels can be removed, while others need to be inserted. Once the episode is correctly cut, however, we have a document to move on to the drawing part.

Concept art

For this episode, I decided not to create too many concept art for the visuals. My workflow is flexible enough that I don't need definitive line art with all the details from the beginning. I can create concept art of the new character I need and incorporate it as needed. However, some locations required more work. For example, here is a sketch of the exterior of the tavern hotel.

A drawing in grayscale of the exterior of the tavern.

I conducted more advanced research on the three warriors. Initially, I wanted characters that looked annoying, so I gave them the faces of well-known CEOs. However, that would have distracted from the main plot of the story, so I abandoned that idea.

A concept art exploration for the design of the warriors.

The three warriors: the minotaur, hyena and lizard on a panel.

Production

Storyboard

This time, I decided not to create lots of small thumbnails of each page in a single document as I often do, but to sketch directly on each Krita file pages. I wanted more control over the composition and placement of the dialogue, as well as over the zoom of each face and expression. I ended up storyboarding directly with a thin brush preset at low opacity. At this stage, I estimate the perspective, but I sometimes use a composition grid (e.g. for the 'thirds' rule, diagonals and centres). These sketches are quick to draw, which allows me to experiment with different angles and expressions until the scene is just right.

I also spent a long time feeling totally lost about the panel density. How many panels per page feel right? Is it different for a dialogue scene? Or an action scene? In the end, I collected and analysed hundreds of comic pages that I found online. I noted what felt like too many panels, what felt like a waste of a page, and what felt good or bad depending on the situation. This helped me pace my panels more consciously, rather than going by "feel" as I had done until then.

A sample without text of three panel at the storyboard step.

Sketching

I then drew over the storyboard with a flat brush and pressure-sensitive opacity I like how it feels like penciling. It's probably because of the mid-gray color over white. Many panels required a bit more preparation; for example, I used a perspective grid for almost all the panels in the montage at the beginning (illustration under) when Cayenne and Pepper arrive in a cute mountain village for the night. Because this scene was a montage, I saw that I could crank up the density. Seven panels for a comic page, it's rare for Pepper&Carrot.

The final drawing of the page 2 of future episode 39 "The Tavern".

Inking

I really dislike this step. It's something I have been fighting against since the beginning of the Pepper&Carrot project. In the first part of this article, I study various workflows to try and bypass this step. Unfortunately, I failed: after the first colouring test on my sketches, I realised that they were not clean enough and that I would need to carry out a lot of post-painting processes to clean everything up if I went down that route. In the end, I decided to redraw and ink all eleven pages. To give you an idea of the impact in terms of production time, it takes a minimum of 8 hours per page, for a total of 88 hours. It took me a little over a month to complete this step. In terms of technique, I used the c2) Mechanical Pencil Details brush preset at 18px, with no stabiliser, on the XPPen Artist Pro 19 (Gen2). I converted my sketches to blue, reduced their opacity, and used a deep red on a pale sand-coloured background to add a touch of colour and to make it easier to place the borderless speech bubbles and panel frames.

A side by side: final sketching, and final inking.

Proofreading

After the inking was done, I re-entered all the dialogue on Inkscape because, so far they were still part of the Krita files, and drew all the speechbubbles with vectors. Something relatively quick as it can be done on roughly four days. Then I setup the collaborative thread for the proofreaders on our Framagit to give me feedback on this first version, and help me with proofreading my English dialogues.

I was very afraid of this step. My experience with the cancelled episode 39, 'The Bedtime Story' (read the recap in the introduction for more details), made me anxious when I posted it. Fortunately, everything went alright: I collected many interesting feedback, and help.

A screenshot of the colaborative pad for proofreading.

Color-sketch

For the coloring process, I decided to embrace a simple approach. I create a flat paint layer named "under" beneath my inking, and then I simply paint instinctively. I don't follow the classic "flat," then "shading" method. I just paint however I feel.

I discovered this while making the weekly comic strip. I had more fun distancing myself from realistic shading and just using pure colors. I also intentionally leave large brush crosshatching to avoid a "genAI" perfectly smooth and contrasted output. I try to find the sweet spot of "not perfect, but charming".

A screenshot while precoloring.

Technically, I mainly use the "Charcoal Rock Soft" brush preset. I keep the entire page visible on my screen and put the Krita Reference docker plugin on the left side to use my previous pages as a reference. I added the default Palette docker to my dockers with a small collection of my favorite colors because I realized I was repeatedly placing these tints.

Another screenshot while precoloring.

Painting over the final touches

The final step is creating an "over" layer above the inking. I use a small brush to add more detail. I haven't started this step yet, except for one landscape, which I will share below.

A screenshot of a detailed landscape.

Work in progress... (to be continued)

That's all for today. I'm still coloring the last pages of the next episode. Next, I'll compile all the proofreading feedback from the proofreading thread. Then, I'll submit a "beta 2" version for a final proofreading, which will be fully pre-colored. Once the English version is finalized, the French translation and other languages will begin. In the meantime, I'll continue detailing every page.

Do I have a deadline in mind for the release? Yes, I hope to finish the last hundred hours of work necessary for mid-November.

The challenge continues!

---

Want to read previous production reports? They are all now here under the #making-of tag and comments of the first part for this article are here.

Transcript:

A comic strip in four panels:

Panel 1: In the middle of a field of dry wheat ready to harvest, not far away from a farm, stands a cute, young feminin scarecrow made of straw, sticks and old clothes. A crow lands on her, followed by a flock of crows in the distance. She looks worried.

Panel 2: The cute scarecrow is humiliated: the crows are not afraid of her; they mock her, make faces at her, take selfies with her and one even poops on her hat. Meanwhile, many of them are eating the precious seeds on the ground. She feels sad about it.

Panel 3: The cute scarecrow then has an idea and say something with a wink to the crows around her. All the crows interrupt their business and look at her in horror and shock.

cute scarecrow: I like pineapple on pizza.

Panel 4: Happy ending, the flock of crows flies away and the cute scarecrow is happy: she has done her job correctly.

source here

transcript:

A comic strip in four panels:

Panel 1. On a shore, a beautiful mermaid and a young centaur meet. They look at each other.

Panel 2. Close-up portrait of the two protagonists, both look away, blushing.

Panel 3. Later, at sunset, the two admire the sunset together, side by side. They're a couple.

Panel 4. The happy couple watches their two half-human, half-seahorse children playing in the water.

Narrator: A few years later...

source here

Transcript:

A comic strip in four panels:

Panel 1. A bird's-eye view of the top of the Amphora of Great Intelligence, a wizard in yellow colors is on the stack of books from the content of the amphora. He yell at a crowd of wizard at the bottom of the Amphora, a crowd of red wizard. Some other wizard in red evacuate some grimoires, their arms are full of books. On the top, you can see an onion (for The Onion) and a cover that looks like the Reddit mascot:

Wizard in yellow: Alright, I've cleared out a few grimoires to tweak it, we should get better results now!

Panel 2. A view of the wizards at the foot of the Amphora, the fire is intense, they all raise their arms in incantation:

Crowd of wizards: Amphora of Great Intelligence, our world is dying, share your knowledge with us!

Panel 3. The Amphora of Intelligence starts speaking, this time very seriously. The mages are still speechless.

Amphora: Stop chasing profits blindly, reduce your reliance on fossil fuels, and prioritize repair and recycling over production.
Crowd of wizards: ... ... ...

Panel 4. A discontented red wizard yells at the wizard in yellow who tweaked the content of the Amphora in panel one. This one feels surprised:

Wizard in red: I don't like this. Let's adjust it again.

source here

transcript:

A comic strip in four panels:

1. A bird's-eye view of a giant amphora the size of a building with closed eyes and a closed mouth engraved on it. Using scaffolding, a community of wizards climbed up and are throwing all their books into it, to fill its content.

   Wizards: All our grimoires for the Amphora of Great Intelligence!

2. A ground level view at the bottom of the giant amphora. This time, the wizards bring tree trunks, cut down nearby trees, and throw them into a large fire to boil the giant amphora.

   Wizards: All our forests for the Amphora of Great Intelligence!

3. A gathering of all the wizards below the imposing amphora which has now opened its glowing eyes and mouth slightly. The crowd of wizards at its feet applauds:

   Wizards: Amphora of Great Intelligence, our world is dying, share your knowledge with us!

4. Same shot, as the amphora responds with joyful and amused eyes. The wizards are confused by the answer...

   Artificial Intelligence: According to geologists, you should eat at least one small rock per day. Wizards: ... ... ...

source here

Transcript

A comic strip in four panels:

1. An adventurer kneels on a path, facing a small cookie with tiny arms and legs. The creature looks miserable and is crying while looking at the ground. The adventurer is concerned for the little being.

   Adventurer: Oh... What’s wrong, my little fellow?

2. Close-up of the little cookie lifting its head, eyes still teary.

   Cookie: Well, I’m a little cookie, but no one accepts me anymore...

3. With a kind heart and to comfort it, the adventurer picks it up in her hand and says in a motherly tone.

   Adventurer: Come on, I accept you. Climb onto my back.

4. Wide shot of the path, our adventurer with the little cookie on her shoulder walking towards the horizon, both happy with their encounter. In the foreground, among the grass at the edge of the path, a small army of fierce cookies with camouflage makeup emerges. Their leader whispers the order:

   Cookie Leader: Alright, guys, she took the bait! Let’s track her down!

source here

Transcript:

A comic in four panels.

Panel 1. A sorcerer is standing in front of the closed main gate of a tall and dark castle. The guard, on the wall of the castle, shouts:

Guard: Halt, stranger! Do you have the password?
Sorcerer: Yes, it's DarkLord123!

Panel 2. Zoom on the guard, shouting another test:

Guard: What about the security code sent to your address?
Sorcerer: Oh yes, I have that: 75482.

Panel 3. The guard now hangs a big poster, absurd: there is on it a picture of a horse on a landscape, but it is split into many squares. The laser wand of the sorcerer selects all the squares with horses.

Guard: Now, use your magic to show me all the squares with horses. Good.

Panel 4. Shot of the sorcerer, visibly very bored by all these tests, opening his mouth.

Guard (off-panel): Finally, prove that you're an adult by closing and opening your mouth.
Sorcerer: Really?...

This comic strip is a critique of the too many security steps in 2025: login/password, 2FA security code, captchas, and adult verification via webcam expression.

Source here

Transcript:

A comic comic in four panels:

Panel 1: A landscape view of a temple floating above the clouds. The landscape is colored with golden and purple hues, which are unusual for the land of mortals. In the foreground, a sign reads, "Temple of the Goddess of Life."

Panel 2: The Goddess of Life kneels in her garden, watering it while whistling. She is happy and enjoying her peaceful daily routine.

Panel 3: Suddenly, the Goddess of Life is violently punched in the face by a flying lemon coming from below the clouds.

Panel 4: A top-down view of a catapult with lemons. Pepper, a young witch, and her cat, Carrot, are in command. They bump fists in a "Check!" sound while watching the sky with fierce eyes.

sources here

I just took a peek at the thermometer outside... Yeah... This is fine...

source here

I'll be back in Brittany in July with two dates:

Saint-Brieuc, Bulles à Croquer festival, saturday 5, sunday 6, 10h/19h
I'll be doing signing sessions for my comic book during the "Bulles à Croquer" festival in Saint-Brieuc. Entry is free, and there will be many other authors and activities. For more information, visit: https://www.bullesacroquer.net

Dinan, Bookstore "Le Grenier", wednesday 9 Jully, 15h/18h
On my way back to the south of France, I'll do a halt to the bookstore "Le Grenier" in Dinan for a signing session. For more information, visit: https://www.librairielegrenier.com/decouvrir_la_librairie/

I hope to meet many of you there!

Hey! This week, I'm preparing for my future workshops at Geekfaeries 2025, so I'm taking Monday to publish a production report on my progress with episode 39.

Previously on Pepper&Carrot...

Abnormally a lot has happened since the release of the last episode 38: 'The Healer', so here is a quick recap if you haven't followed it:

The canceled version

I initially released in December 2023 a beta version of Episode 39 codenamed 'The Bedtime Story' to the feedback of the community. The concept of this episode was that Cayenne decided to use bedtime story moment to info-dump the backstory of the series. A ten page long flashback, already painted in grayscale, with a lot of text and illustrations. It unfortunately rised more questions than answering ones, and the execution was clumsy. I tried to fix it for months but ultimately later in 2024 decided to cancel it. Last month, I ported the backstory and some panels of this canceled version to the Wiki of Pepper&Carrot.

The end of Pepper&Carrot

In mid 2024 and following a long period of personal struggle, I announced the end of Pepper&Carrot after completing the episodes necessary for my fifth book. I was decided to write only four more episodes: 39, 40, 41 and end at episode 42. Retrospectively, that was a mistake.

MiniFantasyTheater

Shortly after anouncing the end, I also announced my new project MiniFantasyTheater, a series better suited for social networks that allowed for more frequent posting. Releasing the first ten MiniFantasyTheater episodes weekly from April to July felt like a breeze in creativity and productivity. From a metrics standpoint, it was a success.

Back to Pepper&Carrot

However, I felt that I was merely recreating all of the Pepper & Carrot infrastructure with MiniFantasyTheater, including the font, translation system, Git repositories, and website. I also missed being able to write longer episodes. Ultimately, I decided to merge the projects. Along the way, I incorporated all the innovations I made for MiniFantasyTheater into Pepper&Carrot. I also decided to embrace a long-term vision for Pepper & Carrot and not end it at book five. By the end of 2024, I had implemented all these new ideas, despite the technical difficulty of merging all the MiniFantasyTheater repositories and techniques into a new Pepper&Carrot website.

Tough production conditions

I'm not looking for excuses, but creating a new episode doesn't happen in a vacuum. Here is also a list of things I'm dealing with since episode 38:

• AI generative imagery: It's everywhere and hard to avoid now. It drains me to receive sometime accusations that my digital art style is looking like AI-generated.
• Linux is in its worst shape: It's really difficult to advocate professional Digital Painting nowadays (Wayland, packaging mess, Microsoft stylus guidelines in Linux). I keep receiving requests for help from users who are lost in this mess. I published my workstation install guide last year to address this.
• Patreon: converting soon 'per creation' to 'monthly' by November 2025, messing with my 'per episode' income model (details: Pepper&Carrot's Support page and I'll share more details about this change one month beforehand).
• Tougher Society: Inflation, hatred, wars, and the rise of fascism.
• Family: There have been too many deaths in recent years...

Research and development

Since the beginning of 2025, I have been (re)testing various workflows. The focus of this research was to find a method that I could replicate on dozens of panels consistently and enjoyably.

Workflow A: the classic

This is the classic of classics in the industry: line art, flat colors, and shading. This is the workflow I used for the first eight MiniFantasyTheater episodes. The problem? Once I obtained clean line art, I spent a lot of energy filling the artwork with color while preserving the line art's precision. So, coloring and shading became tedious and boring tasks. I always die a little inside while doing it because it doesn't stimulate my brain enough.

The three steps of the classic workflow on Shichimi and Torreya artwork.

Workflow B: direct painting

This is a workflow that I used a lot during my career as a concept artist. First, I built the grayscale building blocks, then recolored them approximately, and finally painted over them until they looked good. While this method is the fastest, hands down, it also has a major issue: many things can go wrong with the proportions, drawing of the face, and facial expressions. The same goes for speedlines or a specific perspective and view angle. All the efforts are postponed to the final pass, where I redraw the details and make everything solid. In this demo artwork, I did well, but unfortunately, for many panels in a comic, this method is simply hard to manage, pushing all the efforts toward the end of production.

Three steps of the direct painting workflow on Pepper 'Rain' artwork.

Workflow C: compromise

For episode 39, I've decided on a compromise workflow. First, I'm creating a thick sketch in mid-gray on a white background. This step is a bit frustrating because I can't make all the details look as precise as line art, but the goal is different. The goal is to create solid volumes that are correctly proportioned and to achieve the correct view angle and perspective. The pre-coloring step is divided into two steps: grayscale and recoloring the grayscale. I find it easier to focus on defining how the light source builds up the volume and splitting the different parts of the picture into grayscale. Thanks to the semi-transparent sketch, I have a guide that helps me minimize the number of brushstrokes. This makes them more visible, even once recolored, as individual entities rather than blending them together into a mess. Because of the thick sketch, it's also easier to paint in grayscale and recolor with precision. It's "blocky." Finally, I can flatten everything and selectively repaint or edit details on top.

Four steps of the workflow c, on the 'A Drink Alone' artwork.

If you look on a close-up you'll get a better idea of how the sketch totally blended into the final result, how the brush work is visible, and how the details and resolution are located only on few area of the painting. On this crop: the lips.

A close-up of the artwork "A Drink Alone".

Preproduction:

This section lists all the steps before drawing on the comic page, i.e., production.

Scenario

I wrote many scenarios, for which I mostly used Kate, the KDE Plasma desktop's text editor, to save my text files in Markdown format. Everything was versioned into Git repositories, but each time I wanted to open and refer to a version quickly, I saved the file incrementally. So, for each story, I ended up with a column that looked like the one on the left in the screenshot below. Thanks to Markdown, I can use the quoting symbol at the start of a sentence to get a different color for the dialogue. Sometimes, I want to reread only the dialogue, and it's convenient to have it color-coded.

A screenshot of Kate.

Here's a tip for determining the number of panels: In Kate, use the Regex search/replace function with the following: ^([A-Z]), It will only count the first capital letter of a sentence. In my case, it will count the first letter of a new panel description.

Of course, I don't write my story panel by panel in this way, as you can see in the screenshot. This is the final product, the last cut, of many underlying passes.

Synopsis

My method often starts with a clumsy synopsis of a philosophical problem that I personally want to address and share with others. In future episode 39, the topic will be noise in public spaces and confronting strangers about it. It's a common problem we've all experienced: sharing a train, bus, or bar with strangers. Then, I write a long paragraph that broadly tells the story I have in mind, which I'll use as a metaphor: it will take place in a tavern with a group of warriors. There will be a minotaur, a hyena, and a lizard.

The Grid

Once I've written my synopsis (and I write many!), I test my favorite ones using what I call "the grid." It's a list of questions that helps me clarify the story's objective.

• The universal problem of the episode.
• The psychological blindspot preventing the main character from solving the issue.
• The character's inner, strong desire.
• The false idea the character has to solve the problem.
• The immoral actions the main character is willing to commit to solve the problem.
• The main character's real psychological need, which he does not see at the start but will grow to adopt.
• A "revelation, turning point, or thought outside the box" that reveals the real need.
• Unexpected twist(s).
• Intrinsic human values of the story.
• Visual interest and concept art.

Once the grid is completely filled in to my satisfaction, I move on to two things.

The Premise

The core of the story in one or two sentences: This will be my compass for the full episode.

Pepper, without her usual powers, learns the meaning of bravery. It is not the absence of fear, but rather the determination to act in spite of it.

The Beatsheet

This is a simplified version of the story in the form of a bullet list of simple actions. There is no dialogue or description. However, this structure respects the timeline of the final script. Below is an example of how my beatsheet begins for episode 39.

• Pepper and Cayenne stop in a village to rest and relax.
• At night, the tavern is calm and peaceful.
• But the atmosphere is quickly disrupted by a group of noisy, badly behaved warriors.
• Cayenne discusses with Pepper how to tell the warriors that they are not alone.

The Cut

Once the beatsheet is complete, I copy and paste it into a new document. Then, I replace each line of the beatsheet with a panel description and dialogue. This process often requires many proofreading passes and corrections. Some panels can be removed, while others need to be inserted. Once the episode is correctly cut, however, we have a document to move on to the drawing part.

Concept art

For this episode, I decided not to create too many concept art for the visuals. My workflow is flexible enough that I don't need definitive line art with all the details from the beginning. I can create concept art of the new character I need and incorporate it as needed. However, some locations required more work. For example, here is a sketch of the exterior of the tavern hotel.

A drawing in grayscale of the exterior of the tavern.

I conducted more advanced research on the three warriors. Initially, I wanted characters that looked annoying, so I gave them the faces of well-known CEOs. However, that would have distracted from the main plot of the story, so I abandoned that idea.

A concept art exploration for the design of the warriors.

The three warriors: the minotaur, hyena and lizard on a panel.

Production

Storyboard

For this episode, I decided not to use a single document with many thumbnails, as I often do. I wanted finer control over the composition and placement of the dialogue, as well as control over the zoom of each face and expression. I ended up storyboarding directly on the final page size with a thin brush preset at low opacity. At this step, I eyeball perspective, but sometimes use a composition grid (eg. for the 'thirds' composition rule, diagonals, and centers). These sketches are quick to draw, which allows me to explore different angles and expressions until the scene is just right.

A sample without text of three panel at the storyboard step.

Drawing

Even when using a digital painting tool with a simple, flat brush and pressure-sensitive opacity ( a brush very similar to 'B) basic-6 Details' of Krita default brush presets) I like how it feels like penciling. It's probably because of the mid-gray color over white. Once the storyboard is finished, I zoom in to 66% of the viewport size on my XP Pen Artist Pro 19 pen display, which is flat on the desk, and add details to each panel. Some panels require a bit more preparation. For example, I used a perspective grid for almost all the panels in the montage at the beginning, when Cayenne and Pepper arrive in a cute mountain village for the night.

The final drawing of the page 2 of future episode 39 "The Tavern".

To be continued...

That's all for today. I'm still drawing the many pages of the next episode.

I'll update this report in a couple of weeks, after I finish the "precolor," which is the grayscale plus recolor pass. After that, I'll provide a final update with the finishing touches and notes about how the production process went.

I am very happy to announce that I will be a guest at the Geek Faëries Festival 2025!

The festival will take place at the castle of Selles-sur-Cher (France) on June 6, 7 and 8. This year I'll have a permanent booth with chairs and tables dedicated to drawing. Come with your sketchbook if you want training and tips, I'll be around to help. I'll also be giving workshops, and I'll be bringing my laptop to do screen projections and live painting with Krita on the castle at night.

More info: https://www.geekfaeries.fr/

Illustration source here.

I'm excited to share with you a significant update I've made to my digital archive. I've been working on re-releasing around 25 of my 'best-of' digital paintings from before 2012, under a new license. Previously, they were available under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Non-Derivative 3.0 (CC By-Nc-Nd 3.0), but I've now updated them to the more permissive Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC By 4.0).

To make them more accessible, I've even uploaded the full high-resolution, in lossless quality to the Pepper&Carrot artworks gallery, under the "Misc" directory (and at the bottom, because before 2012). Gallery link here.

Some of these artworks, like my award-winning "Alice in Wonderland," (2010) were already available under CC By since 2022, but didn't have a proper home to host the lossless file. Others, like "SpiderHarp" (2006) and "Fantasy Landscape" (2007), had never been shared in their full resolution online before.

You'll also find my portrait of Charles Darwin in the collection, which I'm thrilled to say was recently on display in an exhibition at a museum. This whole project was inspired by that, after seeing that photo of an old artwork from 2012 inside a museum, which got me thinking about the importance of digital conservancy and preserving my art for the long run.

It took me all the evenings of this week to update the old blog posts, dig out the high-resolution files from archived DVDs, and convert them, but it was worth it. Some pieces are over 20 years old... It made me realize all the time I've spent in my life with a stylus in my hand, painting, painting, painting.

I hope you'll find something in this list of artworks that inspires you to create something new, whether the project, medium, a print, or something completely different. On my side, I'm happy to share this 'vintage' pieces with you in a new way. 💜

→ 📦 Gallery link

An overview screenshot of the concerned digital paintings

Video:

• On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkZ-sSz65rU
• On Peertube: (work in progress)

This article accompanies my video review of the Huion Inspiroy H610X, a medium-sized screenless pen tablet. The video provides my in-depth look at the device's hardware. This blog post, on the other hand, focuses on the information and technical aspects of installing and configuring the device on a GNU/Linux operating system.

Official links:

• Huion store: https://bit.ly/3F6Xa9O

Out of the box situation

What features are available out of the box? Basically, all primary functions are operational. In the absence of a dedicated driver, the Huion H610X emulates two standard devices: a generic pen, similar to those used with laptop-tablet PCs, and a standard keyboard for key input.

Modern versions of GNOME and KDE, running under Wayland, can accurately detect the stylus coordinates and set the screen aspect ratio. Under X11, the xsetwacom command line utility can achieve similar results.

The limitation of this emulation is that most of the shortcuts for the stylus buttons and pad buttons are hard-coded and cannot be changed without a dedicated driver. The default key mapping is shown in the figure below (see image). While not ideal, the default shortcuts are still useful. However, you will need to get used to using a pen without a right-click button, as an "eraser mode" is activated by holding down the button instead.

Default buttons layout when connected to a GNU/Linux machine

The proprietary driver

I have not tested or used the Linux proprietary driver provided by Huion, for ethical reasons. However, I am aware that many users may find its existence beneficial and may choose to make an exception to use this binary blob, prioritizing convenience. I do not judge their choice.

Link: https://www.huion.com/download/

The FLOSS driver (udev-hid-bpf)

Still Work in Progress!

I reported the device here: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libevdev/udev-hid-bpf/-/issues/61 , but due to a line-break issue in the export of Konsole, I'll have to redo it.

Issue: Second Stylus Button Hardcoded Erase Mode

As a device compliant with a Microsoft stylus standard, one of the two buttons of the stylus will switch to a eraser mode by default. On Linux, this behavior was implemented at a kernel level and no graphical or cli tool can customize this behavior. That's why the button might appear as customizable on the GUI of Plasma on Wayland, or GNOME on Wayland, or X11 xsetwacom CLI tools, but it will not be possible to change this hardcoded eraser mode into, let say a simple right-click.

When this new behavior appeared, every tablets started to receive a custom fix: remove the hardcoded eraser mode and replace them by a customizable button. But after too many devices reported, it was decided to handle the problem differently: a merge request for libinput with a code that would allow the user to make the hardcoded Erase Mode map-able as a button. Unfortunately, it might take a long time before reaching the end user: the merge request needs to be accepted on libinput and merged, then a libinput release needs to be made with the new code, then the distribution needs to package this new version of libinput on their update, then the desktop environment like GNOME or WAYLAND will probably need to adapt their System Settings GUI for the tablet to offer this new option.

In short, while it's probably a change that is brilliant on the long term, it will probably benefit the Fedora and Arch user first in a optimistic 6 month from now, and 2 years for Debian or Ubuntu-based users.

Customization

On Plasma Wayland

On Plasma Wayland, the tablet went totally undetected. Worst: the active area was detected as a square. While it was possible to manually resize this area, it was difficult to setup a "set proportion" to the display.

The device could still be used, but not in a professional way.

screenshot of the tablet system settings of Plasma 6.3

On GNOME Wayland

I was surprised to see the device listed on the tablet settings (Fedora), but there was a problem: two devices were listed, and the "button 2" has no effect (that was predictible). The buttons of the pad were not listed for customization.

The device could still be used, but not in a professional way.

Huion Inspiroy H610X on GNOME Wayland.

On X11

That's what I used for the review and for the demo videos and I could get a good enough comfort to start working with the device.

For this part, I'll directly redirect your to the Inspiroy H610X review and technical blog post made by Raghavendra Kamath AKA ‘raghukamath’ , a well known Krita contributor (and friend).

His post is a gold mine for setting up the Inspiroy H610X on Linux, X11. Just mind that since Raghukamath wrote it, there was some update with the recent kernel and the Microsoft specification for tablets (what I already detailed here before). So the second top button of the stylus will be a hardcoded "eraser mode".

Conclusion: contribute?

That's all, this guide can be of course continued or updated! You can send me your tips via comments, or on various threads mentionned in this article or via email.

I'd like to share some context about this artwork ↑, which I started creating yesterday evening in Limoges during the conference at the Library. You can watch the full replay in French here ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXwg2rP8oU0 . I wanted to thank everyone who attended - it was a wonderful experience!

I couldn't resist putting the finishing touches on the artwork, so I spent some time refining it this afternoon during my train ride back home.

A screenshot of the video replay (click to play), video hosted on the Youtube account Bibliothèque francophone multimédia de Limoges.

A photo from my point of view in the train: a laptop (a Lenovo Yoga 370) connected to a tablet (a Xppen Deco 01V3) while finishing an artwork.

Video:

• On Youtube: https://youtu.be/trXxX3ZY5FM
• On Peertube: (work in progress)

This article accompanies my video review of the XpPen Deco 01v3, a medium-sized screenless pen tablet. The video provides my in-depth look at the device's hardware. This blog post, on the other hand, focuses on the information and technical aspects of installing and configuring the device on a GNU/Linux operating system.

Official links:

• Official product page
• Buy on official store

Special Offer/Promo code
20% OFF on the Deco 01 V3 tablet with code “DAVID20”, valid in March 2025, cannot be combined with other promotions.

• FR : https://bit.ly/41HXzZ2
• UK：https://bit.ly/3QJ1Xkc
• DE: https://bit.ly/4ihb6wk
• IE: https://bit.ly/4bpNdjC
• ES : https://bit.ly/4h40EqV
• PT : https://bit.ly/4hYIJ66
• US: https://bit.ly/3D4xbiI
• CA: https://bit.ly/41iLJD6

Out of the box situation

What features are available out of the box? Basically, all primary functions are operational. In the absence of a dedicated driver, the XpPen Deco 01v3 emulates two standard devices: a generic pen, similar to those used with laptop-tablet PCs, and a standard keyboard for key input.

Modern versions of GNOME and KDE, running under Wayland, can accurately detect the stylus coordinates and set the screen aspect ratio. Under X11, the xsetwacom command line utility can achieve similar results.

The limitation of this emulation is that most of the shortcuts for the stylus buttons and pad buttons are hard-coded and cannot be changed without a dedicated driver. The default key mapping is shown in the figure below (see image). While not ideal, the default shortcuts are still useful. However, you will need to get used to using a pen without a right-click button, as an "eraser mode" is activated by holding down the button instead.

Default buttons layout when connected to a GNU/Linux machine

The proprietary driver

I have not tested or used the proprietary driver provided by XP-Pen for ethical reasons. However, I am aware that many users may find its existence beneficial and may choose to make an exception to use this binary blob, prioritizing convenience. I do not judge their choice.

Link: https://www.xp-pen.com/download

The FLOSS driver (udev-hid-bpf)

On GNU/Linux, all drivers are built into the Linux kernel, but forcing users to wait for the next kernel to get their hardware working would be madness. To address this issue, projects such as udev-hid-bpf provides a solution by allowing users to load Human Interface Device (HID) drivers in the kernel. Presently, this is where the development of new tablet drivers is taking place.

So I reported the device specifications to Peter Hutterer (whot) and Benjamin Tissoires (bentiss) who manage the project. I opened a new thread with all the Deco 01V3 specifications. Peter then wrote the merge request 185 with the code to support the tablet. And waiting the code to join the main release of udev-hid-bpf (and maybe later the Linux kernel), you can install the code of the merge request using the tutorial provided by the documentation of udev-hid-bpf.

Note: the merge request is still in progress, while all buttons of the pad are now ready to be customized, the top button of the stylus still reports an eraser mode.

Customization

On Plasma Wayland

Once the udev-hid-bpf rules are correctly installed, the Plasma 6.3 system preference on Wayland will detect all buttons. Below is a screenshot of the three panels (click to enlarge).

screenshot of the tablet system settings of Plasma 6.3

On GNOME Wayland

Once the udev-hid-bpf rules are correctly installed, GNOME will still need more info: a .tablet file and a .svg layout in https://github.com/linuxwacom/libwacom/tree/master/data because the graphical user interface requires such files. This is still a TODO for GNOME users, and probably duplicating the files for the Deco 01v2 and tweaking them might be enough. But without them, the preferences panel look like this:

screenshot of the tablet system settings of GNOME 47

On X11

Once the udev-hid-bpf rules are correctly installed, you'll be able to control the basic features of the tablet by command lines using xsetwacom utility. First, find the ID of your device:

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 008: ID 28bd:0947 XP-Pen Deco 01 V3

Then create (or edit) the file /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/60-xppen.conf and put inside this paragraph, with the MatchUSBID identifier you found previously.

Section "InputClass"
  Identifier "XP-Pen Deco 01 V3"
  MatchIsTablet "on"
  Driver "wacom"
  MatchUSBID "28bd:0947"
  MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
EndSection

Then reboot.
At this point, you should see your XPPen tablet stylus listed if you write in a terminal:

$ xsetwacom --list
UGTABLET Deco 01 V3 Pen stylus          id: 11  type: STYLUS
UGTABLET Deco 01 V3 Pen eraser          id: 19  type: ERASER

Bravo! Xsetwacom utility is now in charge of your tablet.

Create an Xsetwacom script

Open a non-rich text editor (eg. Micro, Kate, Geany, Gnome text also called Gedit, etc...) and copy/paste/adjust the script under:

#! /bin/bash
# ----------------
# XP-Pen Deco 01v3
# ----------------
# License: CC-0/Public-Domain license
# author: deevad
Tablet definition
Identifier obtained using the 'xsetwacom --list' command line
The tablet appears after creating a special rule for Xorg.
See blog post on https://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?tag/hardware for it.
tabletstylus="UGTABLET Deco 01 V3 Pen stylus"
tableteraser="UGTABLET Deco 01 V3 Pen eraser"
tabletpad="UGTABLET Deco 01 V3 pad"
Constrain the stylus to use it's own monitor
Monitor name here "HDMI-A-0" was obtained
using the 'xrandr' command-line. Your monitor's name might be different (eg. "HDMI-1", "DisplayPort-3", etc...).
Note: you might need to make some math here if the ratio is not the same than your monitor
output="HDMI-A-0"
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" MapToOutput $output
xsetwacom --set "$tableteraser" MapToOutput $output
Pressure sensitivity calibration
You can use this widget online here to create your curve
https://linuxwacom.github.io/bezier.html
The number are set like this: "X1" "Y1" "X2" "Y2"
default: PressureCurve 0 0 100 100
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" PressureCurve 50 45 20 100
Styluse's buttons:
First button on the stylus
I like to get the Control key to pick color on this one.
default: button 2 2
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" button 2 key Ctrl
Second button on the stylus
I leave the default right-click (not: it doesn't work right now, it will be an eraser mode)
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" button 3 3
Data trimming and suppression
Better to not filter or delete any data of this device for increasing its precision
data pt.s filtered (0-100)
default is 2
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" Suppress 0 
data pt.s trimmed (1-20)
default is 4
xsetwacom --set "$tabletstylus" RawSample 1
Buttons from top to bottom:
+-----+
|  1  |
+-----+
|  2  |
+-----+
|  3  |
+-----+
|  8  |
+-----+

+-----+
|  9  |
+-----+
| 10  |
+-----+
| 11  |
+-----+
| 12  |
+-----+
xsetwacom set "$tabletpad" button 1 "key Control_L" # Ctrl = color picker 
xsetwacom set "$tabletpad" button 2 "key KP_Divide" # / = Switch to previous used brush preset
xsetwacom set "$tabletpad" button 3 "key Shift_L" # Shift = Resize brush
xsetwacom set "$tabletpad" button 8 "key v" # v = line
xsetwacom set "$tabletpad" button 9 "key m" # m = mirror
xsetwacom set "$tabletpad" button 10 "key e" # e = eraser
xsetwacom set "$tabletpad" button 11 "key r" # r = pick layer
xsetwacom set "$tabletpad" button 12 "key Ctrl z" # Ctrl+z = undo

Save your script under the name of your choice, I saved mine as xppen_Deco-01-v3.sh (using the extension .sh at the end of the file will ease identifying the file as a Bash script later). To run it, after saving the file you need to give this text file execution permission. You can do so with many desktop environment by right clicking on the file, go to the property of the files, and in a permission tab add the "execute" checkbox. Another way to do it is via command line in the same directory:

chmod +x xppen_Deco-01-v3.sh

Now, if you run:

./xppen_Deco-01-v3.sh

The script should run and apply your preference. If your desktop environment is modern enough; you should have a way to add a script at autostart (usually in Settings > Autostart). This way, the preferences will be applied each time you start your computer. You can of course change options, and execute the script as many time you want to test and adjust.

You might also create a shortcut on your main menu to execute quickly the script.

Conclusion: contribute?

That's all, this guide can be of course continued or updated!

You can send me your tips via comments, or on various threads mentionned in this article or via email.