I am gonna say that if you don't like gimp's layout, krita probably isn't for you as they both have similar layouts, which in turn are similar to photoshop. If you do hope to use photoshop sometime in the future (no matter how far away), using either program would help you get adjusted.

Krita does look a lot more cleaner to me compared to GIMP, seeing that I have looked into both (and I have used GIMP once or twice - I would probably need to use it wayyy more than just a couple of times to get the hang of it). Considering that Krita does look a tad more cleaner and can be used for both manips and drawing (mainly drawing, as you stated), I will probably end up using that. I've been in the run for trying to find something other than Medibang to use for manips (and thank god I haven't shared them lmao), because Medibang proves that it will only go as far as drawing with very minimal editing tools :P

Thanks for the help!

I've used Krita before. There's a LOT to learn about it, and it seemed like a great program, just not for me (I didnt love the brushes when I used it, however that was a while ago, perhaps I'll like it more in the future)

I definitely suggest reaching out to Den, she gave me a ton of helpful pointers, and was super friendly ^^

Also I'm not sure what machine you use, (I use a surface pro x for art) but I often got lagged out of krita :/

.

Right now I use Firealpaca and I really like it. I use it for painting/drawing and manips and its great :)

I sorta figured, but I will be sure to ask around and look up tutorials online! Thanks for the help!

I've used Firealpaca before for manips, it just seemed minimal for tools or they didn't work as well as they would in a proper editing program (or that's just me). Same with Medibang :P