NDA Art Critique Message Boards

Yes, tell me this secret!

I use PE7, and I can never get my line art to look nice and crisp like I want. Do you have any suggestions that would help me, a certain brush, a certain way to do it, etc. I think figuring out how to do nice line art digitally would help me step everything I do up a notch. Thanks!

I use Photoshop 7.0 and when I've been doing lineart recently, it's been more like uh... I end up getting *too clean and perfectionistic* with my sketch. o_O

I just use a generic hard-edged brush (the sort that will change size depending on how much pressure you're applying with your tablet) and whatever colour I'm sketching with. I'll have the brush at a high opacity and a flow value less than 50% (I don't think Photoshop Elements has 'flow' though) and then I basically just 'sketch' my lines, going over them once or twice to darken them and then I erase any stray strokes or any bits that seem 'too thick' as I go. I don't know how time consuming this is compared to other methods since it seems to take quite a while for me to do the lines of a single character this way...

Another method I've used is just getting that same brush, but with 100% flow and opacity and then just go over the lines of my sketch, generally trying to draw lines in quick strokes (and using Ctrl+Z to undo my stroke until I finally get it right). I can't remember if this takes much longer than the above method or if it's about the same.

Either way, it helps to start with a really large image so any sort of squiggly lines will actually look smooth when you zoom out and view it at the size you'd save it at when uploading to a gallery online or something. Zooming out of a large image creates the *illusion* of smooth lines!1 Ohyes!

I know plenty of people also use the pen tool to create their lines, but I only really ever use that to ink really long, smooth lines that would be a pain to try to draw by hand in a way that looked all smooth and nice...!

I use painttool Sai for lineart, the curve tool is amazing and you can make it thicker or thinner and move it however you feel like. I also do my lineart by hand sometimes with a small pressure sensitve brush. I don't have photoshop installed yet but in my old PS I used pentool in the beginning then I did as firequill, used it only for long lines and doing the rest by hand.

while i am nowhere near an expert (in fact, im just starting) i have been a tattoo artist for over twenty years, and the principle i use for photoshop is the same, short, small, sketchy line very close up.

200-300% zoom, and i use a light, low-opacity sketch in the background and do multiple strokes to build the line up to a 10-15 pt line.

it takes longer than a hard, clean stroke, but it is also more reliable if your hand moves while making the stroke. I asked Neondragon the same question about her crisp line, and she said somewhat the same thing, she does controlled short strokes freehand (she is that good) but her longer lines she magnifies and "builds" with short strokes (at least thats what i got from her explanation, i will go back and reread it after i do a tutorial or two of hers), she also suggested watching the stream of her drawing, gunna do that later.

I typically zoom in to 100-150% in photoshop.
My files are usually 300-350dpi, so @ 100% they're usually quite large.
I use a hard-round paintbrush in photoshop. They're usually the first 5 brushes you'll find in photoshop by default. It's set to taper with pen pressure.
@350 dpi I usually work with a 5 pixel tapered paintbrush to get the line thickness you see in my work. I've seen artists work with thinner lines and thicker lines than this.
For really long, perfectly curved lines I'll typically use the pen tool to create a path that I then stroke. Getting a long, completely smooth line is very difficult freehand.

If you're curious, you can watch one of the inking streams from my livestream video library here: http://neondragonart.com/stream.html Hope that helps!



If you visit www.nn4b.com, my roommate Alex does his linework a different way. he works at 350 dpi and uses the pencil tool to do his lines. There's no taper to it and it creates hard, pixelated, aliased lines. When you view the images at 72 dpi, they linework appears crisp, thin, and smooth. Because he works with the pencil tool, he can easily paint bucket fill his linework, which speeds up his process. His line art in general looks a lot thinner than mine.