Do you have any recommendations for inking? I love your line weight variation, do you aim for one fluid stroke or do you go back in and touch the lines up? I'm really interested in hearing what your process is!
So A LOT of it is just second nature for me. Let’s just use this this pic I did on twitter recently of roadhog:
Tyson Hesse complimented me on the line weight variation made a lot of visual depth (background/foreground/near/far/etc), and I felt bad because hooooooo boy I did not intend that at all. I just kind of… inked it until it looked good. It was a happy accident, and now I’ll try applying that on other things. So a lot of it is… just that I actually really like to ink and have been doing it for a long time, so I don’t think about it a lot and don’t have a lot to say.
What I can say though is how you can ink smoother lines.
SO first things first: You are holding your pen wrong. That is okay! because I am also holding my pen wrong (stick with me on this. I promise I’m going somewhere with it):
Because we live in the modern world this is how we were taught to hold a pencil. The obvious application is for handwriting. We can use our fingers to make intricate movements to produce tiny letters a centimeter tall or so. This is not how you should hold a pencil for drawing, but it is, and it’s probably reinforced if you draw digitally with a tablet because with the exception of Apple’s tablet pen, I’ve never actually seen one designed to resemble a pencil over a pen. Here is how you should hold a pencil:
I know that might look weird, but stay with me for a little more! I promise I’m not going to yell at you like I’m some kind of art snob! I just want to provide context!
You see. The way we hold pencils is great for small precise writing, but draw literally means “pull”. When you’re making a drawing, you’re making a pulling with a pencil. or you’re supposed to at least. If you’ve ever heard the term draw with your arm, not your wrist or fingers, here’s why. This is proper drawing technique:
When you use your big and with your arm you give yourself beautiful, long, broad strokes that give you long, beautiful, clean, lines. When you try to make long lines with your fingers, it’s constrained, tight, and tends to involve pushing a pencil around at least at some point. Let’s look at the difference here:
It’s important to note that, again, I did this pulling motion while holding the pencil in the handwriting hand position; I’m not telling you to stop holding it that way. What I am saying is:
Pull the pen! Don’t push!
Draw with your arm! Your fingers and wrist can supplement that movement, but the arm should be your primary drawing muscles!
now let’s go back to our large pig friend. Specifically his head and the size I exported it at:
Well that ain’t big at all! but here’s roughly how big his face was when I inked him:
This is 150% magnification at 600dpi. If I’m working at 300 dpi (you should be working at at least 300 dpi) I’m usually zoomed in at 300% or more. This is also done in manga studio which allows me to rotate the canvas which is a god send.
By zooming in that much I can:
Make larger strokes of the brush making smoother lines
and because it’s zoomed in, any gitter from the tablet’s smooth surface is distributed over a much larger area making even smoother lines than if I had done it at 100% magnification.
It’s also a very good habit to zoom out and look at your progress from time to time to see if you need to make lines thicker or if you’re putting too much detail into smaller objects. Digital art has created the potential for an infinite canvas, so try not to get too lost in drawing all the stitches on a pocket in a drawing at 300% magnification. When you shrink it down to 72 dpi (web resolution) it might be a centimeter tall and all the work will be for nothing.
And because it’s worth pointing out:
You only see the end product of my work. An example I like to use here is Jackie Chan and the incredible stunts in his chinese movies. He says he’s not that good and goes further by saying you too could make his movies if you’re patient and willing to film enough takes until you get one that’s perfect.
I hit Ctrl Z/Undo A LOT. I am willing to hit undo as many times as possible until I get the line pacha meme just right. Maybe I get a line down in one try, and maybe because tablets are slippery and stupid and it takes me 50 tries. Don’t get discouraged if you work a little harder to get a line you like.
