Your linework is simply amazing- do you have any tricks or tips on how to improve someone's lines because I have a lot of trouble with it. Oh and your Portfolio-page seems to be down.
Thanks for the heads-up about the portfolio website! I’ll look into that.
Anyway, uh, lineart tips-n’-tricks:
1) Find a brush/tool that makes you comfortable. Inking digitally was miserable for me until I found Frenden’s Brushes.
2) Don’t treat your inks like you’re just tracing over your rough. I hear a lot of people complaining about how their roughs are so full of life, and then once they ink everything flattens/stiffens out, and this is why. Think of your inks like an entirely new drawing, with your rough as a scaffold behind it. Don’t be afraid to go beyond the scope of the rough. Remember: when you complete the final product, nobody’s seeing your rough. But they will be seeing your inks.
3) In both inking and color, the greater the contrast = the more the viewer’s eyes will be drawn to that area. Large spaces of black, thicker outlines, or areas clear of detail in an otherwise highly detailed area are a great way to get the viewer to look where you want.
4) Turn that canvas/paper!
5) If you’re using photoshop, and you can’t draw a circle, screw it -- just use the damn circle tool. If it looks out of place compared to your other inks, erase and re-draw portions of it. Same with straight lines -- use the damn line tool. Or if you’ve got a wicked curve, pop out that pen tool. Don’t hinder yourself because it’s cheating. Art is entirely constructed on lies, and when people look at your final product they’re really not going to care if you hand-drew that circle or used a tool.
6) When you get to color, remember that your lineart isn’t set in stone. Paint over it, erase portions of it, color it! Everything in your picture, including your lineart, is just blocks of color forming a lie. Use that to your advantage. Don’t think of your picture as just lineart -> shading -> color, look at it as a unified, final product. Or do challenge mode and straight up merge your lineart layer into all of your other layers (note: when I do this, I usually copy all the layers, then merge so in case I wanna undo I can).
7) YEARS WILL BE SAVED OFF OF YOUR LIFE IF YOU FIGURE OUT HOW TO SKIP THE PENCILING PHASE. I started teaching myself how to do this to get out comic pages faster, and holy shit. These were literally my steps with that Papyrus picture. There wasn’t any inbetween.
First step:
Second step:
It takes confidence and practice, but not having to go through a pencil phase basically cut down the time it took me to get to a more finished state in half. It’s SO relieving.
8) Personal preference: I hate inking in black. Black on white is literally the highest contrast between “colors” you can get, and after a while it makes my eyes hurt. I enjoyed working a lot more when I switched to browns/reds.
9) You don’t NEED to ink. It’s not a requirement. If you hate inking: don’t do it. Softer lines work great with color.
Anyway uhhh this got long, but those are all the tips I can think of for now!
