Da, da, da, daaaaaaaaâŠâŠ thatâs a little more dramatic than I had intended. I love all these wonderful Sai tutorials that get posted on here but I havenât seen much attention payed to Saiâs Lineart tool which I canât get enough of. Iâm sure there probably are Lineart Layer tutorials out there - I just havenât come across one so Iâm just adding to the pile. The Lineart tool is so awesome it deserves any number of tutorials anyway. Itâs so easy to use, it saves me so much time, and it offers so much control which I really love. Honestly, the tool is so easy to use that this is less of a tutorial and more of just a general encouragement to just whip it out and start playing with it. Yeah. So say we start with a simple line like this swirly-wirly thingy that I drew with the marker tool. Well, the first step would be to create a linework layer by clicking the linework layer button.
There we go. Now, a lineart layer in Sai is different from any other regular layer in Sai and it will bring up a completely new range of tools. Iâm gonna briefly go through them but the best way to understand exactly what each does is to just try them out for yourself. Thereâs no substitute for experience or however the saying goes.
Pen - This is your freehand lineart tool and to best honest I donât really use it that often. Thatâs just me personally. I have an expensive gaming rig that has all sorts of magic running under the hood but we all know that Saiâs memory management is pretty crappy and I donât need the lag or crashes that come with this tool when working at a high DPI. You may have a different, entirely pleasant experience with this particular tool but for me, if Iâm doing freehand inking, Iâd much rather just use the regular Pencil tool.
Eraser - Kinda speaks for itself.
Weight - This one I do love. Say youâve drawn a line - or a path as Sai calls it. With this tool you can adjust the thickness of the particular line by simply selecting the brush size and then clicking on the line.
Color - Same as Weight. Simply select your desired colour and then select the desired line youâd like to change. Very useful. For the aesthetic.
Edit - This one comes with its own subset of mini-tools that Iâll get into in a moment. But this is definitely a useful tool - for me itâs probably the most useful.
Pressure - This is the one that adds the character to your linework. Iâll explain further below.
SelPen - A selection tool. Pretty standard. Since the Lineart layer works in âAnchorâ points (which again, Iâll get in to further down below) I donât really use this one.
SelErs - Selection Erase. Goes hand in hand with the SelPen. I canât say that I personally use this one  much.
Curve & Line - The Curve and the Line tools are the cornerstones of the Linework layer. Iâm explain both further down.
The Edit tool, as I mentioned, brings up its own list of sub-tools. And they definitely have their uses. Again, itâs best to play around with them to truly get a grasp of what they do but Iâll just run through them quickly before I get on with the main tutorial.
Select - For selecting anchor points of paths. Honestly, I donât really use this one too much simply because hovering over a point or path and clicking will select it.
Move/Add - Now this one I use a lot. Moving an anchor will affect the curvature of your line if youâve used the âCurveâ tool, or you can add curves to a straight line by clicking and dragging in between anchor points.
Delete CP/Curve - Kinda speaks for itself. It will delete an achor point in your line. Sometimes this can be useful for making your curves rounder if youâve added too many points to it.
Deform Path - Again, kinda self explanatory. It will warp your line. I donât really use this one myself but thatâs not to say that it couldnât have its uses.
Deform Anchor - See above.
Move Path - Instead of moving just an anchor or adjusting the curvature of your line you can move the entire line at once. Can be useful.
Duplicate Path - Does exactly what it says - creates a copy of your line. Havenât found much use for this simply because I donât particularly like copy/paste stuff in linework. Faults or differences add character.
Delete Path - deletes a line youâve drawn independently of other lines on your linework layer. Can be useful as well.
Connect CPs - This is difficult to explain the benefits of. Itâs one that should be experimented with. It basically joins lines together. I use it quite often. Just pick this option and drag from one anchor point to another to join them.
Pointed/Rounded - See the diagram below for this one. I find it very useful.
As you can see I used the Curve tool to draw a simple curve (left) and then I used the Pointed/Rounded tool to convert the curve into a point (right) by selecting the tool and then clicking on the anchor point at the height of the curve. I find it very useful. Anyway, back to our swirly-wirly thingy.
Because our swirly-wirly thingy is basically one long curve, I simply select the curve tool and start clicking. Starting at the centre point on one end, I click to add anchor points as I trace the shape of the object. Each point adjusts the curvature from the last point. Itâs kinda hard to explain verbally or even visually but try it out and youâll quickly see how it works.
Once I have a line over whatever Iâm inking done I like to adjust the weight to suit my preferences. I like to work with thicker lines because they give more room to play around with weight. So to adjust the weight you click on the Weight tool, select a brush tool and then click on your line. If only it were that simple in life.
Once I have a good weight selected I move on to the Pressure tool. The pressure tool gives you two options. Pressure for width and pressure for density. Width is like controlling the weight of the line at individual points and density controls the transparency. I donât usually use the density option. As with traditional inking I prefer to denote depth, shadow, etc. with weight as you can see in the image above. To adjust the pressure, simply select the pressure tool and then select an anchor point. Click, hold and drag to the left to make the line thinner of more transparent and to the right to make the line thicker and more dense. As you drag, a percentage will appear over the anchor point youâve selected. This can be useful for keeping things consistent.
Thatâs all well and good for curved lines but what about straight lines? Thatâs where the line tool comes in. It works exactly the same way except it wonât add a curvature to your anchor pints. Still very useful though. Especially when combined with the Weight and Pressure tools.
Hereâs an example of one my drawings. Itâs Dark Empress Kitana from Mortal Kombat. The one in red is the pencils which if converted to black would probably make a pretty good linework layer. Iâm a firm believer in taking the time to clean up your sketch/pencils layer because it will dictate your entire drawing. The one below in black was done using Saiâs linework layer feature. Although not entirely.
As much as I love Saiâs linework layer, it can look a little too clean which is not great when youâre drawing people. Although, itâs all art so itâs all up to personal preferences and personal style. Thereâs no wrong way to do it. For me though, I prefer to do skin, facial features, hair, etc. by hand using Saiâs Pencil tool on a normal layer and reserve the Linework Layer for architecture, clothing or any non-organic substances. I inked Kitanaâs eyes and eyebrows freehand ( or as freehand as you can be with Saiâs amazing stabilisers) but everything else such as her armour or her fan weapon thingy was done using the Curve and Line tools on the Linework Layer.
I hope this tutorial has been useful. Or if not useful - then at least encouring to try out Saiâs linework layer. Itâs such a robust feature that I donât see get much attention and I canât even begin to describe how much time it saves me or how much I adore it. If you have any questions (because Iâm well aware how unsuited I am to writing tutorials - this is so damn rambly - sorry!) then feel free to drop me an ask here at keithbyrneart.
P.S, sorry about my handwriting in the stills. Itâs gotten a lot messier these days.
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