WIP MTD "Lineart / Inks / Bane of my Existence"

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

This is the lineart. Hopefully you can tell, but it looks a hell of a lot cleaner than the pencils. Right? Right? Essentially, what this is is just the regular ol' inking process, except animated. All I do is create a blank layer over the pencils, and ink over all the pencils.

"Kyde," you say, "that doesn't sound so bad. Why have you bitched so much about this? What are you, some kind of baby pussy man?"

You're right, hypothetical commenter. It doesn't sound so bad, and I am in fact a baby pussy man. This is the most straight-forward portion of my animation process. Someone could argue that it's the easiest portion. It certainly requires the least amount of thought. And that's the problem. All I do is trace over the pencils I've already drawn. There is no thought required. It's an unbelievable slog. If you zoom in, you can see some of the lines wiggle and squiggle and shit. Fixing animation errors like that is the only time I get to think while doing this. This stage definitely feels like work, like a proper 9-5 job, and that fucking sucks in art. Like, okay, sure. Regular lineart isn't so bad, right? In a static art piece, it's fine. Doesn't take so much time, and it makes the piece look all nice and clean. But this is animation, that means doing the lineart for multiple frames. And you know how I've said how animation is just drawing the same thing over and over, only slightly differently? That especially sucks here, because now they all feel identical. Imagine tracing over the same picture twelve times in a row. 

Now, it's not so bad. Once I get into a groove, I can crank out frames pretty quickly. But, it still adds up so much. I timed myself, I worked nine hours today. Nine hours of mindless work. When you're not having fun, it almost like... takes a toll on your body. My back is killing me right now, and my hand is all carpal tunnely. I feel old. So old. 

So, enough whining. Why do I do this? Well, just look at it. I think that it certainly does look cleaner. I'm happy to say that I'm at the point in my art journey where I prefer my lineart to my pencils. Aside from my personal preference, when everything's cleaned up like this, it makes it easier to spot animation errors, like all those squiggly lines. So, I can go back through, which I will, and improve the animation quality. Having clean lines like this also makes it so stupidly easy to color it, using a kind of cel-shading technique. One cool thing you can do with this, is take the lineart layer, duplicate it, put it underneath the color layer, go into Layer Styles and give it the Stroke (lol) Layer Style. Fiddle around with the settings and color, and now you have a stupid easy outline around your character. You can see this in my Elvira animation, she's got like a... blue glow around her I think? That's exactly what I did, only I also added a blur filter over it to make it soft and glowy. You can make the line black to make the character look very cel-shaded, or you can make it white to make them really pop out. Super easy technique, looks cool in my opinion. Why can't you do this with pencils? Well, giving it the Stroke (haha) will put that border around everything, and if you're a messy sketch artist like me, you'll have pencil lines everywhere, and cleaning everything up would likely be more time consuming than just doing the lineart. Another major bonus, if you do lineart like this while you're animating, you'll be an inking master in no time. I used to be so afraid of doing lineart, now I just hate it.

So, there you have it. There are too many pros to this, not enough cons to warrant skipping it. What are some things I do to stay focused? How do I make this process not completely awful?

First up is tactile feedback. Yes, I'm trying to sound smart. You want the pen or stylus to feel good on the paper or screen. For me, it's super important to keep my tablet clean, otherwise your stylus is gonna feel gritty and gross. I've got nasty sweaty fucking hands, so I wear one of these cool drawing gloves.

Yes, your friends will make fun of you for wearing it. What's more, if this isn't enough to block the slime seeping out of your skin, you can buy athletic tape. I cut a small strip and slap that sucker on the edge of my palm, the area my hand contacts the tablet, and it works like a dream. Now, how do you avoid your hand hurting from all that pressure? Well, I know of one solution. Older generation Wacom styluses had these specific nibs called Stroke nibs. They're nibs with a spring inside. They're supposed to feel like a paintbrush, but to me they feel like a nib with a spring inside. Regardless, that absorbs a lot of pressure, and it makes for a lighter, more comfortable feeling. I think I heard that you can use older generation pens with the new tablets, but I haven't tested it yet. I do know that they don't make the stroke nibs for the new pens.

Okay, there's that. How do you deal with the mind-crushing boredom? Well, you can always listen to podcasts or something. I've found that hearing words and following along to something can really help. You could try audiobooks, but I can't afford those, that would mean cancelling my subscription to Nikocado's Onlyfans. One technique I've found great success with, because I'm deranged, is channeling your anger towards something. A very healthy coping mechanism indeed. I personally hate the song Platinum Disco from that Monogatari show. I've never seen the show, and I don't know anything about it, but I have heard that song, and I hate it. Listening to it totally shifts my focus from hating lineart to hating Platinum Disco and how she says "AA YOISHO." Sorry if any of y'all like that song or that show, some things I despise for little reason.

Another thing, take frequent breaks. Get up and move around. Go for a walk. Get the heart rate up. PRO TIP: While working, sit on your feet and cut off blood circulation to your legs, ensuring more blood is available for your brain. Don't do that, I won't be able to afford your hospital bill when they have to amputate your legs.

Well, that about does it. Again, it's super straightforward. My experiences aren't reflective of everyone's experiences, either. You may really enjoy lineart. I know for a fact that some comic artists exclusively do inking. I may just be the outlier.

Next up is coloring, which is thankfully the easiest, the most fun, and the quickest stage. I'll likely have plenty to say for that, so that'll be fun. I don't think I'll be making a WIP post for it, because at that point, it'll be done. so, keep your eyeballs peeled for the finished gif, where I'll also explain the coloring process.