lineart tips!

I told helioangel a whileee ago that I'd put together some tips for doing lineart, so I wrote up all the advice I could think of! some of these are more foundational information but I thought I'd cover everything, I hope they're helpful!

draw on paper

drawing traditionally helps to improve your mark making technique, since it lets you work on your hand-eye coordination directly without anything like stabilization, your tablet, etc altering the marks you make. I did a lot of traditional art as a teen which really helped my technique I think. there are a lot of exercises out there for drawing with pen only to improve your confidence in putting down lines.

draw with your whole arm, not just your wrist

drawabox has a good page on this! drawing from your wrist gives you small and precise marks, which is great for details, but drawing from your elbow & shoulder gives you bigger pivot points to draw longer lines more easily. I remember it being strange to get used to when I first heard about this, but now I'm pretty comfortable drawing from my elbow. 

ghost over lines before you draw them

drawabox has another great page on this. I'm trying to be looser with my lines so I don't do this so much atm but it can really help with precision.

rotate the canvas 

this is mentioned in the last drawabox page too- you can see me constantly rotating my canvas in my process videos while I'm doing lineart. try rotating the canvas so that the line you're making feels more natural- you have to feel out which angles work for you. I know this is a lot easier on an ipad than on a computer, but you should be able to make keyboard shortcuts for rotating the canvas!

pull lines instead of pushing

you might have more control drawing your lines pulling toward you, rather than pushing away. sometimes there are exceptions and a line will come out fine being drawn away... if I'm stuck on a line and have drawn it a billion times, I try a different approach- rotating the canvas another way or starting from the other end of the line.

either draw a really clear sketch, or blur it out

I usually find it easier to do confident lines when my sketch is very refined and clear, so I don't have to do any guesswork. on the flip side, I once saw an artist recommend blurring the sketch before lining it so you aren't paralyzed trying to get your lines to exactly match the sketch, using it as a vague guide instead. 

adjust your line weight & pressure sensitivity

this is a personal preference, but for my lines, I use a brush with very little line width variation and very light pressure from my hand.

I find it a lot easier to make smooth lines when I'm not also worrying about line width and I can set lines down with a very light touch, so I'm kind of skating around the screen rather than digging the pencil in. if you're finding it hard to balance line smoothness and width, try adjusting your pressure sensitivity!

adjust the stabilization settings of your drawing program

a higher stabilization setting will mean your program is smoothing your lines out more as you draw them, so there's a trade off between smoother lines and more accurate lines. I'd suggest starting with a low setting, so your lines are more accurate to the mark you're making, and increase the setting gradually to something that feels right.

make sure you're drawing at a big enough resolution

I usually shrink my art to 50-70% of its original size for posting - full sizes are generally around 2000-3000px for me, but if your device can take it then you can try bigger! shrinking your finished piece will smooth out small imperfections in the lines.