# Line art



## Amethyst (Nov 5, 2009)

How do you like your lineart? Neat and tidy, like a comic book or with a little more movement and weight? Or none at all if possible.

For me, I like movement and weight for traditional and then I try for none at all in digital, because GIMP's a fag for making nice lines.


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## Timitei (Nov 5, 2009)

I just use a 3-pixel brush in gimp, because as you said, gimp's a fag for makin' nice lines. x3

I've really been trying to come up with a better way to go about creating lineart, though... Haven't found anything yet.


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## DragonFoxDemon (Nov 5, 2009)

3 or 3.5 brush at 40% hardness for my lines. I've never had an issue with GIMP and my line work.

Normally try for neat lines.


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## Arshes Nei (Nov 6, 2009)

Corel Painter - I can use the pens they already have with little adjustments, like the scratchboard tool or I can use the cover pencils at a tweaked setting. Liquid Inks make some great effects.

Sai Paint, pretty smooth lines, if you're into the really crisp and clean line art.


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## Runefox (Nov 6, 2009)

Inkscape. Nothing else comes close to vector for crisp, clean lines.


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## TheStory (Nov 7, 2009)

I've actually gotten rather comfortable using Autodesk's SketchBook Pro for sketches and linework. It works very nice. from there I usually go between Photoshop and Corel for painting everything. It really differs depending on what I am trying to accomplish.

as far as line quality. when I make final line art I often use lines that vary a lot in line weight, and are very fluid. But in all actuality one of my favorite parts of drawing is the rough sketch. It has more life to it. 

Sorry I am blabbing. i'ts about time I stop now.


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## Mayfurr (Nov 7, 2009)

Amethyst said:


> For me, I like movement and weight for traditional and then I try for none at all in digital, *because GIMP's a fag for making nice lines.*



Regarding doing lines in GIMP, have you tried creating Paths and using the "Stroke Paths" function? It works with doing both straight and weighted linework - for the latter, select the "Ink" tool to stroke with and enable "Brush Dynamics". The inks for http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2932488 and http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2904334 (both NSFW) were done almost entirely by this method.


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## krimv (Nov 25, 2009)

I do all my line art in GIMP with a Wacom Graphire 3 tablet (it's an older tablet, but it still works great).  I don't usually use the paths tool for much except when I have a really long line/curve that I can't get to look as smooth as I want.  Then it's advantageous to use that tool instead of going by hand.  Generally, I use only the pen tool with varying degrees of thickness depending on what area I'm inking (thin lines for facial features and certain details, thick lines for body curves and clothing).  You may or may not already know this trick, but it's helpful to tape a piece of paper over the top of a graphics tablet to provide some texture and help the whole pen thing feel natural.


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## cg135 (Jan 5, 2010)

Mayfurr said:


> Regarding doing lines in GIMP, have you tried creating Paths and using the "Stroke Paths" function? It works with doing both straight and weighted linework - for the latter, select the "Ink" tool to stroke with and enable "Brush Dynamics". The inks for http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2932488 and http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2904334 (both NSFW) were done almost entirely by this method.



I hate doing that, I feel like I'm cheating or something. It does work well however. Only issue i have is that sometimes it looks too perfect, too straight, and it's not capable of very detailed stuff.


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## M. LeRenard (Jan 6, 2010)

GIMP's paths tool is pretty bitchy, I think.  It doesn't take nodes very well; often makes them jagged, and there aren't any tools to smooth them out, really.  Really, the only advantage I can see it having over something like Inkscape is that you can add pressure and velocity effects at the ends (though this is limited) to make lines taper off.  But Inkscape is much more versatile at everything else, so you might as well just use that.
Vectors in general and things like it I always feel are just a pain to work with, anyhow.  It's not so much drawing a picture as programming one.  The end product looks nice, I suppose, but I hate getting there, so I never use it.
In which case, I suppose I prefer the ugly, scratchy kind of linework.  At least, that's what I prefer to do.


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## Niny (Jan 7, 2010)

I HATE doing linearts. I get terrible shakes, so I usually just stick to the 'painterly' style and use traditional techniques.
But lately i've been experimenting more and more with flash for linearts and flood-fills and I am really happy with the results.
Flash automatically smooths out my lines, and when I flood-fill it fills in gaps, which is great because I like to have a few gaps and vary my lines a little bit.


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## Karali (Jan 7, 2010)

I use SAI for my inking/coloring, because the pen tool in it is a _godsend_.

Generally I prefer smooth lineart, with a bit of weight added for emphasis of certain parts. 8<


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## Charlie (Jan 7, 2010)

I also use SAI, the pen tool at size 2.6


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## SpartaDog (Jan 8, 2010)

Depends on the pic. If it's something that's supposed to be scary, creepy, or messed up in any way, I generally leave it sketchy. If it's not, or if it's a concept/ref, I clean it up. All traditional, btw. I suck at digital, period.


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## ZareonianWolf (Jan 8, 2010)

Karali said:


> I use SAI for my inking/coloring, because the pen tool in it is a _godsend_.
> 
> Generally I prefer smooth lineart, with a bit of weight added for emphasis of certain parts. 8<



This.


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## Mayfurr (Jan 8, 2010)

cg135 said:


> I hate doing that, I feel like I'm cheating or something. It does work well however.



Well, it's only "cheating" as much as doing _anything_ digitally could be considered cheating. One might just as well consider flood fills, gradients, blurring etc "cheating" - paths is just a tool which the user has to apply the way they want. It's not the tool that is important, it's what you do with it 



cg135 said:


> Only issue i have is that sometimes it looks too perfect, too straight, and it's not capable of very detailed stuff.



I rather like the crisp clean line effect myself, as well as the weighting and tapering-off effect you get with "Brush Dynamics" enabled. It certainly makes drawing smooth curves a lot easier - the approach I use is to try NOT to do the entire picture as one path, but create a bunch of little paths for each line, adjusting the size of the tool you're stroking the path with to suit.

On the other hand, I still find that inking traditionally with a brush pen then scanning the results is still quicker than setting up paths. (For digital inking, I still sketch the pic on paper then scan the image in before tracing over the lines - haven't quite got the hang of drawing 100% "in the computer" yet as I don't have a tablet.)


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## RailRide (Jan 9, 2010)

My methods have no rhyme or reason, it probably depends on time+mood more than anything else. I've done tech pen ink, brush ink,  digital ink with line segments and vector ink under two different apps (Canvas and Inkscape). Variable lineweights and flat. I can get really smooth linework with brushes, but spend lots of time cleaning up jagged edges after scanning it (protip: keep that brush _wet_ with ink). 

Digital inking does away with most cleanup, but can sometimes be a time sink. Ditto for diddling with vectors and their control points (but one can't argue with the smoothness once done). SAI looks interesting for the results achieved with it, but I'm not yet motivated to buying software packages online, (and my ethics disallow looking for cracked copies).

Some subject matter looks good with certain techniques, but I haven't bothered to define which is which--too subjective.

---PCJ


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## Fuzzle (Jan 9, 2010)

Definitely very neat and smooth, I still don't really know how to achieve this all that well, but my style as of right now has eliminated any kind of ink lines.


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## Gnome (Jan 11, 2010)

you people

* i USE A*
*PENCIL *


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## KashakuTatsu (Jan 12, 2010)

I use.... copic tech pens for inking XD

Despite the PS and wacom tablet, nothing feels as good as ink on paper. Sure it's more expensive but it's worth it


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## Amethyst (Jan 13, 2010)

Gnome said:


> you people
> 
> * i USE A*
> *PENCIL *





KashakuTatsu said:


> I use.... copic tech pens for inking XD
> 
> Despite the PS and wacom tablet, nothing feels as good as ink on paper. Sure it's more expensive but it's worth it



You traditional people; What pens, markers etc do you use?

Is there any specific makes you use?


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## KashakuTatsu (Jan 13, 2010)

for pencils I usually use Staedtler then go over em with Copic pens and markers (I do have one Rapidiograph for when I do lines of other colours since they are refillable).


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## mmmke (Jan 16, 2010)

Neat n tidy fo sho. Maybe on my more cartoony characters ill throw a clean thick outline. Its wayy to easy to over do it with the inking i think. So i like to keep it pretty calm n clean.


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## Ak-Nolij (Jan 16, 2010)

Got a tablet?

Don't feeling like spending an arm and a leg for good software?

If you've said yes to both of these questions then MyPaint is the application for your needs. The only con is the unusual layer abilities of MyPaint(ex. no Layers dialogue box), but I've managed to work around it quite nicely. And one more thing, if you do, however, decide to go for MyPaint; I strongly recommend DL'ing this brush set for its ink brush:

http://forum.intilinux.com/mypaint-finished-work/mypaint-presets/

Hope that helps.

-Nolij

P.S. - I prefer sketchy, rugged line work, but I like smooth line work as well.


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## Amethyst (Jan 17, 2010)

hmmm this SAI thing. How much is it and how much room does it take up hard drive wise?



oh and I've downloaded a very nifty brush for GIMP; instead of the obvious decrease in size when using pressure in brush and pencil modes it makes it smooth http://magenta-stock.deviantart.com/art/Inkpen-GIMP-Brushes-updated-33537424


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## v-deus (Jan 18, 2010)

Strong line-art doesn't exactly encourage my imagination to run wild. I prefer attacking/damaging the precious nature of lineart or going entirely over it. I don't want all the details of an image visible, necessarily.


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## outward (Jan 20, 2010)

I try to make my lines as-clean-as-possible, with some added weight in the appropriate places. I like my lineart crisp and complete. : )


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## krisCrash (Jan 30, 2010)

Amethyst said:


> You traditional people; What pens, markers etc do you use?
> 
> Is there any specific makes you use?



Liquid ink is fun, with a nib, thin brush or both
Pens annoy me as they are just dry and slow compared :3

Ball-point inkers (but with thin ink, not the thick classic ballpoint pen stuff) might be interesting to use, Pilot Pen V5 and Mitsubishi Uniball are some. They feel different to use than the "felt" tips.

(I don't do traditional that often though)


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