Hey experienced artists!

So I spent three straight days on a pair of hands, and I finally got something worth looking at!

Now comes the line work before coloring, and shading.

However, everytime I get my line work on my computer, ready for color, my lines are not always the best.

Are there ways on getting solid lines so coloring is easier? Is it just a steady hand, or are there programs that help? Maybe techniques?

(I've never taken an art class in my life, so forgive my ignorance)

There are a lot of way to do it. It really depends on what your working with.

If its traditional media, meaning, pen and ink, paper and all that jazz, it's going to be harder then if you are working on a computer.

Additionally if your on a computer then there are different methods depending on the program your using.

Details first please :3 What are we helping you with as it pertains to lining.

Traditional media: ink and paper. -Using Prismacolor illustration pens.

Then I upload it, and use Photoshop 6 for coloring

okay. I went and looked at what you ahve online as is. Your work is like mine, in that you draw it by hand on paper, line it while on paper, then scan and begin to clean up in a program.

Clean, thin lines will only come with more prectice i think. Your very good at it already but it just takes time if your wanting to keep things CLEAN.

On the other hand, if you dont mind something dirty, (an i wouldnt say try this with the piece you have NOW maybe something to practice with though) try using heavier lines when you do line, and dont worry too much about the details. When you scan your work, leave it LARGE, and when your done resize down. everything is amazingly clean then!

exp: nebezial.deviantart.com/art/ah-puberty-thou-art-a-heartless-bish-343499670

look at the smaller size then click on it. his lines are ALL OVA the place, i couldnt dot hat to save my life i want everything pretty and neat, BUT when its in smaller size everything becomes cleaner! www.deviantart.com/art/Learn-Manga-Simplification-583132700

Evellin wrote:
Traditional media: ink and paper. -Using Prismacolor illustration pens.

Then I upload it, and use Photoshop 6 for coloring

You do what I used to do before I got a wacom tablet.


If you're using the PC to colour, the only way to blacken the lines of a inked drawing is in the scanning. Provided your drawing/inked sketch is clean, before scanning with minimal smudges, and or the lines are dark enough.

I used to scan the image in black and white rather than grayscale or colour. My inked lines would come out black with a clean white background. Although I still had to erase minor smudges and or black specks from badly inked sections. I also had to do basic erasure of some lines that were messy too.

Also, to get nice black lines during the inking stage you need a really steady hand. No shaking and or minimal soaking of the ink into the paper so the ink doesn't blot. You need to be fast too, so the lines are straight or curved without looking shaky too.

You can also to get nice black lines after the scanning process by upping the contrast, and or applying a gausian blur and then fading it out using the multiply layer option. Which I used to do in photoshop.

The tute I used, years ago, to learn to colour in photoshop was this one by artist Peter Keres. The gausian blur step is illustrated in his guide too.

Colouring in Photoshop

~ Pyre

Using the right kind of paper for inking goes a long way for creating smoother, cleaner lines on traditional media pieces.

inali wrote:
Using the right kind of paper for inking goes a long way for creating smoother, cleaner lines on traditional media pieces.0o0o0o good point! paper matters!

Thanks everyone! This helped a lot.

My image is turning out pretty well. I still have to clean it up a little, but over all those little tips helped out. -Scanning it as a black and white helped, and reducing its size after, has helped smooth over the lines.

I'll be posting my new line work later today!!

Evellin wrote:
Thanks everyone! This helped a lot.

My image is turning out pretty well. I still have to clean it up a little, but over all those little tips helped out. -Scanning it as a black and white helped, and reducing its size after, has helped smooth over the lines.

I'll be posting my new line work later today!!

Heya just a note on the size reduction. If you're colouring on the PC than it's actually best to reduce the size after you've finished colouring overall, that includes shading. If you want good colour for the image in various formats from png to jpeg than it's best to colour at highest magnification. We're talking 2000 pixel in size or greater, which is OK if you're scanning in raw B/W, you'll naturally get a huge size for the initial image.

I would colour at high resolution, save it in whatever format I wanted - usually jpeg or jpg for millions of colours, and then resize to less than 800 by 500 px or 900 x 600 px to get the file size down.

Resizing before colouring always made my lines fade-out. Doing one overall resize after I've coloured and what-not saved my images from being grainy in jpg format.

Since reducing an image's size, especially for rasters, which is the kind of image Photoshop and GIMP produce/work with, always makes it grainy since you're reducing the resolution or the clarity of the image too.

Also, the only images that retain size, detail, proportion, and cleanliness, especially of lines are Vectors, which can be resized any which way and always look beautiful. Unfortunately they aren't easy to paint or shade. So there's the rub.

Anyway.

Glad we could help.

~ Pyre