Lineart help

[Jing Ying]

Lol, sorry for being such a n00b, in advance.

I was wondering how one makes clean VN-style lineart in Photoshop (which is, sadly, the only graphics editor I have). It looks too perfect to be hand-drawn, yet when I use the pen tool, it comes out all blocky and ick. T_T

Anyone have any specific way of doing theirs? Thanks for any help, in advance.

[x__sinister]

I have GIMP, so I don't know if Photoshop has this feature, but I use Paths to do my line-art.

[dstarsboy]

Go to deviantArt and type in "linart tutorial" and you'll see dozens of them. From what I gather, cleaning the linart is easy but smoothing the linart takes the most time (using either the pathing tool or zooming in close and touching it up with the eraser).

[Ren]

Could you show us some examples? It's always been a bit hard for me to suggest anything before having seen something that gives me an idea of your level...
My general advice would be (if you draw totally on Photoshop — and that's another useful thing to know: your method) to not settle with the first line art you come up with. Draw a sketch first, and then make it bigger and "ink" it on another layer.

The movement of your hand is also very important — weirdly, the slo0wer and apparently more accurate you are and the more shaky your lines will be. You should try to trace smooth and rather fast lines, not worrying if some excess comes on your drawing, you can erase it later!

I can show you some examples of stuff I made with that method posted on another forum, so you can see if the result is your cup of tea or not [Link]. :3

Anyway, just ask further questions, if you feel like it.

[Jing Ying]

Thanks for all the advice, guys B)

@Ren: Firstly, I'm in loooove with your art. <3 As for my drawing procedures, typically I do sketches in Photoshop and, well, never complete them. X_x Here's a sketch of one Prince of Tennis chibi that's probably going to be made into a badge/bookmark at an animecon at the end of the year, but I'm having trouble doing satisfactory lineart (and coloring, too, but I can't very well color without lineart, lol) on Photoshop.

Any advice on something like this? I want to color it VN-style, with that weird indescribable combination of cel and soft-shading. @_@

[Ren]

Well, I still think you should treat this as a base and ink it on another layer; the thing is it's better not to worry about clear lines while sketching so as to preserve spontaneity in the pose, while it's good — for me, that is — to concentrate on the lines exclusively while inking.
If I was you, I'd make the canvas bigger (600X1200 something, perhaps), add another layer with "screen" blending mode and fill it with blue; then merge all visible layer(*).
Add another layer on top which you'll name "Ink" and start inking with a brush you'll mess around with a bit. I usually use drop shadow brushes, size 3, and add Shape dynamics in the brushes menu and reduce the spacing to 1%. I also usually reduce the hardness to 0.

I'm sorry I can't give you a screen shot, but I'm at my boyfriend's at the moment... I'm half tempted to give it a quick ink to see how it comes out :P It's a cute chibi!

(*)Or hit ctrl+U and check colourise in the small window that pops up, then adjust the lightness.

[adrix89]

If you have a base sketch and don't mind getting dirty with the mouse(that is if you don't have a tablet) try the calligraph tool from inkscape with some mass and some wiggle(my preference is .3 for wiggle and .25 for mass with a bit of tremor .06) you can clean up the lines with bezier and path operations, you might even use tweak, also not to forget about ctrl-L for simplification

[Jing Ying]

@adrix89: Is Inkscape a free program? I have a tablet, but strangely I find it more efficient to lineart with Photoshop's pen tool sometimes, no matter how blocky it comes out. O_o

@Ren: If you could show me an example I'd be indebted to you for life orz

[adrix89]

http://www.inkscape.org/
Seems like the main page is offline momentary but you can still download form sourceforge
http://sourceforge.net/projects/inkscape/files/
0.46 is the most recent stable

[Deji]

I made a quick step-by-step thingie/tutorial on how I'd make lineart on Photoshop freehandedly using the tablet.
Hope you can find something useful in there

I personally ditched Photoshop recently, and replaced it with SAI (though I still use Photoshop for textures, patterns and color tweaks). The lines somehow end up looking better, and the vector tool for linearts is just awesome, imo :3

[Jing Ying]

@Deji: Oh damn, have I ever told you that YOU'RE MY IDOOOOOOLLLLLLL. <3<3 Thanks for the awesome advice~ I do have SAI, but I'm not too fond of the way all the lines come out kinda pointy-ish (lol, lame describing skills). ^___^; Thanks a bunch for the tutorial, again!