Hello! 🐯

Welcome to my tutorial on Lineart and the techniques and tools that can help improve it. Since I always worked analogically until this year, my use of line follows more traditional work steps. My focus will be on learning to draw lines with ease and precision. Therefore, until the vector layers section, much of the information you see can also be useful for artists who work analogically.

 

❤ Let's see how to improve the hand-eye connection, and different types of lines we can use as we please! ❤

 

The video for this tutorial is also available! It has subtitles available in Spanish and English.

About hand steadiness, line, and practice.

 

When talking about line and stroke, one of the first things that comes up is hand steadiness. This is difficult to control and is not about force but about practice. ✏️

 

First, pay attention to your hand position. To improve your hand steadiness and avoid pain, don't force your wrist to bend too much. For long or very loose lines, it is much more efficient if we DO NOT fully rest our hand on the paper or tablet and make broad movements from the elbow. Use hand support and precise movements when you need short lines.

 

 

I recommend doing the following exercises regularly to increase your precision and control over pressure. Also, quickly practicing a bit of this before drawing will help “wake up” your hand and sketch better. ✏️

1. Quick curved and parallel strokes with pressure variation.

2. Quick cross-hatching strokes

3. Quick parallel strokes in straight and homogeneous lines

4. Spirals: from the center outwards, and from outside to the center.

5. Large circles first, then small circles between them. (concentric circles also help).

6. Vertical or horizontal parallel lines with pressure variation (I highly recommend using the “mapping pen” brush in Clip Studio, which varies greatly in size depending on pressure). Try long lines and short lines.

7. Quick strokes, with pressure variation and in different directions (ideal for practicing hair). Try long, short, curved, and straight lines.

 

Find out which types of strokes work best with your work.

 

Practicing hair is especially useful, as we have a shape in mind and it might be easier for you to train your hand with a particular goal. In my case, I really like drawing hair with movement, with a silky and light appearance. For this, long and quick strokes always work better for me instead of shorter and slower strokes.

 

Use all alternatives you have to draw more comfortably! Rotating, revolving, or flipping the canvas helps to draw lines more easily depending on the position of your arm and hand.

 

I recommend not zooming in (or getting too close to) the canvas to draw, or if you do, frequently zoom out to check how what you're doing looks in the entire work before continuing. Getting too close makes you lose sight of the rest of the work, increasing the possibility of losing your sense of proportion, or adding too much detail that later gets lost or blends with other lines when viewing the complete work.

 

Types of Lines

Depending on the look you want to give your work and the tool you use, different types of lines can be achieved. The aspects that modify it can be: thickness, homogeneity, continuity, texture...

 

These examples are what I've seen most often in different artists:

 

-Homogeneous line: a line that does not change in thickness or tone along its path. It usually combines better with simpler art styles.

-Discontinuous line: a line that does not have a continuous stroke but still manages to define shapes. It is ideal when you don't want the line to draw too much attention.

-Modulated line: one that has variation in thickness along its path. It is especially good for giving a sense of volume.

 

To give more personality to your lines, consider the following factors:

 

-The difference in thickness is an excellent resource to help convey distances, lights, and shadows that direct attention. Keep in mind that thicker lines tend to appear closer and/or indicate darkness, and thin lines tend to appear further away and/or brighter depending on how they are used.

 

-The difference in value, that is, the difference in the darkness or lightness of the stroke. To give a simple example, a black line can be seen more easily than a gray line. Remember that color also has value!.

 

-Colored line: accompanies not only by containing shapes but also by contributing to the color content. When coloring the line, it is generally a good idea to match it with the tone of the fill of the shape it contains, as they integrate better. I also recommend trying different colors to explore the contrasts between shapes and lines.

All these characteristics can be freely combined to give different finishes.

Observe the following examples and see how different aspects can be combined in the same line.

 

 

Tools for Lineart

Every brush modifies the type of line you can make. Study the differences between brushes to find the one that best suits your style. Clip Studio has a special menu of tools designed for lineart. These special tools aim to imitate real ones, so take advantage of this to quickly identify what type of brush you're looking for! Pen-type brushes imitate ink strokes with both brushes and metallic pens; these result in strokes with a lot of thickness variation depending on pressure and can have texture on the stroke edges. Markers give a constant and homogeneous stroke in both color and thickness. Brushes that imitate pencils have a lot of texture, and their value can be modified according to the pressure you use.

-Attention! Also, there are different ways to erase! always keep in mind that each brush can be used in transparent mode, and that way you can erase with the same texture and parameters as the brush itself.

 

Here I show you Clip Studio's intended Lineart tool menus, and a selection of my favorite brushes:

 

Also, don't forget to check each brush's Properties! For example, the Stabilizer is especially useful for smoothly capturing your hand movements.

Also pay attention to the brush size. Even if it's a brush that regulates size according to pressure, if it were too large, controlling that pressure becomes much more difficult.

Try different configurations until you find the one that best suits you.

 

Try to think about what type of line you are looking for in your drawing to be able to choose the tool that best reflects it. I share examples about this:

 

But there are also brushes that give other types of finishes, which you might like. Experiment!

 

 

Carefully consider what type of line and to what extent you need it in your drawing. Sometimes it works better when the stroke is not complete, even if it doesn't become as diffuse as the example I showed before about a discontinuous line.

 

 

 

On the other hand, shapes can be defined simply by contrast (i.e., difference) between one area and another. This boundary between one shape and another is what fulfills the function of the line. It's interesting to observe this because it allows for other types of sketching or defining volumes in a drawing.

Some time ago, I heard an excellent artist say that before defining a line that contours the shapes of her drawing, she creates the volumes with flat color and even adds some shadow, then reinforces with lines only where necessary. In this way, she uses defined strokes as little as possible, achieving an intermediate between a drawing with strokes and a drawing without strokes. Look at the following example how the shapes remain defined thanks to color and shadows more than lines. It is an intermittent line, and even non-existent in some places, thus color and shading take on greater importance.

 

 

Observation Tips and Details

It is very important to look for references from other artists to discover different uses of line and how to convey different sensations with it. Each artist has a particular way of drawing, and studying those you like best can help you find your own style.

Part of this study also includes looking for references of the materials that appear in your drawing to try to help represent them through the stroke. Think about how each material behaves and what type of line would be appropriate to represent it adequately in a drawing, or at least to convey some of its properties. For example, if I were to draw a very thin and light fabric, very loose and thin lines would help give that sensation; on the contrary, straighter, thicker, and harder lines would give the sensation of a much heavier fabric. Another aspect that would influence this example is the number of wrinkles: thin fabric tends to wrinkle more, and thick fabric less.

 

Other types of materials can also be quite well represented by varying the properties of the line. Observe the examples:

 

Another very important aspect you should observe is how the line accompanies the volume in each case. If we continue with the example of fabric, clothes and their wrinkles follow the volume of the body underneath. This greatly helps to better show posture and to give a sense of perspective, depending on the case.

 

In the following example, I marked the body in blue. In orange, I marked the points that exert more force in each case; these points indicate where the wrinkles are and what direction they have. In red, I marked the direction of the wrinkles, following the orange points and the natural direction of gravity.

In the first example, the coat is made of a material with leather-like characteristics, which is why the wrinkles are thick and very pronounced. In the second example, it is a puffy sleeve of thin but heavy fabric, which is why the fabric falls, forming more folds in the elbow area and near the pink ribbon adjustment. In the third case, it is a bell-shaped skirt; it is in the waist area where more wrinkles and the point of greatest tension are seen, but in length, the direction of the wrinkles follows the hand holding the fabric.

 

One should also think about how to show the material's weight and how to accompany the movement of what we are drawing with the line, as these follow the same intensity and direction.

 

As the wind intensity increases, the lines of hair and clothes become faster, straighter, and messier; additionally, the horizontal position of the lines further helps to show the wind's force.

 

Vector Layers in Clip Studio and My Workflow

I will show you examples of my workflow from sketch to finish and the vector editing tools I use most often:

 

✏️ 1. I recommend starting with quick sketches and viewing the canvas from a distance, so you can draw freely and make as many mistakes as needed. Use loose lines and quick strokes to achieve a more dynamic drawing and help exercise your hand. Before starting the definitive lineart, make sure you have a sketch as close as possible to the final result.

 

✏️ 2. Once you have finished the sketch, lower its opacity and create a Vector Layer above it to do the lineart with your preferred brush. A vector is a line that connects two points called nodes. The vector layer places nodes within the lines you have drawn so that by modifying these points or the way the line connects these two nodes, we can correct the line. This has the extra advantage that it does not lose image quality when cutting, pasting, distorting, enlarging, or reducing the drawing. Don't worry if the lines intersect, go beyond the limit, are too thick, or too thin! Clip Studio has many tools to correct these aspects.

 

✏️ 3. Use the Vector Eraser tool to delete intersecting lines. Check the settings of this tool if you want it to erase only where it touches, the entire line, or until it intersects with another vector line.

 

✏️ 4. In this menu, we can find all the vector editing tools that we can use on vector layers:

 

 

• Use the “pinch vector line” (B) tool to slightly move the lines that need it.

 

• Use the “Simplify vector line” (C) tool to remove unnecessary nodes from the line and use the “Control points” (A) tool to correct the position of the nodes. Pay attention to the properties of this tool, as you can configure it to add nodes, move them, delete them, change the way the line ends, change the density or darkness of the line, etc.

 

-Use the “Redraw vector line” (F) tool to completely modify the stroke you have made. Keep in mind that this mode uses the nodes the line already has, so depending on what you want to modify, you might need more nodes (add them with the “Control point” (A) tool) or fewer nodes (remove them with the “Simplify vector line” (C) tool). Also, in the properties of this tool, you can indicate whether or not to modify the start and end points of the line, among other options.

 

Keep in mind that these modifications affect each vector line (i.e., between node and node) separately. If you need more continuous lines, you can join them using the “Connect vector line” (D) tool to convert lines that end very close to each other or overlap into a single vector line. Attention! Check the tool's properties to see how much tolerance it has for the distance between lines, as by default it only joins vector lines that are on top of each other or have very close ends. This is especially useful for helping those who draw each line as a set of short, overlapping lines.

 

✏️ 5. Adjust the line thickness with the “Modify line width” (E) tool, taking into account depth, point of interest, and light.

 

-Another way to homogenize the line is by using the properties of the “Modify line width” (E) tool and activating the “Process entire line” and “Repair width” options; the configured thickness will be applied to the entire stroke where you use the tool.

 

 

Try different types of lines until you find your favorite or to add diversity to your work! Let me show you some examples:

 

✏️ 6. Paint the color of your drawing on a layer below the lineart.

 

✏️ 7. Check the line color.

 

If the black lineart seems to detach from the base color, you can try modifying the line color.

 

 

To correct this, colored lines are often used. The most common ways I've seen colored lines used are:

 

-Painting the entire line a single color (for example, brown usually integrates very well with colors if the line is not too thick).

 

• Create a gradient between one color and another that affects the entire lineart. (This resource is also very useful when you don't want to paint the complete drawing; with this technique, the lines look great on their own)

 

• Paint the line surrounding each element in the image with a similar color, darker or lighter than the shape it contains (for example, in this case, the hair has bluish lines where it is green, and burgundy where it is pink).

 

I advise you to try different line colors to evaluate their effects on the final result. The tonal correction modes in the Edit menu can be very useful for changing the line color. (I also made a tutorial on these tools!)

 

The color of the lineart can be changed while maintaining the ability to modify the line on the vector layer. To do this, right-click on its thumbnail to set it as a Reference Layer (a small lighthouse icon will appear on the layer thumbnail); then create a new layer above it and, by clicking on the thumbnail as well, select “Clip to Layer Below” (a pink line will appear to distinguish this layer in the thumbnail). This way, when painting on this layer, the color will only be visible in the area that has a line from the layer below.

 

 

• Only if you are sure about the lines you have made, you can also rasterize the layer (right-click on the layer name) to convert it into a normal layer and then lock transparent pixels (icon above the layer list). This way, you can paint directly over the lines you want to change color, even if you can no longer modify their shape.

 

✏️ 8. Now that almost everything is resolved, it's a good time to add highlights, extra hairs, ornaments... In my case, I added a pattern for the clothes, highlights in the hair, and looser, messier hairs to help create a sense of suspended movement. The strokes I used for this are very quick and loose.

 

Acknowledgments and Contact

And this is my usual workflow!

Thank you for watching this video. It was difficult to simplify such a complex topic. Don't hesitate to leave me suggestions in the comments for my next tutorials, or even for this one!

 

If you like my work, you can follow me on my drawing Instagram: @barbara_brutti_ilustraciones