1. Preparation of the canvas and the sketch.

First of all it is important to work on a canvas large enough and with a good resolution so that your line is not pixelated: personally I often work in A4 with 300dpi (150 dpi is enough if you are not printing).

Before moving on to “Line Art”, it is important to prepare your sketch well: if, like me, your sketch is done on several layers, put them all in a single folder; then use the tool that allows you to transform your black lines into blue lines, to be able to go over them more easily.

So here is our canvas and our sketch ready for “Line Art”

2. “Line Art”.

A. The main features.

To make the following steps easier, we will work with a vector layer (you will thank me later), which we will all put in a new folder.

-> You can differentiate vector layers from normal layers by the small 3D cube drawn on them.

Then we will choose a pen; there are some textured and some not. Personally I use the “Sanji nib” with 100% opacity, a size of around 10 which varies depending on the pressure (see the settings below) and a stabilization of 10-15 (the stabilization corrects your line, it makes it more smooth ).

Now that everything is ready, all that’s left to do is launch! Have fairly sharp lines, let them cross over, we'll sort that out later. Rotate your canvas if necessary and above all don't zoom in too much! It will break the movement of your line art if you focus too much on one small area.

B. Cleaning.

Now that we have our Line art (roughly done); we will “clean” it.

First of all we are going to erase the intersecting lines using the vector eraser: take the “multi-layer eraser” then check the “vector eraser” option and the small cross which indicates “when 2 lines cross”.

Then go over the lines that need to be deleted and MAGIC! They disappear!

! This only works with vector layers.

We are now going to “refine” some of our traits; I find, for example, that the words in the background are too thick.

to do this you must click on the layer editor (pencil on a line); then “adjust width” and “Refine”. You can also thicken certain lines, modify their shapes... the possibilities are numerous.

-> To make this step simpler, I previously duplicated and merged all my Line layers into a single layer to have only one layer.

3. Volumes and cast shadows.

Our main lines are now perfect, but our line art lacks contrast and volume.

This is why we are going to pose the “cast shadows”: these are the shadows that we see when 2 objects touch or cross each other; they give depth and volume. (Picture 1)

In order to direct the viewer's eye we will add lines of movement to the muscles and clothing. (Picture 2)

! These lines must follow the movement, if the muscles and oblique the lines must follow its curve and not be too straight.

4. Little tip and conclusion.

Sometimes I work with too low an opacity, but my Line Art in the end is therefore not opaque; instead of starting all over again I simply duplicate the layer: the lines will then “overlap” and give a totally opaque result. I merge the layers and it's finished!

 

I took about twenty minutes for this inking, the trick and really using the “vector layers”; if you made a mistake and worked in a simple layer you can go to -> layers (in the menu at the top) -> convert layers -> convert layer to vector.

There you go, I hope my explanations were understandable and not too long!