Introduction
Hi, I am takemono7. I will teach you what I learn on how to create lineart easily. This tutorials will focus more on technique and “cheat tools” instead of theory. I am not a pro artist in term of skills that can create lineart with ease (in traditional media like pencil and paper) like Kim Jung Gi and those famous Japanese artist. But with these technique, using tools on Clip Studio Paint, you too (as beginner or intermediate) can create lineart with ease.
Need to Know Basic
Note that Explanation on how to use this tools below will be explained in next chapter. Need to know basic only tells you about tools you should be aware of.
1. BRUSH AND ERASER
To make things easier you can download my Brush Pack here and my Workspace (if you are using iPad).
Download my brushes collections here:
Unfortunately even custom chalk brush that’s used from Ad*be PS and custom eraser that I made can’t be uploaded without getting marked as violation, hence the reason I put MEGA link. Previously I put it into CSP asset but get reported and removed twice.
Actually there is no need to use Custom Brush. You can use ANY Brush to create Lineart. What makes custom brush useful is just the feels and effect it produce into canvas. Some may like more textury Brush others may prefer G-Pen (it’s default Pen on Clip Studio Paint).
The point is use a brush that you like the feels when you draw a line on canvas. Certain artist like knifecat_tw use design pencil. Which works for lineart and sketching. Design pencil is an old brush from Clip Studio Paint version 1.x, you need to download it below as the latest fresh install of CSP 2.x does not have that brush anymore.
For erasing the sketch, Kneaded Eraser (default eraser #3 from CSP) is the best. If you have drawn with pencil, you know that it’s a superior eraser than the plains white eraser. But for Lineart, soft brush and hard eraser is way to go. The different between lineart and sketch is that you need to be CLEAR when making lineart. No need to be fancy (like Gran Blue Fantasy lineart, it’s good style but not necessary for beginner) just be clear so you could understand the form easily when you are coloring it. Hence using Soft Eraser and Hard Eraser is the best choice.
2. HELPER TOOLS
You can use this tools to help you draw line easily.
A. Ruler
Ruler tools is useful when you are using custom brush with texture. It function like ruler but more advance as you can choose how it guides your line work.
B. Figure
Figure tools basically a cheat lineart tools as you can create lineart easily with this.
3. MANIPULATION TOOLS
A. Correct Line
Adjust line is an optional tools you can use to create a linework thicker or thinner. The other vector line edit can be use but it’s more of hassle compared to using the other tools below.
Also, you use this auto command instead after creating your lineart as an alternative.
B. Transform Tools
Transform Tools is one of the two holy grails. Why draw lineart by making hundreds line and multiples ctrl+z just to wait for perfect line drawn when you can shaped them yourself with transform tools.
If you use my workspace layout or manually putting Quick Acces into the sidebar, you can have a shortcut like image below.
How to add: Windows > Quick Access
3. Liquify
The second holy grails of manipulating tools is Liquify. Note that this does not works with vector layers.
What to Practice or Learn first?
Do you hate lineart? Prefer to skip to color but can’t without clean lineart?
Are you are relatively new to digital art or have some difficulty when making lineart?
It’s nice to practice first before drawing lineart from your sketch. But what do I do?
It’s not thousands straight line drawing practice nor thousands box making. None of that.
1. Know what Pixel Size for the Brush
First thing first is to know what (brush) pixel size do you need to use when drawing in certain canvas size. How?
a. Create a new canvas with your favorite canvas size. Mine is A4 300 DPI.
b. Find your favorite artist artwork. You may have few or many, just choose the one in closer skills range to you or you think you can learn easily. Since CSP does not allow copyrighted content, I’m just gonna use my own artwork for this example.
Download into your PC/iPad then import that image to canvas. Resize it
c. Reduce the opacity of said image into 10-30%.
d. Use your favorite lineart brush or the one I use.
e. Try to trace it and see if certain pixel size is correct or not.
In this case I find that lineart brush with pixel size 4 and 5 is the best. Remember that different canvas size and how big the character is drawn will make the necessary pixel size for the brush difference.
For example in A4 300dpi the character is drawn in full body so pixel size 4 and 5 is perfect but if she’s drawn in bust up view, the pixel size can be different/much bigger.
You need to experience by using other artist artwork as a guide for what pixel size to use in certain view point and canvas size. Once you’ve master this it’ll be up to your feeling to decide which pixel size is perfect for you.
Certain artist (western style) may have thicker lineart and other (usually japanese) will have thinner lineart. So, you need to choose who is your favorite and inspiration.
Now you know what pixel size to use for full body in A4 300 dpi. You can check what pixel size to use if the image is in knee up/waist up view in A4 300 dpi by doing the same things above.
2. What about stabilization?
You can set your lineart Brush stabilization to any number. I use 24 as I think that’s good enough. But setting to 100 is OK too as it makes drawing a big single line easier.
So in nutshell there’s no real correct number. Just use whatever you feels great.
Before I am using the technique on this tutorial, I always use 100. Now I can draw lineart just fine be it with 24 or 100.
3. Tracing other artist Lineart
Now that you know what pixel size to use, you can try to trace other artist works. Just pick his/her simpler image, choose half body/waist up to make it quicker.
Just trace the best you can. And see how they create lineart for their artwork.
You don’t have to do it perfectly. Just try to learn how others do their linework.
How to draw Lineart with Ease
Now, this is the main course.
Since you have probably done the lineart in bad way and slow way, now is the time to taste the power of cheating with clip studio tools.
Keyboard Shortcut First!
But before that make sure you set your keyboard shortcut in the most efficient way.
If you like playing PC games in genre like first person shooter or Path of Exiles, putting shortcut for tools around AWSD might be great. I use 1 to create new raster layer and 2/3 to increase/decrease brush size. The rest is up to you.
1. Draw A Single Line Now!
- Have your sketch or other artist artwork (if you want to practice first).
- Put it below your lineart layer and reduce the opacity between 10-30%
Vector layer may have advantage with transform tools as it will stay sharper despite being transformed but you cannot use liquify on vector layer. If you want to use liquify and transform tool choose a raster layer but if you don’t plan to use liquify, vector layer is the way to go. Whichever you use does not really matter in the end.
- Draw a single line now, try to focus on bigger part first.
2. Edit Your Linework with Transform and/or Liquify Tool
If the line drawn is not perfect, use transform and/or liquify tool. Just fix the line so that it would looks ok.
I provided Youtube Video below if the GIF above is not clear.
[Optional] Make Line Thicker or Thinner
- And if you think that’s too thick, you can either draw it again with lower pixel size and use the transform/liquify tool again like above OR use Adjust line width.
To be honest, I prefer to redraw again with smaller pixel size.
Certain artist may want to make the outer line thicker than the inner line. This is one way to do this
I don’t use Correct Line tools when I create a line art. So info above is put into [optional]. It’s nice to know but is not really that important. And to make outer line thicker there’s a better way.
3. Always Create New Layer When in Doubt.
Now that you have create your first line drawing, you need to create more.
We might be afraid to create a mistakes and don’t want to redo the first line draw, so the solution is create a new layer and draw the second line in the new layer. Edit it with Liquify and/or Transform tools. Then draw a third one on new layer, etc.
Then merged them all into one layer. Repeat again for other body part. Start from outer part first if possible.
4. Use Smaller Size Brush When You Want to Add Minor Details.
In certain part of the body, you might want to use a smaller size lineart brush and draw it lightly. Certain part does not have to be drawn so detailed if you gonna color it anyway. Since color render will make MUCH Bigger difference than just lineart alone.
5. Use Very Soft Eraser to Make Lineart Thinner
In certain body part, we might want its lineart to be less prominent, so I use “Soft Marker 2 Eraser” to lightly reduce its opacity. That eraser Brush is already included on my Brush Collection.
In this sample, I want the lineart of the armpit to thinner, so I lightly use my eraser brush to reduce its opacity.
I like having low opacity line on my character hair (inner part), so I usually reduce its opacity with my “Soft Marker 2 Eraser”.
No thining the linework in place where Light Shine Bright?
You might remember about theory on putting lighter lineart in place where there’s light source. That could works too. But, if you planning to color your artwork anyway, you can just play in color, put the highlight/rim light in place where light shine brightly. Then after you finish the color render, you can just recolor the lineart layer (for the part that get bright light) and/or make it less opaque with “Soft Marker 2 Eraser”.
Tada!
6. Ambient Occlusion Effect on Lineart
Putting ambient occlusion effect on lineart might make the lineart more interesting.
Ambient Occlusion in drawing is a part where it’s dark due to receiving no light. So you can make the spots between two lines darker to achieve that. There are many way on how to achieve this, you can use a simple dark spot between the meeting of two lines (ie. Hair) or gradually like in the right corner of image below.
Some artist event do a block method where they simply just put a black shade in certain part that’s in shadow (Maggot666 usually do this in his lineart). I sometimes use it for mouth part like image below.
7. Lining with Figure (Direct Draw) Tool
You can also use figure tool (direct draw) to create a lineart. This is especially useful for man-made object. Artist like minko_draws use similar tool (she use PS, so the equivalent tool I can think of is this Figure (direct draw) tool.
In my recent artwork, I use this 3D cardboard box to create the background for the artwork.
After you have your 3d model placed correctly, then you can reduce its opacity and start making lineart. For this object, it’d be quicker to use Figure (Direct Draw) Tool than lining it manually with pen and transform tool/liquify.
Below is lineart of the box, the empty space is a space where the character’s thigh are.
Result of line drawing (image below).
Note that each object is in different layer.
I have:
- box lineart layer
- Peanut foam layer
- character lineart layer
- character’s tail lineart layer
Remember to use different layer to make it easier to edit.
The form will looks clearer once you have put a base color into it (put base color layers below lineart layer).
Full render is in my twitter since this tutorials is only about lineart, I think there’s no reason to put full render artwork here as sample.
Related Asset:
8. Lining with The Help of Ruler Tool
You can also use ruler tool to create a line drawing. This is especially useful if you use custom textured brush since Figure (direct draw) tool does not have texture quality in linework it produced.
The principle is quite simple, just use any type of Ruler depending on the shape of the object you want to lineart then edit the ruler line with “Sub Tool: Correct Line”. After that use brush you like and start lining.
BONUS
[Optional] How to make an Outer Liner
If you want the outer line thicker you can also use this method once you have colored the images and put it into one folder. This is usually Use to make a sticker PNG.
Layer Property > Border Effect. Set edge color to black and fill the Thickness of edges in any number you want.
[Optional] Create a sticker effect
Only do this once you have finished the artwork.
- Merged folder (that contains line and color) into single layer
- Use the Border effect, use white color, set the thickness of edges in any number you want.
- Right click the layer > Rasterize
- Do the border effect again, but this time use black color and use smaller number for thickness of edges, 3 usually is enough; but it depends on how big/small the image is.
Conclusion
There are many type of Lineart Style. If you check on twitter on western artist like minko_draws and rizdraws VS japanese style like RyoAgawa and Mignon; they have different style. Even between western artist their linework is different. RyoAgawa and Mignon both is also japanese, but how they line is also different.
Those artist whom I admired has different default value of line thickness. There’s no right or wrong, just different taste.
So, just choose ONE of your favorite artist and learn from him/her, THEN you can try to learn from 2nd/3rd artist that you like.
I love how RyoAgawa make simple lineart and how Rizdraws use double line in certain part like breast line. How Mignon do render and how Minko_draws use cheat tools (like direct draws, which is the equivalent version in CSP; she also do manual line in other smaller part of the body).
Remember:
Draw a line, edit its shape using liquify/transform tools, then create new layer and a new line, make it good (erase/and manipulate as necessary), repeat few times. THEN merged them into one layer.
What’s matter is the overall looks of drawing, even flat lineart (no pen pressure) will still looks good if you know how to use eraser and how to color. You can see that certain artist with cell shade can produce great art without complicated/over detailed lineart.
I hope the technique I taught would be useful to you. Thank you for reading.
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