OVERVIEW

LIneart! It can be tough, but EASY when you know some tricks. I'll go over that here!

 

I've made a video of this that I'd really recommend watching because it's more in depth, but I've included most of the information below too!

LINEART TRICKS AND FEATURES IN CLIP

Clip has a lot of features to help you lineart!

 

The beginning of this article explains useful features in Clip, but if your an experienced user you can skip to "ADVANCED LINEART TIPS AND DIFFERENT STYLES "!! ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

USE VECTOR LAYERS FOR LINEART

Always use vector layers because then you can manipulate your lines!

You get access to these tools

the Pinch Line tool (hand pointing icon) Lets you move your vector lineart like spaghetti noodles!

If you need to scoot or bend your line a bit, this is the perfect feature.

 

Just select the tool and click on your lineart and move the lines around!

In the tool property pallette is the settings for the tool, the 'pinch level' can affect how much of your line you are affecting and moving when you use the tool. I find that the setting of one box unchecked is the best, but test it out yourself.

CHANGING LINEART WEIGHT EASY

Soemtimes I've had the problem of drawing multiple characters or things in a scene, then realizing that their line weight is very different and it looks off.

You can fix that FAST in Clip though! Just select the 'Adjust Line Width Tool'

Then in your tool property pallette is the settings.

 

You can choose a handful of options on how to affect your lineart. I usually have the setting around 1 or 2.

To use the tool, you have to highlight the area of lineart you want to affect. If you have a low setting arouund 1, then you may have to highlight several times. But that is good for getting the width to the perfect amount.

STABILIZATION

For me, I think good stabilization setting is around 20.

I do not recommend having it at 100. That's too slow, and in the industry it's all about speed, while maintaining quality.

Always optimize for speed. Time is the limited resource we all have.

 

BUT! Clip has an awesome feature for stabilization. called 'Adjust by Speed'

 

You can set it to increase stabilization when drawing slow.

Or decrease stabilization when drawing fast.

 

To find it, in your tool property pallette hit the tool icon, then go to correction and there it is.

 

 

 

ADVANCED LINEART TIPS AND DIFFERENT STYLES

CARVE YOUR LINES

Lots of artists say they attempt every line dozens of times before they get it right.

There's a much better strategy. Carving lines.

 

When you use the pen tool, you can swap between color and alpha. Being on alpha basically makes it like an eraser.

 

You can make a line, then switch to alpha and carve out what you don't want. This gives you way more control and creativity over the lines since it's an add and subtract sort of process.

Here's an example.

It's zoom onto her face here.

 

There's two smiles to show you that the one below is how my line would look as I drew it at first, but simply by carving again near the top with alpha can make the edges taper, making it look more dynamic.

CRISS CROSS ERASE

Lots of times while drawing, your lines can taper as they come close to other lines in your drawing.

Like here in this example.

This is because as you slow down as you approach another line, you may lighten up on your pressure, making the line taper.

 

 

You can avoid this altogether by doing a criss cross method! It's a very different sort of mental workflow but it could be worth it if you face that problem a lot.

 

Here's an example of what it looks like. Basically draw FAST and swipe everything past the point that it needs to go.

THEN.

Switch to eraser tool, and select this setting.

'erase up to intersection'

(if your lineart is not on a vector layer this will not work)

Then you select the points of your lineart that you don't need. All the areas where the criss crossing is happening. This is what my drawing looks like after.

LINEART STYLES

First up, I wanna say 'bad' lineart style can be a good style too! Especially for webcomics because people look at every panel for only 3 seconds or so.

 

Here I did lineart with no pen pressure, and little to no stabilization AND I drew really fast.

 

For another example of unrefined lineart style that works really well, check out the webcomic Lotta by TheNiceZombie on Tapas / Webtoons.

 

MORE STYLES

Here's another couple examples.

 

The left is how I usually ink drawings, with pen pressure, and stabilization on 19.

 

The right is the criss cross method mentioned earlier.

SEMI-COLORED LINEART

Coloring your lineart takes way too much time in my opinion. BUT, there's a way you can get that cool affect from it without having to color EVERY piece of your lineart.

 

 

Here's an example!

Basically the rule is that you only color the lineart if it's an outline that's on the inside of something of the same color.

 

Here's another example.

The outline of the fingers that are on the inside of the hand, should be colored. I hope that makes it clear!

OVERVIEW

And that's it!! Overall, don't overthink lineart, or spend hours and hours of time on it. More importantly is having good composition and good ideas! I often see beginners mixing that up.

 

Have fun drawing!