Jun 2021
7 / 28
Jun 2021
Jun 2021
Kaydreamer
Jun '21

I tend to sketch out almost everything, with few exceptions. I like the lineart process to be as painless as possible; I'd rather make most of my creative decisions in the sketch stage, since lineart takes long enough as it is!

Scarlet_Cryptid
Jun '21

I do multiple layers of sketch, actually. The first, which I call the 'Potato' stage, is basically bean and gumdrop-shaped heads and bodies to place where characters are going to go in a panel, and similarly vague lines and shapes for other important elements. I do this with a very light 3H pencil. Once I have those figured out, I place my text bubbles.

The next layer is the loose sketch, where I start figuring out actual anatomy, faces/expressions, buildings, etc. This is messy as hell, and rather like chiseling shapes out of stone. I do this stage with the 3H pencil, too.

Once I've got things looking more or less right, I do the 'clean pencils' stage. I go over the lines I want to keep with a darker HB or B pencil. This helps me figure out what's actually going on with my messy sketch, and whether it actually looks as good as I think it does. This is where any errors become much more obvious, and the whole thing starts looking much better.

Then, and only then, once I have the clean pencils done to my liking, I actually put down ink and finalize my linework. Yes, doing multiple stages is a pain in the ass, but I've noticed if I skip any of them, my art suffers for it.

Have a progression image of one of my old art pieces!

Waterfall progression small.jpg1080x900 872 KB

rajillustration
Jun '21

I'm a multiple levels of sketch kind of gal. For a comic where I have less time I do about 2 sketch passes (the first is so messy) and for a final illustration I'll do 4 or 5, at least.

kaetana
Jun '21

I usually make my sketches fairly detailed/complete, at least in terms of characters. Recently I've been trying out sketching a little bit looser and finalizing details when I ink, but I like to have a clear enough idea of what everything will look like at the sketch phase so that I can spot any issues before I ink. Since I work super zoomed in, it's easy to lose track of the big picture during inking.

image.png940x1445 158 KB
Page01.png752x1156 612 KB

Gleamiarts
Jun '21

it's really cool to see everyone's sketches and stuff :0

my sketches for people are quite bare essentials and loose because I feel like if I make the sketches too refined then my lineart would be more stiff?

I also usually don't draw hair, but for this panel I did because it's wet and I'm not used to drawing wet hair
also I always draw a little emoji dude on the side so when I'm redrawing my sketch, so that the facial expression doesn't get lost in translation

image.png806x768 88.2 KB

image.png707x759 95.4 KB

sleepy_puppy97
Jun '21

If I trace over the pencil lines exactly, it won't look as lively as it would if I only use the sketch layer as a very loose guideline. If I trace the pencil lines perfectly the drawing will look weird and stilted. So when I do a pencil layer, it needs to be very light, and I need to hardly be able to see it at all, otherwise I'll rely on it too much instead of letting the ink layer be its own thing.

I have a very loose, go with the flow style of drawing, so I try to avoid sketch layers if I can. Otherwise the drawing looses its life.

Puck
Jun '21

wow, that´s an interesting topic, thank you all for sharing your art, I´m impressed