So I've recently been drawing again. And my number one worst enemy is line art. For some reason whenever I try to do line art it comes out as shaky
here is what i am working on right now
74
I use the Medibang.
Does anyone have any advice on how to get my lines less shaky?
May '16
May '16
I've never used Medibang (or heard of it) but with some quick research I've found that it has an option called "Correction". This is a stabiliser that removes the jitter from your line work.
I know in Clip Studio Paint, I typically use a G Pen with the stability turned to maximum and it makes my lines super smooth. Before I discovered it, my lines were coming out like yours. I'm not sure what tools Medibang has, but if not, maybe you could experiment with free trials of other drawing softwares to see if there are any with tools that would suit you better.
Step one is to see if Medibang has any settings for stablizing your lines when you draw - Clip Studio's got a function called "correction", as Carlos mentioned.
Step two is to practise - some of your lines' shakiness might be due to the tools, but some of it might be due to lack of confidence on your part, too. The more you practise, the less shaky your linework will become.
I'd say practise makes perfect. And the lines usually comes out a bit less shaky if you zoom in a bit =)
And Clip Studio Paint has great tools for less shaky pen strokes. They usually have some sales every year where you can get the cheaper version for $15, which is totally worth it! =)
Besides relying on software tools, you can train yourself to be confident in making longer, cleaner strokes.
You can try out croquis drawing. Quickly draw live models or everyday people within 5 minutes or less. Worry less about the details like eyes, lips, hair, clothing patterns, shoe laces, finger nails, etc. The purpose is to capture the silhouette resembling the model. Because you have to be quick, your hands will have to draw lines that are necessary -- without erasing. There's no time to draw short and overlapping lines (which all do in the beginning). Many animation courses in schools make the students do this because the industry requires them to draw hundreds of frames every day and preferably with long, clean and confident lines to save time.
quick tip : if your drawing with pencil you can steady your lines by pointing out your pinky ( little finger) , it takes a bit of practice unless you hold pencils in a weird way.
As they say, medibang has the correction option for drawing lines. And avoid the mistake of trying to make the line art always working on the "whole frame". Sometimes you have to get closer and sometimes further. An example:
Obviously, I find straight lines easier. For those I try to draw with my shoulder rather than my wrist or arm. But I feel like this works when doing curved lines too. Now I'm doing things digital so I can zoom in and out to get a decent perspective for doing this. Also keeping my Eyes focused on where I want the line to end rather than looking at the line as I draw it helps. If I can, I want to get a single line stroke to be just that, a single line. Unless it's not supposed to be.
You can use my training programme for line art if you want. It goes something like this:
repeat about ten times per line on page
Yeah, it's not great but like people have said I don't see much of a way around it other than practice...
The only other thing I know is that since I use a Cintiq tablet, there is a button on it to immediately undo a line that I've drawn. Often, I'll draw 10 lines with all-out confidence, undoing the ones that don't look right until I get the right one. I'm not sure if you either have a tablet with an undo button, or if there's a way you could map the undo function to a hotkey for quick erasing, but when I combine the stabilization (correction at your case) and undo functions, I can make lines without worry. The only other thing is to test out any available pen/pencil/brush options and sizes to make sure you have the type and size of tool that works best. I find for me in Clip Studio, the pencil doesn't work well for me. I straight-up do everything with a g pen. There may not be a g pen option for you, but maybe there is another pen type in your program that may work better. That's about all I can recommend, other than practice and drawing with confidence.
GIMP has a free line smoothing tool built-in. I use it for everything when I draw. You can adjust the amount of cleanliness down to the decimals.
GIMP is also free. :3
Just for discard some common issues:
Have you checked that the tool's anti-aliasing is working? Are you drawing (at least) at 300ppp?
To me, it looks like you start and stop your lines. You'll take one "line" and make multiple strokes for one line. Training yourself to make a line in ONE stroke will overtime improve your lineart and make it smoother. the best way to do this is trace over your own lineart. So once you finish lineart, for practice, draw over it, and try to do it in as less strokes as possible. Eventually it can help train your hand to make smooth clean lines.
However it doesn't take a week, it takes a long time to gain steady hands. So don't be discouraged if you don't see improvement right away.
Yeah its not the program, but it looks like you aren't confident enough with your lines yet. Like @ahkwardkat said, it looks like you stop and start lines too much. Also, try drawing a little more slowly and deliberately.
