next »

[TheShard1994]

Hey you all,

I'm working on a Pirate Guy with GIMP, but so far I can't seem to get smooth line-art. I've sketched the pirate, traced it, again, again, but it doesn't seem to get better. Any advice?
This is the Pirate line-art right now:


Thanks for your help,
TheShard1994

PS: I just noticed some big anatomy problems. I'll fix them, but please focus on the smooth-line problem please ^^

[Inane]

Do you have a tablet? It's really hard to get smooth lines without one, unless you use the pen tool (or whatever the equivelant is in GIMP). It's also useful to work big, say 2-4x larger than you intend the finished thing to be. A lot of small problems that build up (including some sharp turns in lines) when working at your final resolution are eliminated when you shrink stuff down.

[Aquanoctis]

Yeah, I agree, a tablet is a great investment if you want to take digital art further. As for smooth line-art always try to complete lines with the minimum of necessary strokes using a bold flowing gesture. To help this, always keep an eye on where the pen will end up, rather than following its movement across the page which will often make for uneven linework.

[Squiggly_P]

If you don't have a tablet, but you want super-smooth lines, try inkscape (LINK!!!) or some similar vector tool. Then you can blow your lines up as large as you want and they'll stay smooth. Trying to get smooth lines in a raster drawing program can be a chore, even with a tablet. Takes a lot of undo, a lot of erasing and a lot of patience

Lucky for me, I like rough lines.

[Melly]

Before you do anything, please introduce yourself in The Obligatory Introduce Yourself Thread, to show you're interested in being a constructive part of the community.

[TheShard1994]

I do not have a tablet. I had one, but I don't think it was good because it produced weird lines which were everything but smooth

I may buy one, I really want to improve my digital-art. How much does a good tablet cost?

The main problem is also clearly visible on the example I posted: every line is really jagged, it does not have nice anti-aliasing or something, does it? What is a good size brush? (GIMP)

@Melly: sure thing

[Squiggly_P]

Also, work at a higher resolution and then scale down.

If you want to fix the hard lines on that, there's one trick that I know, tho it can make lines too soft as well, so you can try it and undo it if you want. in Gimp, go into "image->scale" and scale it up 500% and make sure it's set to do 'cubic' interpolation. Once it's scaled up, go back into "Image->scale" and scale it to 20%, but set the interpolation to "linear". That'll help make your lines a little less jaggy, but it can make it look too soft as well.

I would suggest just scaling everything up like 500% and then redo the lines at that size with a thicker brush, then scale down. You'll probably be happier with the results.

[TheShard1994]

Hmm just scaling it big and back doesn't really help much, it indeed looks soft, but my problem is when making the line-art, what size brush is the best and stuff? If you look at my example , the lines aren't smooth and they don't really "flow", u know?
Squiggly_P, I think the thing about drawing big with a big brush and then scaling it down would work. I'll try that ^^

[Renton]

Hmm just scaling it big and back doesn't really help much

They didn't say scale it big and then back. They said work big and then scale it down.

TBH the pirate looks like it was done in MS Paint with the line tool. If you're using the brush tool in GIMP and getting this result, I'm afraid you have bigger issues than just finding another brush that looks smoother.

[TheShard1994]

I was talking about what Squiggly_P said.

http://theshard1994.deviantart.com/gallery/ that's my DeviantArt gallery, the art isn't good at all but the lines look a bit smoother , however the lines are still not perfect. They're far from perfect :/
I did the pirate with quite a small brush, like 1 pixel, so I think that's the reason it looks MSPaint-ish.

EDIT:
I think I've found the solution. These lines are a lot cleaner:


However, I'm not gonna finish this piece. I hate the design and the anatomy problems that come with it. His pose is terrible.

[TheShard1994]

Any comments? I know it's a boring pose. Just simple practice

[Iamthejuggler]

Not sure how brutally honest you want this, but if it's art crits you want here goes.

You need to practice drawing from real people. The anatomy is so off that no amount of line quality will help. Draw from references if you don't want to draw from life. Download or buy an anatomy book from somewhere. Loomis did a great one which is around to download (as it's out of print). It's great and worth reading through and following. Basically you need to learn anatomy, even for a little while. Every little helps. After anatomy or during if you prefer you can practice drawing cloth because your chaps clothes just wouldn't look like that. And please, step away from the computer and draw with a pencil and paper. You'll learn faster.

Hope that's not too harsh to stomach, but harsh crits always work best when it comes to art i think.

[JaJitsu]

I agree with juggler. Use refs.

[Carrie Nation]

That guy has some big fucking hands.

And he needs to go easy on the roids.

[gimymblert]

Geographic construction, it seems you start drawing without any prior construction. BAD THINGS
Sketch pose before, skin them and had details before inking

[namre]

The character in the drawings look really stiff. Also, listen to Iamthejuggler.

[TheShard1994]

@Iamthejuggler:
Of course it's okay to be "harsh", if u just go soft it doesn't sound as serious as it actually is As long as it's constructive criticism, I'm okay with it :D Oh and I always draw on paper, im better at that than digital xD Still not good enough of course, haha. I just ran out of paper so i thought let's try digital. Didn't wanna go buy paper >.< XD

Uhm,, I did some study on anatomy, think it has improved but it's still not perfect: i have a problem with the legs, every anatomystudy-tutorial shows the bottom legs are bent a bit, but if i do that it looks like it's broken. any way to solve this but still make it look realistic?

[Iamthejuggler]

You're never finished with studying anatomy (listen to me preaching, i'm terribla at motivating myself to study anatomy, but it doesn't make it any less true!). Even pro artists have to keep studying it, it's the bread and butter of drawing and improves every aspect of drawing, not just anatomy. Also, it's cool to play around with digital if you're also drawing on paper. Digital art is great fun

Neo makes a good point too, the drawings do feel like you went straight into detail without laying out the pose. Creating the pose first out of simple lines or even geometric shapes (spheres and cylinders) will help get away from the static boring poses. It's also a really quick way to do lots of fast gesture drawings, a great way to practice. Posemaniacs have a great page where it shows random poses for a short period of time (30 secs, 90 sec, etc) so you can quickly sketch them before the image changes. This can help train you to focus on the motion and general shape of a pose rather than getting bogged down in details.

re: the bent legs thing. Don't overdo it. If your talking about the bowing of the bottom bone it's not particularly pronounced. Again though, there's really no solution other than google image search legs and draw lots of them.

Keep practicing

[TheShard1994]

Haha yeah about the pose stuff, I didn't really pay attention to that with these drawings, since I wasn't really aiming for realism. which is a bad thing xD

when i draw doodles in class im normally more sketching poses first and then drawing details. since ive started studying anatomy, I noticed my doodles have improved, so yes it's true what u say xD

of course i'll keep practicing anatomy-study is a difficult thing but it's worth it.

[KM]

One trick I learned from my time as a webcomic artist was to over draw the line. By this I mean don't stop where you'er supposed to stop, but draw past that point and erase the extra bits of line that are left. This can give you a better looking line that can be a lot smoother and makes drawing curves a little easier.

Also, get used to doing ctrl-z with this. When I'd do lines I'd keep redoing them in broad strokes until I got them the way I wanted. Give it a try, you might like the results.