This is why I love Wolfwalkers. Not only are the construction lines and rough finished edges beautiful but they actually serve as a visual cue that reinforces the narrative and characterization. I LOVE WOLFWALKERS OML

I don't think I've ever seen your actual drawing style before, just your animations. The difference is drastic and I love it.

as a traditional artist, i think i definitely needed to hear this

Oh my, I feel like this video was made for me directly. I gotta be more loose.

Oh I feel this. I started out copying mlp, and wanted my lines to be uniform to the T. Bur then my friends had non uniform line art, and it blew my mind. Then I tried different brushes til I found my love. The ink pen / calligraphy pen and I never looked back.

I'm that person that goes for perfect lines all the time. I need to try this.

Yeah I noticed that imperfect lines usually looked way better to me than "perfect" lines. So right now I'm trying to tone down my perfectionist tendencies when doing my lines, really makes things quick and easier.

i have ALWAYS been fascinated with anatomy, posing, perspective, conveying action or movement, and even shadows and color contrasting, but never, NEVER have i enjoyed lineart. this video has certainly helped me feel more confident in the "chicken scratch" style, as many professional artists ive seen have said its messy, ugly, and generally conveys self-consciousness or anxiety.

This really was a wake-up call to me! I was always so obsessed with getting the line art perfect that it left me with a headache! But I now realize that it doesn't matter as much as I thought it did.

drew for about 2 years. Used to watch a lot of tutorials. Burned myself out. Stopped for almost 3 years. Recently am getting back into. Keep getting tutorials pop up on my feed and I absolutely ignore the shit out of them because I want it to be fun like it was when I started. This is the first piece of advice I have seen that has actually felt helpful in reclaiming my art journey. Thank you.

YES! YES!!! I remember spending hours all night trying to perfect my character's line art. Soon I came to the realization that that wasn't the most important part. It was the details, the shading, and whatnot. THOSE are what people look at. I still struggle with being perfect with my lines when I've barely gotten far enough into the drawing. But I'm getting better.

This is what I love, messy art that just looks good!

as a traditional artist, I feel this in my soul. I'm trying to experiment with my style and atm I always really love my (cleaned up) sketches but don't like the inked versions as much... so I'm thinking I should just skip the lineart step and apply marker directly to the sketch

i just realized that since im a kid i never liked perfect lineart, i always loved sketches, i always loved messy drawings lol

I did two works recently for my job, one was a sketch cleaned up and perfected a little some details and for the other I decided to make very perfect lines. Guess what! the one which was a cleaned sketch looked better with the different line sizes and imperfections. Then, one week later you came up with this video... I wish you were here two weeks ago!

ive always wondered why my line art doesnt attract much interest but now that i think about it, this video felt like you learned a simple skill which that can only do not really much but can drastically impact your art in a lifetime, so i say thanks to you making me unlock a newfound skill :3

Honestly, Thank you. I needed to hear someone actually saying this. I suffer a lot with perfectionism and that's something I'm actively trying to change. The first step is not to obsess over lineart and being okay with it not being flawless. This video was a great reassurance. 💖

Wow I feel called out. But I also got good at "perfect lineart" and it's so satisfying for me

I'm definitely a perfectionist myself to the point that's it's become almost mentally damaging, so I really needed to hear that rn, thanks

this is great advice. i used to spend 4 hours just on lineart because i kept obsessing over perfect lines😭since i spent so much time on the lines, i was not nearly good enough at colouring. its better to fix a drawing by colouring than fixing it by lines

I remember having the same realisation a few years ago. Since then, I've also been waaayy happier with my lineart, but also much faster. The idea of favouring quick and energetic drawing rather than slow and perfectionist seeped into other aspects of my art and now i'm really happy where my drawing style is.

Same right here. I used to spend hours doing lineart and one day I realised that when you add color, it doesn't matter. Been revelling in junky, messy lineart ever since.

This is great. I always struggled with line art and would spend like hours just to make it look exactly how I wanted it to. If I put in enough time, it would turn out well… But doing it was so incredibly BORING. So one day I just did what you mentioned in the video. I just altered the sketch layer until I thought it was good enough to color, and it did SO MUCH for me. I actually started having fun drawing again and could spend more time on aspects I actually liked doing like coloring and shading. I also think my art style improved because of it! I'm not saying it's bad to make perfect line art or perfect coloring, if that's what you want to do then go for it! But if there's an aspect you don't wanna do, you can just- not do it! That's the cool thing about art, it could be literally anything! There are no rules you have to follow! You don't even need skill, you can just slap anything onto a canvas and it WILL be art! The only thing you need to do to be an artist, is Create. ❤

im literally starting cleanup/line art for my capstone animated film and I see this...timing is impeccable

Sketchy art styles just look so cool and dynamic, I’m currently working on improving my art style to look like this and I already see some improvements. Moral of the story…Perfectionism is dangerous.

Love this type of art

this is such amazing advice, i always worry about my lineart not being perfect enough even tho i still spend hours on it, i think i need to work on just letting it go and not overstress over absolute details who no one sees

This has gotta be the best art tip video on the plant. Short sweet and straight to the point. And I’m gonna carry this advice with me for like, the rest of my life. Thank you!

This is such a lovely tip for many reasons. 1. It makes the creation process so much kinder on the artist and 2. I love how much life it pumps into each sketch. Another gem of a video Crowne.

Learned this doing a small piece of concept art where i didn't want to put in much time, and solidified this practice when I realized my sketches always look better than my finished work. I've been experimenting with ways of doing messy lineart to find something I like since.

Wow! This is the best way anyone could’ve ever explained this, I’ve ALWAYS tried for perfection and smooth lines, but now I see that smooth lines aren’t always needed!

You uploaded this exactly when i was having a small marathon on your channel.

Thanks for the reminder. I'll make sure to keep this in mind in the future. :)

Ive been a longtime fan, you are my gospel, tyyy crownee

Thank you, this was liberating.

I actually did this when getting my art more ment for comics! Even made a brush for it so i could go even faster without it looking horrible. I really only care about line art on the eyes, mouth and reference sheets. The sketch and coloring to me should always have the most effort.

This video makes me so happy! Thank you, truly!! 💙💙

I stopped the perfect line art stuff recently and I’ve improved greatly! I like looking at posters and other stuff and noting how it isn’t perfect! It’s helped a lot!

I needed this. Thank you.

I desperately needed to hear that, thank you

Thank you for this, I needed a reminder

You will forever be an inspiration, Crowne.

Wow, I actually never thought about this…this actually helps so much!

Thank you for sharing this, I appreciate it 😭❤️❤️ Life changing 😊

I needed to hear this so much

This actually has helped me a ton. Thank you very much.

Watched for the general lesson on art, thank you!

Just got randomly recommended this video, so glad I did! The video was a nicely produced, entertaining, and educational anecdote/lesson with an amazing artstyle (so surprising to see on an art channel amiright). Thank the KZfaq algorithm gods

Thank you for this! I always felt insecure about my line art never looking “perfect” but this puts things into a whole new perspective!!

Thank you for this advice

been working in a rough line method for a while now, i treat it more like sculpting now, even erasing opacity in areas to simulate light etc and it feels wonderful, really brings that handmade feeling back to the art. I've also found then setting it to a lower opacity and multiply to look wonderful with the colors underneath.

i sorta came to this conclusion myself a few months ago, but seeing this now has really reinforced that it's the right idea for me. since ive stopped worrying about perfect lines my art has just become so much better. i care less about perfection and more about just enjoying it, and that really makes it come across better. i think no matter what you do, as a general rule, people need to stop striving for perfection all of the time. imperfections make things real.

I needed someone to tell me this. Thank you ❤️

Wha- how have I never seen any of your videos or Channel then you pop up, out of random, and give the most. Greatest digital art advice I have ever heard in my entire life I am flabbergasted and will be a better artist

oh my god you don’t understand how much I needed this video I always hated how I couldn’t draw perfect lineart but now I realize that it doesn’t even matter that much

This is exactly what I needed. Thanks for calling me out. 👌

I genuinely needed to hear this. Thank you.

you just blew my mind on digital art :O and i thank you for it!!! this is so good!!! :D

I really needed to hear this.

hey, so i just found this video and i really connected with it. i came to the conclusion that clean lineart wasn't always the best choice for my art a while back; i used to spend hours and hours of my time making sure every line was perfect, but it just burned me out so much, i never bothered with making sure the pose, shading, colour, values, etc were any good. my art improved SO much when i started to just use the sketchy style in all of my art rather than just keeping it to the sketch layer!

your videos keep my motivation up

THANK YOU SO MUCH

I needed this terribly thank you so much for this lifesaver video!

This advice can be really helpful to remember in general, and can be applied to IRL artwork. Good video!

Wow thank you I needed this today

I’ve been trying to get better at art and I really struggle with line art bc I have shaky hands so it’s nice to see someone say it’s okay to not have perfect straight line art

Thanks man, I needed this

I LOVE sketches! They look so messy and I love that

This is what I needed to hear.

I now see line art in a new light. thank you

Fantastic lesson and reminder!

THIS IS LITERALLY HOW MY ART IS i cannot imagine drawing anything else that hasnt a rough sloppy sketchbook-esque line look i roughly trace out lines (i mean like, lazy back and forth like you would a sketch) then keep it as that i LOVE rough sketching!

i stopped creating art because i couldnt achieve straight lines no matter how hard i tried, this just made me realise how silly that was. i cant wait to start making art again now

thank you so much, im definitely taking notes on this one

I needed to hear this. I already know it, but I still need to hear it frequently.

wow this is actually really surprising, very helpful and inspiring

this was very informative thank you

this video is so motivating, i stress out so much over my line art, but my drawings always look better when it's sketched/chicken scratched with more detail between the lines. thank you so much!!

THIS. This video saved my life.

Yes i have been talking about this for ages

Alternative title: The curse of perfectionism I got it. And I actually feel accomplished, when I can surpress it for a change and get something done faster, while the slight messiness just doesn't matter. It feels easier for me to do something in higher quality, while it takes a lot more effort to go reasonably quick and dirty. But it certainly means, that I have a hard time finishing up projects. This video is so very right. Perfectionism doesn't only eat a lot of time, but also limits the personality of art. And this basically counts for any field, where anything artistic is created. I have this gripe with the movie industry for so long. Everything is ridiculously overprofessionalized, there is no soul in modern productions anymore. In the visuals, but also characters and story, everything needs to perfectly adhere to some script. Decades ago, actors could improvise, not every detail was written down and many things were just done as they come. It's the same story with movies, games and independent art projects: A simple and cheap project can be infinately more successful than a AAA project.

I am gonna try this. Refining and lining a sketch

For a while now everytime I do lineart I remind myself to stay loose and sketchy and it is WAY more fun that way It’s so cool to see you make a video on this topic :D hope more people can embrace messy lines lol

Yep that's one of the reasons I dropped that style and started making a more sketchy or completely without lineart lol. I didn't know it was allowed to make those linearts for profesional work (thought it had to be either completely sketchy or perfectly clean), so thanks.

I think I've been feeling this but never knowing what this was until you've outright said it here, beautiful video

I've had this exact same revelation a while back, though for me a lot of my art problems stemmed from small comments I heard over my life. Some negative, like 'your animals look too expressive' or 'that looks pretty anime', the latter of which made me frantically try to change things to not be that way, but I didn't know how and felt bad seeing good, comic-realistic art of humans. But one was a positive. "Your line art is so clean!" It was from a friend who asked me to collab as the line artist when making a gift for another friend. It was a compliment, but it made me feel like I shouldn't give up spending hours on perfect lines and, yes, S-5 on SAI. And though that was 6 years ago, I've only recently started allowing myself not to kill my enthusiasm by spending too long perfecting lines. It took me that long to get over the feeling that I was abandonging one of the only clear aspects I ever got praise for. I sadly don't have the confidence to take commissions so I treat art more as something for my friends and D&D, but I still like improving what I enjoy, it's just hard to commit to completing a piece when I have so many other things I could be doing and sketching was always more fun than the colouring struggle.

The roughness made it beautiful

...i really needed this.

I think the struggle I have with perfect lines in my art is the fact that, no matter how hard I tried, I was never able to kill my perfectionism. "If it's not perfect, it's worthless." I KNEW it was a bad mentality to keep myself in, but I'd just keep telling myself that, and for the people that loved seeing my art, anything less than perfect was an insult to them, so the lines HAD to be perfect. I've still got a long way to go, and it's probably going to involve getting into a better headspace. I honestly feel like my art is better when the linework is sloppy, so, I REALLY just need to approach it with a different mentality, I think.

omg wow thanks this helps me a lot

i learned this lesson not too long ago. man oh man, it's so liberating not to worry about having perfect lines hahaha not only is it far easier and faster, i find my art turns out better when i just clean up the sketch a bit instead of doing lineart

Dude, I recently had this epiphany a few weeks ago, and I've actually enjoyed making my lines a bit messier! It feels super good to just lay back and not worry about perfection.

BROOO we need to see that piece of art

honestly needed to hear this because i tend to spend a a bit of time trying to make sure my lines are as decent as possible up close. omfg

Recently I rewatched Disney's John Henry short, and realized that the style was so striking because of their use of sketchy lines and not fully erasing construction lines. Just like this video said, there was way more focus put towards framing, lighting, posing and everything else, and the rough line work only gave it more character. Very good video that I think many artists can benefit from

Those are some really good tips, especially for beginers

I just started my first digital drawing where I firmly told myself at the start "SELF, NO PERFECT LINE ART!" and of course, of COURSE I love it. Thank you for making this amazing video and making sure we ALL KNOW IT. 🥰

i needed to hear this

I finally feel validated!! I used to only draw with pencil and paper, so I embraced the "messy" effect of the graphite for my artstyle. But recently I've started transitioning to digital art, and I always felt frustrated when every single video on digital art advice said "lineart has to be clean", "don't make it exactly like your sketch or it'll look weird", "every line has to be done on one single stroke, don't do a scratchy effect". Each one of those advices were basically saying that my style was "wrong" for digital. But recently I've seen some beautiful digital illustrations, and when I zoomed them in, guess what? The lines embraced sketchiness and messyness! So I had to remind myself, and I'll remind any artist reading this: advices are good, but not for every single artist. We all have different styles and different objectives. A storyboard artist isn't going to use the same techniques as a book illustrator, an artist specializing on portraits doesn't have to focus on "how to draw better" tutorials when they're specifically for animators (despite the video not saying it, because that happens a lot), so on and so forth. If you ever feel like a certain art advice is only doing more harm than good for you, then ignore it. Make what you feel truly helps you.

I really needed this video