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zooming in excessively is one of those sins that no one really mentions when getting into digital art so I'm glad you covered it! I generally render completely zoomed out but ngl I wanted to try a really detailed lined piece and committed that mistake and it turned out very questionable. This was a really nice vid! Edit: I thought I'd add on to this since I seem to have missed mentioning it but there is definitely a time and a place for zooming in. I just speak from my own personal experience when I say that something that made my lines smoother personally was staying more zoomed out throughout the process and then cleaning it up afterwards while zoomed in. Not to attack the idea of zooming at all, I think it's very helpful too :)

1. Do not zoom in all the way 2. Do not push your pen too hard 3. Make sure your not sketching your lines. Do it in one stork . Practice lines.

But Drawing with sketchy lines can also make your art look more alive and less ‘digitally’ if executed properly. It really depends on style. But overall I don’t think it’s a bad thing

If my lineart looked like your “bad” one, I’d be so happy.

To anyone who doesn’t see how the first version is “ugly”. He means his lines were thick without purpose; he drew thick lines by default and lines of different weights weren’t placed with intention. Thick lines aren’t necessarily an issue but he didn’t have everything equally thick in a way that served the piece. Instead, he had lines so thick it chopped off some of the form of the fingers etc. which is why he hates the fingers- the line weight he used by default was too thick to capture the delicate look he wanted for them and they ended up looking like hands but not the young, cute ones he wanted and probably captured in the looser sketch. Conversely, his preferred line work still has some thick lines! But it’s intentional line weight variation as the thickest lines all have a purpose! They’re on the eyelashes for emphasis and wherever shadows are cast. Note how in the previous one, the thicker lines are disorganised- there are thick lines around the top of the hand but not the top of the shirt- even though each would be equally well lit- and it makes for a less clean look because it’s less deliberate. There’s nothing wrong with thick lines in general! It’s just not what served his illustrations, where he’s better off being intentional about where the thicker lines go.

"This art looks ugly" The art: *god quality* "But this art is way better" The art: *Also god quality*

It's always good to remember that sketchy/messy/thick lineart is also valid and can look very beautiful! You want to use different types of lineart for different purposes. If your art is more shading dependent, then you'll want thinner and cleaner lines. If your art is more graphic and cartoony with less shading, you'll have more wiggle room for messier and thicker lines.

My strong armed king, thank you for these tips. I always have these insanely thicc lines and I've always struggled to figure out how to draw thin lines and like, I feel like this is going to be a massive help. Bless you.

"the lines looks thick and GROSS" *me who likes using thick lines :"(

For people struggling with drawing lines in one stroke and not making them wobbly, something that helped me make my lines a lot cleaner was practicing on actual paper using a pen. Try drawing likes from one point to another using your whole arm to make your strokes. Focus on being confident with the strokes of your pen. You can also practice drawing cubes with this method. Do it before drawing, and you'll improve the confidence of your lines gradually. Edit: Also don't do this on tablet. It'll be a lot more useful to you if you do this with a pen and paper because you won't be able to erase.

I personally prefer thicker lineart When done right it can look really cool and it can make the character pop alot I also really don't like the whole " thiner the lineart better the work" tip because this doesn't apply to every artist and artstyles And I actually liked your "bad and gross" lineart way more than your "better" one But again that's just personal preferences 😀

My biggest problem with lineart is that I don't know which brush to use. I'm currently most comfortable drawing the lines with a coloring brush because all the specialized lineart brushes I tried tend to have very low opacity on fine lines, which then resulted in me pressing harder, which then in turn resulted in thick lines again. And in hand pain.

i am basically just a rookie when i comes to lineart so these tips are helping a lot already! My main struggle is finding the balance between thick and thin lines, but that takes practice of course. Tnx a lot!

as a person that did traditional art for many many many years and started drawing digitally quite recently, pressing hard is okay to me because i have the balance and know how hard i have to push to create a line i need, my lineart always ends up looking extremely clean in the end, just pros of doing a shit ton of traditional art...

In order to avoid the awkwardness of the sketch to lineart mess, I did smth that i found works really well for me. I start with a very light and loose sketch, then keep overlining and adjusting the spots that will be closer to the final look until i have a relatively dark and thick line there that can’t be overlined anymore. From there I erase the surrounding sketchy lines and use a soft eraser to make the thick line thinner. And finally, I can keep adding thickness in some places on that line and erasing others to make it cleaner and add variety. In the end, I’m left with a lineart-like line without having to struggle with doing ACTUAL lineart, which is something that’s always been immensely difficult for me.

Am I the only one who thinks the bad example looks better than the good example?

I saw a lineart video by a tiktoker that said "make light long strokes" and I realized how heavy handed I was! It's crazy how something so small can make a HUGE change in your lineart!

The miku Lineart is actually still pretty beautiful but of course we all have our one preference but both linarts is *chefs kiss*💗💕

Dropping some gems I see 👀 Oh an ever since I've been pressing lightly and layering my line art for variation, I can draw for longer periods so my wrist won't hurt! Not only will you get better line art following these tips, but you'll avoid injuries from pressing too hard for so long and having a really tight grip on the stylus

Honestly the two drawings simply look like different styles. I'm not sure one could say one is "better" than the other. Both look fine. I know when I draw some lines I draw thin and others thick. It's more about consistency than anything. If your lines wobble or the thickness varies that's a problem. But if your draw consistent lines, that alone will make your drawings pop.

I've watched a lot of tutorials and rarely do I see people address line art weight or changing up how hard to press your pen so this was super helpful to me! Sometimes the simpler stuff like that is what really makes a huge impact on the piece overall as you've shown us. Thank you for sharing!

It's so interesting seeing how his art evolved trough out these tutorials, all the way from the "how to color anime skin" to now. Looking good tho. Also holding your pen lighter, more like a brush pen instead of a pencil, is healthier for your wrists

I believe with how the pens are by holding lightly you’re allowing yourself more dynamic range to the pressure of the lineart. Great tip!

I am so glad that somebody has said something about the zooming in for line art, for so long I would zoom all the way in for lineart and it took me so long to realize that it was making my art worse. Really wish I saw this video back then because it really does change so much

Oof as someone who is like really hard struggeling with lineart and actually thinking that I just dont do Lineart anymore this hurts. Even the "Clunky" Version as you described it looks way better than my best Linarts. I am just at the point where I just dont do Lineart anymore because I get so frustrated. But yeah I am also more a Painter than a Lineart person, and I enjoy the process of rendering my Illustrations with 3D Shapes.

7:25 Someone gonna tell this guy that with CSP if he draws in vector he gets this neat tool called "redraw line thickness"? This message brought to you by "I can't do raster lineart worth a damn and use vector lineart as a crutch gang"

I seen pros use super sketchy messy lineart that still sells the merch. But I defo have went from super stiff thick vector lines to thin, crisper and cleaner lineart thanks to not pressing down lol. Doing one stroke at a time and the longer the stroke is what makes me tense up and do it thick. But I adjusted my horizontal tablet to vertical so it feels like I'm drawing on an easel and it's waaaaaaaay better that way for me. Also I have a wacom one but I'm not a beginner lmao

It’s also WAY better for you! I grip the pen really hard sometimes when I’m anxious and it has led to a repetitive strain injury. Clenching or pressing hard can add to tension in your joints and that was my mistake. I still draw but with a hand brace a lot of the time and I’m better at taking breaks and stretching.

i started doing this not too long ago and it helps so much!! my older art all had lineart that was thick without much variation and i couldn't figure out why it looked bad for so long, now i draw everything lightly first then go back and make the outlines thicker while keeping the inner details thin it takes much more time but it looks beautiful

The clunky lineart looks way better than my "literally all lines have the same density" thing i end up with when i do it

It's probably cause I generally perfer cartoony styles, but I perfer the thicker lineart. The thinner lineart is good for a more realistic style (which I think is what he's going for). Good video 👍.

i love that kind of manga style... i usually skip lineart because i hate it and feel like painting helps me visualize the piece in 3d space but what you do here adds a lot of dimension too even tho its just lines

That “old” miku drawing is fine, you’re wilding. It has good line quality, stable and nice variations.

Dude I guess you are going hard on yourself both line arts are top quality may god bless you for your helpful tutorial I wish I may get my line art as close as yours one day stay positive and enjoy your art journey

Wow, the change from hard pressure to light pressure is really cool! It was hard to tell because I'm not a huuuge professional at art, but I could tell it was definitely noticeable I also didn't skip the promo, I really like drawing tablets, I think I'm gonna try to get one sometime soon

what's your opinion on using stabilization? do you think it's a good tool if you are not very comfortable doing confident strokes or does it make lines too much inorganic? i've heard a lot of different statements on this so i was curious

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO, THIS IS GREAT, i was also just figure this trick lately! If I can add one more thing is that "take your time", I figure that I unreasonably rushing with my lineart, all I need to calm down, steady hand and let the stabilizer do their work. Coming from panting basic, I always being too comfortable with rush big brushing instead light lineart, it end up making me "sculp" lineart from sketch instead do the actual clean line art. I applied this trick and my lineart indeed getting better

I’m definitely guilty of bad Line-art. Which is why I’m focusing on learning quality skills. I’m tracking my progress on my channel, and you’ve definitely showed me I have a long way to go. Thanks for the tips!

Honestly, I did think lines early in my digital art career, over time I jut started going thinner and made lines thicc when necessary, thicc lines for subtle details and thicc ones for certain borders and for dimensions in your art

It looks MILES better now, just 1 tip: making the silhouette lines a bit thicker will give a special pop to that character, it really makes a difference!

Dude. I just tried this for a little bit just to see if itll work and i can never go back. This is amazing! Thank you 😭❤

I think I actually prefer the sitting Miku lineart. It looks more confident to me, but then again, I've been told to work on my linart, so maybe I just don't have common sensibilities.

Since I was a kid ive pressed uppon the paper with my pencils as if I was trying to make a hole through the table, so Ive had the same problems with controlling lineweight on my tablet. I havent watched the video yet but I hope this helps me.

How the hell do you get a sponsor with best buy

So many videos from so many artists on the subject, and only yours is actually useful.

"This looks better than my previous abomination" The Abomination: *literally 200 times better than anything I've ever drawn in my life*

ngl, that blep + fangs at the start lookin' hella cute My bias really enjoys the early Miku's thicker lineart, but it's not as thick as stuff I would do I wish I could set up the program to prevent me from going past 100% zoom, I can only get it to stop the magnifier zooming, but scroll zooming still makes me go past it But I think I've gotten better at not zooming in way too much unless for small details

"dont zoom in all the way" people with 1080p screen tablets (me): gaussian blur = 100

"This is the first time I drew this" looks wayyyyyy better than I have ever drawn. Excuse me while I beat my head against the wall.

I wanted to ask if you guys know about vector layers in csp? Using them really helped with my lineart. You can do a ton of different stuff with them, but my favorite feature is the ability to thicken or thin out your lines AFTER you make them. You can also change the brush texture, and if you wanna make any adjustments, resizing won’t make anything blurry. The program will see it more as an object than a brush stroke. There are other things but they help a LOT and I’ve been using vector layers for my line art exclusively ever since I found this out. Given this video is all about line thickness and getting lineart to look dynamic and correct, I thought I’d mention it. Especially because being able to thin out lineart overall sounds like it would have helpd the problem you had. Even though you’ve figured out how to fix it, since many people still struggle with lineart I thought I’d just put this here

TYSM! YOUR THE BEST- I'm sure this is gonna be good!

I have a problem with my lineart looking too clean, like thin to thick to thin, too smooth, I feel like I need a brush that isn't the built in brush, but I can't find anything that works well thats free since I can't really afford anything rn. I feel like I need a rough brush for variation but I can't find one that looks good with my style

“I’m super bad at” says the man who’s drawn something I could never do in my life 🤣

“ignore the way it looks when it’s flipped” i identify with this statement

How was ur bad line art bad 💀

Do you use vector layers or regular in your lineart. Some aspects of vector are nice but others are frustrating. Great video!!

Jesus bro, your example for "bad line art" looks freaking amazing man!

When drawing in black and white such manga etc. A thicker line can help to bring attention to the focal character as well.thinner lines are good for background elements that are not the focal point and adding the nice little details. When starting and drawing it's good to have a zoomed out full body dynamic sketch layout first using fluid light lines and shapes getting the feeling and gesture down then fleshing out the elements then zooming in when necessary.

I was originally going to type, "but the Miku line art looks far better?" Then I imagined myself coloring it and immediately realized how obnoxious and annoying it would be to mask a line art this thick (as opposed to the second one) and I started laughing at just how stupid I'd been two minutes ago. Seriously, this is genius.

I don't agree with this idea. It depends on the art style. I have read a bunch of mangas and - despite being drawn with thick lines - the arts were beautiful anyway. This video is not useless, but I would say it's just "what you feel right for you and why you feel satisfied in drawing this lighter way, actually". I was used to drawing the thickest lines possible, but my drawing were not bad at all because I wanted them to look traditional, not clean. It's timeconsuming to master a style, and clean art is just one type a person can master. I do like it more than any other, but there's no point in saying it's the only way to create amazing art. Peace.

you have saved my life, my goofy ah line art was gonna make someone have to sketch me a chalk outline

Good advice. Another/alternate solution to this (in clip studio paint), you can use a vector layer. You can then adjust line thickness after. Though, I personally don't think it entirely replaces learning to do it properly. But I do think this can be used an additional way to adjust things at a later point for even more refinement.

Which brush was used for the lineart?

Oh damn I have a chronic problem with zooming in, and including lineart! A lot of this advice is going to be super useful!!! 💕

what makes SNA the best art teacher: Other pl: *2500 word essay why something looks good * SNA: idk man it just looks cool

I dunno, I love thick line arts, though.

please check out vector layers in CSP. It will make your work flow much more flexible.

bold of you to assume i can perfectly replicate the clean lines of the sketch

You're trying to make it sound like thick lines are "bad", wich i disagree with. There's amazing artist out there doing thick lines in their drawings.

I'm appreciative of people with the skills sharing their tips and tricks.. But I would love to see a shit artist applying them. Never seen a bad art youtuber growing and improving their art. There's something about going straight from a youtube video of a decent drawing to my dogshit art, it's the least motivational thing ever and I actually suspect it's been making my art worse bc now I'm hyper aware of how crap everything is, before I tried to improve my style I was kinda blissfully ignorant and drawing quite happily.

If your like me and have issues unconsciously pressing to hard, you can adjust the pressure curse of the stylus to be firmer. Might make it a bit easier

Bro your thicker line art is fine. It’s almost like it’s inked. When you ink your “thin” lines it’s going to look like your thick one 😊

Woah, I literally bought the Wacom One yesterday since it was on special at my local store. Glad to see you recommend it!

i mean i combine both, works perfectly for me though i am not picking sides but thinner line arts is very clean and the thicker line arts are generally ok if you do it right but i just like to combined them like there's a right spot of the thinnest lines and the thickest which in comparison makes the art itself whole .

Working with direct view can make the draw faster, like traditional but working watching the monitor while your hand draws is harder until you master it. Yes that can differ in the precision of the lines.

Tip: Use Vector layers in Clip to do your linework. You can use the vector shaping tool in order to thicken and thin lineart, as well as smooth it out to your preferences without constant redrawing. When I listened to the Storytime portion of this video, my entire body cringed hearing that you use to press hard on your tablet. Not only does this mean your pen pressure isn't optimized, but as digital artists, we have a bad habit of drawing with our wrist instead of our arm as traditional art. The arm gives us better control over our lines and hand control, and it helps prevent early onset of carpal tunnel and long-term tendonitis. I'm glad you realized the issue. It's always upsetting to see artists having long-term pain and relying on medication to get up the gumption to draw. One of my partners drew this way, for hours a daily for over 8 years, and now is unable to draw for more than an hour a day as a result of pressing hard and drawing with the wrist.

me: *laughs in draws with mouse* also me: *cries in draws with mouse*

another cool thing about lineart is that theres different approaches to doing it, like drawing it in a way where the thicker lines are where the darker shadows are. since the light is hitting at a particular angle. some artists use this kind of technique for their lineart which gives it a really nice result too. completely optional though, although it can help alot with character designs with detailed outfits (like armor for example) , since it lets you make each part look more distinct from each other so they dont clash with each other as easily

Am I the only one who thinks the Miku drawing was actually so good-

I’m glad I’m not alone in that a lot of my motivations for artistic choices is “idk it just looks cool”

i have a badddd habit of pretty much zooming in as much as i can when doing line art so thank you for the explanation of why you shouldn't

4:20 "Corporate wants you to find the quality difference between these 2 pictures" "they are the same quality"

I'm literally the opposite. I don't like pressing hard because I feel like I might break my screen. So I tend to draw so light that many times the pen isn't even registered as an input.

Pressing lighter also saves your tablet in the long run.

thin lines feels flowy, soft and light, so it suits hairs nicely

"do you feel your line art is super pixelated when you draw it? yea, it's because your are zoomed all the way in!" I freaking bursted laughing. true

Another big thing for clean line art is the stabilization setting. I struggled for so long with getting the right curves, because I have very shaky hands for some reason. I literally can't hold them still. But a while back I was in a brush's properties and saw stabilization and it changed my world.

I feel so dumb not noticing the difference lineart of both pictures till this day

I never zoomed in too much but i followed your tip of not pressing too hard and it just shot my lineart skill level 2 levels higher holy- ?? Thank you so much for this, I finally feel patient and confident enough for more complex character designs because of this 😭😭💞

In regards to the zoom-in problem, there's a setting you can toggle on or off to make it so that the brush size isn't effected by how far in you zoom. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly which one. I found it by accident one day and haven't successfully pinpointed it across each tool. Also, the size of the brush tip image marterial matters. I really love the real gpen and its brushtip, but the image material used for the brushtip is very small, so the brush is ugly and doesn't work well after a certain size. I recommend using brushes/tools with large and high-quality image materials because of this.

Something that helped me with lineart was to plan the stroke before touching the paper.

The best part is that I’m currently *using* the Wacom tablet as I’m watching.

brother I have been convicted. I feel like this is the exact same thing as when I stretch out my eyelid to do my own eyeliner ; - ; time to practice

You should press lightly mainly to avoid injury in the first place. If you're not injured yet, then you probably will get injured, so start working on a light touch and look into massage/myofascial release and stretches.

"How to improve your line art" Nice! I really struggle with line art maybe this will help! "here's bad line art from an old drawing" Nevermind!

For anyone confused, always keep in mind an artist is giving tips on how they got to where they are on their path! SomeNormalArtist knows what he's talking about and is a great artist, but keep in mind there is never a best way to do anything! Try out what he's saying, or try a different method! A lot of these are good tips, but not all of them will work with every artist/art style! Don't be afraid to experiment though.

Yeah he fixed my solution. "You're zoomed all the way in, numbnuts" Thanks dad lmao

Dood, that "Your favorite artist you're obviously subscribed to" was so quick, witty, and clean/smooth, that it made me subscribe. Now a days u see a lot of youtube videos where it feels like people beg for subs, but no one cares. Especially cuz' of how KZfaq works now a days with the recommended system. Barely feels like we have to subscribe at all to keep track of a specific channel's videos. So yea props to you for not being that annoying "please subscribe bla blah blah" type of youtuber. GG EZ ;P

Yes! Draw gently!! That's like the first thing I learned in art school