Making your lines POP! An Inking Tutorial by YamPuff

Inking used to be the most intimidating thing for me as an artist. Sketching was the easy part – I was usually happy with my sketches – it was the inking process that seemed to take the life out of them, make them flat and boring. I’ve come a long way since those days and I’ve been wanting to share some of the most helpful tips and tricks I’ve learned in this little inking tutorial.

Sketches look interesting because of all the pencil strokes and artist guidelines. Some areas are darker or lighter depending on pencil pressure. It’s like getting a glimpse into the artist’s mind. The resulting image is visually engaging, even if it’s not particularly well-drawn.

Inking, on the other hands, tends to strip a picture down to the bare minimum, so any flaws stand out a bit more clearly. Besides that, lines that are of uniform thickness throughout tend to give a flat look. And that’s ok if you’re drawing something like Hello Kitty. But if you’re trying for something more detailed, or incorporating movement/depth, you’re going to need some more variety in line weight, as well as some thought as to the placement of thick or thinner lines.

Let’s make your lines POP! An Inking Tutorial

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I’ll be using this sketch (left) and initial ink (right) of this little chibi to walk you through some inking tips and tricks. These tips can be used whether you are drawing digitally or with pen and paper. While the inked chibi on the right doesn’t look bad, it does look a little flat, and the hair is a heavy, jumbled mess. The lines are mostly a uniform thickness.

Tip No.1: Thicken Points of Intersection

One of the easiest and quickest ways to add depth to your lines is by thickening lines wherever there are intersections. I’ve highlighted below the places where I would thicken the lines.

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Below you can compare the drawing with and without the added line thickness. The difference is subtle, however it will all add up. Without using any color, depth has been added to the image. You can play around with different line weights and can make the thickness subtle or extreme. See what works for your style.

You can also use this technique as a kind of shadow wherever there is an overlap; where a sleeve covers an arm, or under the cuff of some jeans. See underneath where I shaded the chibi’s legs under her skirt.

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2. Vary the thickness of curves

Varying line width in curves is another way to give more depth and interest to your inked drawing.

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You can make the curves thicker or thinner. Thinning out lines is quite easy to achieve digitally as you can erase to thin out already drawn lines. If you were drawing on paper, however, you might need to think of where you want thinner lines before inking or have some white gel pens on hand for correction. This creates a ‘lighter’ look to the line so it’s perfect for the chibi’s fluffy hair. However, a thick curve might be better for a heavy blanket.

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3. Tapering Lines

As a rule of thumb, I prefer for lines to taper off. This will of course depend on your individual drawing style and the illustration you might be working on, however, rounded lines don’t normally work well in hair, eyelashes, clothes and so on. If you look below you can see how the bangs look when the lines end abruptly rather than tapering off.

If you’re drawing traditionally, you can achieve a tapered line even with a ball point pen if you give it a quick flick – but it could take some practice. Doing it digitally is somewhat easier; pen pressure tools and pen settings can take care of it for you. If you’re using a simpler program, you can always draw uniform lines and then erase part of the tips with the eraser tool to get a tapered effect.

4. Beware lazy lines

Walt Stanchfield describes this concept better than I ever could in this incredible Disney Drawing Class, but I will attempt to give my own summarized spin on the idea. I will use the image of a face in profile as it illustrates the concept really well.

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A lazy line is when you just draw or trace a line without thought to it’s form and shape. Something hard or metallic should have sharp, well-defined edges, while something soft should have looser curves. When it comes to digital art, pen stabilization plays a large part in the ‘laziness’ of your lines. If it’s set too high, it can take the shape out of your curves and make them all round and same-y. Since pen stabilization is important for getting rid of line jitter, it’s a good idea to play around with how high or low the setting should be for you and your devices. This is not a hard rule of something you should always avoid but rather something to be aware of. Consider what you are drawing, the mood and content and how it would best be represented.

5. Line weight for depth and distance

Line width can be used to indicate a variety of different things. Lighter lines can be used to give an airy or light feeling to textures, while thicker lines can indicate heaviness. They can also be used for depth and distance. Take a look at the shapes below and think about what is the difference between them, and the resulting effect.

They are both exactly the same shape but the shape on the left was drawn with a uniform width. Although it’s a 3d shape, it has a rather flat appearance. The one on the right on the other hand seems to jump off the page more. This effect was created simply by thickening the lines close to us and thinning the lines that are far away. Erasing bits of the thinned out line can make it look even lighter and fainter.

The final result…

In the GIF above you can see the chibi looping through my inking process; the sketch, initial inks, cleaned up inks. The hair in particular has the most drastic change due to line weight; see how it becomes lighter and yet more clearly defined.

I’m not going to let you all go without a little surprise either: I’m putting up both the sketch and the final inked chibi for download. Feel free to practice inking the chibi sketch and/or coloring in the finished line art!

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Click to download!

And that’s all!

Interested in more tutorials? I have one on blending with alcohol based markers like Copics and Promarkers – or, check out this one I did on coloring anime style with artist markers for Cleverpedia.

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You can download the linearts for digital coloring, or print them for traditional coloring and/or card making. You can upload your finished, colored image or photo anywhere on the web as long as credit and/or link back is provided! If you tag or message me on any of my social media pages I’ll like it and maybe share it to my page! On DeviantArt I’ll add the work to my coloring Fanclub. I love seeing the creativity that goes into the coloring process!

Please note that my linearts are for personal, non-commercial use only. Do not download the lineart and upload it somewhere else uncolored. If you want to share my lineart, link back. Do not submit your coloring of my lineart as a print, or as a t-shirt on a site like Zazzle or Etsy. If you’re interested in a collaboration to sell stuff with my work, contact me and we’ll see if something can be worked out.

If you’re not sure about anything, just contact me!

YamPuff Linearts Copyright © YamPuff, yampuff.com