So, I'm working on this little fanart picture inspired by Code: Geass, because I can't get the dang show out of my head and it was REALLY GOOD. Thus far, I'm only uploading the pieces of it to my scraps gallery (which can be found here: [link] , for the lazy like myself), but I plan to put the final copy, and perhaps the final lineart, in my main gallery once the picture is complete. Honestly, I think it's one of my better pieces to date, which only goes to confirm my theory that, for now, I really should stick to only drawing things with references. Except for doodles. They get an exception.

I didn't really expect anyone to stumble into my scraps gallery, but it seems ~seiyurikitsune did by some random chance, and had some questions. I started to answer them in the comments, but that got a little long for a reasonable comment, and it occurred to me that if the extended version of my little project here actually works, other people might ask similar questions, so I figured I'd just put them in a journal for future reference. Except the first question, because that didn't really require a drawn-out answer.

I hope you don't mind me reposting your other questions here, seiyurikitsune, but it does make them a bit easier to answer that way. And if this all gets a bit long, then just skip to the last paragraph, since it's probably the most singularly helpful part.

~seiyurikitsune asks, "I was just wondering... How do you keep your lines so straight? Mine always look so weird.... And what kind of pen do you use?"

I'm actually not very good with straight lines myself. The wheel ([link]) I did with various Photoshop shapes (lines and circles, to be precise), though on the original pencil lineart ([link]), I used the good ol' fashioned compass and ruler duo.

As for the other lines, that's a combination of practice, picture references, and a 400 psi resolution. I have a tendency to waaaay overthink what I'm trying to draw, which makes me take longer with my individual strokes, making them all wavy and funky. So I got a job where I had to a) work with a bunch of other artists who varied in talent and b) work fast. Putting a time limit on how long I had to *complete* a drawing prevented me from thinking about what I was doing so much, and gave me practice in just *doing* it. Yeah, at first you end up with a bunch of funky stuff, but I was drawing the same few designs over and over and OVER again for... well, months, actually. I'd like to think I got better at it with only about one month, though... or maybe less... but I wasn't really keeping track.

I still catch myself overthinking my work, but not as much as I used to, and it's easier now for me to notice when I'm doing that and kind of relax a bit.

References are also immensely helpful, as any artist will say, and 3-D or live references are the best. However, the particular piece in question is fanart, which means no live references available. So I did what I usually do when I can't find an exact reference: I found a bunch of other people's pictures from different angles of the things (in this case, characters) that I wanted to draw. To get the proportions and angles right for the particular poses I want to use, I use a combination of pictures of other people in similar poses and some modeling for myself (which I won't go into detail on just now). This combined with just "letting go" usually means I don't have to redraw the line as many times.

However, in order to get clean lines, I unabashedly trace. Which segues into your next question. For hard copies, I use my light board and India ink (which I don't have any examples of right now, unfortunately). India ink was comic book standard for a fairly long time, and after using it (one usually uses it with calligraphy pens of various sizes or a very thin paint brush) I can totally understand why. It gives very clean lines, and isn't actually too difficult to clean up, once you get the hang of it. For digital work, I use the ever-trusty Wacom pen and create the lineart on a separate, transparent layer in Photoshop.

This particular piece is not so very closely traced to the original lineart, though. When I started the piece, I knew I was going to make it fully digital, so the pencil work was more to block out where the characters would go than to actually get them right. You might notice that I ended up adding another character in the process (He's on the hard copy on my desk now because I wanted to see if he'd work, but he never did get scanned in.), as well as a number of other changes here and there. And here's where you learn that I'm not really a very good artist. Between the changes and overthinking, I've spent hours getting that piece of lineart to look like it does. A pro would have had the whole page traced and colored by now (or at least traced and flatted*). The lines may look clean, but I don't know how many were erased and redrawn several times. If I overthink it, they get blocky. If I zoom out beyond 100% and try to draw, they get all... weird. So I zoom in at about 300% (depending on the amount of detail in the work area) and try to make long, smooth, quick strokes... but not too quick, because then they go all awry. Then the next stroke starts where the last one left off. Or not, as the case may be.

If you were skipping, start again here!

At any rate, I'm not sure how helpful that will be to you. Something that might be good practice is to create a character and just draw that one character. A lot. Use different poses and different angles, different costumes if it wears clothes. Study proportions (and foreshortening and lighting and blah blah blah, but start with proportions). Figure out how things relate to each other in the space surrounding them. And yes, even anime frequently uses standard proportions... except on the face. And with chibis, but they don't count as realistic in any way. Becoming more comfortable with the way you represent objects on paper makes the lines come easier, with more doing and less thinking, which can be quite a chore if you're a rather analytical or calculated person.

I think that's it. For now. Let me know if you have any further questions, and good luck!



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*"Flatting" is the technical word for putting down a layer of base colors for a comic book piece. Again, not something I have an example of ready, but basically all the colors butt up against each other and have no shading or true lines whatsoever. It allows the artist to select everything of a particular color a bit easier. I do plan to upload a flatted version of this piece when I get there.