Welcome to my Digital Art Classroom.
The first lesson we are going to focus on is 'How to Create Lineart Using the Pen Tool on Photoshop'. This means we can make those sketchy lines into nice clean lines ready for shading and toning, or we can just leave them as they are.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me!
The original post can be found
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Right, for making the lines using the pen tool is actually easier than you would think. I also think showing it rather than trying to use words would make things a lot easier, so here we go!
1 - First, sketch out your image roughly. Make sure that you have a white background layer and your sketch on another layer on top of it. NEVER DRAW ON THE BACKGROUND LAYER! Once you have your sketch lower the opacity to about 50%. Make a new layer on top as this is where your ink lines will be on.
2 - Now to use the pen tool. Using this tool is rather easy. FIRST - Go to 'brushes', set the brush to a 1px brush size and make sure the colour is black. Then, take the pen tool and make sure it is set to the setting that is show below at the top of the image. This means you are working in 'paths'. The 'paths' option is found next to the layer panel.
PEN TOOL SETTINGS
PATHS PANEL LOCATION
3 - Now you can start going over you sketch with the pen tool. The black lines will not appear straight away as it is a path, but we will deal with that later. First though, here is a little bit of information on how to use the pen tool.
If you press it once, a tiny small box will appear. Think of it like a full stop. This is actually called an anchor point, it defines the point in a line where you can change the direction of the line and whether you want to bend the line or not. Do not try and draw with the pen tool as it will not work. Follow the instructions below for more information.
If you click again to another area it will make another anchor point as well as a straight line which is your 'path'.
If you click and hold instead of just clicking, you are able to move the line and make it into a curve. This way you can follow the lines of your sketch.
Once you do that, you MUST press the 'alt' key on the anchor point to tell it that you have finished making the curve. If you don't do this and you make another anchor point, then it won't look right. Try it for yourself to see what I mean. Also, you only have to hold the 'alt' key and press the anchor point after you make a CURVE, you don't have to do it after making a straight line. After you press the alt key and click the anchor point, it should look like the image below with only one 'handle'.
Once you get the hang of that, carry on until you reach a point in your image where you need to stop. At that point, we will fill the path with the black to make the ink lines. This is always done in stages and always on a separate layer.
Now go to the path option and you will see your 'work path'.
Right click the 'work path' and select 'stroke path'. Remember that your brush tool is set to black and it's size is 1px!
Once you have pressed stroke path, this is what should pop up. Make sure it is on the brush setting and that the box remains un-ticked.
Click ok, and the black line will appear where the path is. Click off the path to view the line without the anchor points.
Now carry on with this process until the image is complete and then remove the sketch underneath to leave you with lovely clean lines.
There we go. Hope that helped!
I know I added a little more about the pen tool that I needed to but it was more for the sake of other people looking that don't know how to use it =D
Right...what's next!
