lineart tips for messy sketchers
so i'm someone with a messy sketch process, but I produce relatively clean and fluid lineart. i think my lineart is actually quite good, and here's some of my advice for it:
Don't detail everything in your sketch. I often only draw suggestions of things in my sketches, and the actual process details everything properly. Sketches should be for ideation, not so much perfecting everything.
Do it a lot. Honestly it sounds like a no brainer, but you really, really need to let go of perfectionism. Do it a lot. You'll naturally get better as you go.
Clean up your sketches more before doing lineart. I liken my process of sketching to sculpting: I'll often do multiple lines and then go back over with a transparent brush and "carve out" the line I want. This makes the lineart process significantly easier. I do it slightly less these days b/c the more you line stuff, the more you get an idea of how you really want your lines, but cleaning up parts of the sketch that need more ideation is a good tip for lineart.
View your lineart less as tracing and more as redrawing with a guide. You should move your hand fluidly. You should line at a similar speed as you sketch. Try not to focus on copying your sketch exactly. You'll get what I mean as you line more.
While it's ok to draw with searching lines, try to avoid eensy little scratches that make the lines look feathery. Messy lines are different from eensy little lines, and lemme show you what I mean.
Recent sketch in its planning phase. I'm still figuring things out, deciding where the lines go, carving them out, but you can notice i do use long strokes, just multiple ones.
meanwhile old art on a "clean sketch" phase. brother ew. there's no confidence in these lines, and i'm not planning line width for lineart. for reference, my "clean sketches" now look like below:
also proof that i'm not bullshitting: my lineart vs sketching.
When people say "don't chickenscratch," I feel there's always a response of "well isn't sketching supposed to be messy????" but uh now that I no longer "chickenscratch," I can tell you: there's a difference.
Lineart is as much of an art as anything else you do, and honestly #1 has been my best move towards lineart so far. Viewing the sketch more as a means of planning rather than an echo of the final piece has really helped. I actually only do "clean sketches" now when I am doing it for stylistic reasons, or doing character design that I want to ideate on further. When I first started, I'd have a rough sketch, clean sketch, and lineart phase. Now it's just rough sketch to lineart, and it saves so much time.
Final edit: so we're clear, the chicken scratch art is my old art. I'm not bashing some random beginner. That's smth I drew. It's a matter of practice and improvement. I actually think the lineart phase is now my strongest part of my drawing process, when I used to constantly be like those tumblr posts about how lineart is the devil. You can get there, too. If you're committed to lineart, you'll eventually hit my point where it's actually easier to just line things instead of clean up your sketches.
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