FA+
Shop
3525
Views
Views
17
Favorites
Favorites
Category
Scraps / Miscellaneous
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 615 x 800
File Size 81.9 kB
Report this content
More from Dynotaku
pilferneko Made a comment on a picture complimenting my inks, only the picture was pencils, as is most of my gallery. The question was posed how I get my pencils so sharp, so here's my response:I actually start off with light to medium weight lines, usually quite sketchy, using 05 or 03 mechanical pencils, then I go over it all again much heavier and manually fill out my line thickness with multiple strokes, essentially inking the first set of pencils, only with more pencil. It's pretty time consuming, but I'm very anal about how my lines look. It's a bit of a problem with my art. It makes a finished piece look good, but it's hard to doodle when you're obsessed with line quality.
Anyway, after I darken and thicken up the lines, I clean everything up with a "Tough Stuff Eraser Stick" http://www.dickblick.com/zz215/35/
I like these because they're thin (like 1/8 inch) and firm, so they're good for 'detailed' erasing.
And honestly, after I scan my pencils, I take about 20 minutes cleaning them up in photoshop, including playing with the levels to darken things up to my liking, and after everything else, hitting it with an unsharp mask, but mostly just touching up with the eraser tool.
Take a look at SniperFox's hair here to see the before and after.
Category Scraps / Miscellaneous
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 615 x 800px
File Size 81.9 kB
The reason I recommend felt tip (quality felt tip... there's a huge difference) is because of the softness of the tip, you can vary the line thickness, have lines taper off a bit. You can achieve that with ball point pens to some degree, but you have more control with felt tips.
Also, the ink dries much faster, reducing the chance of nasty smears, and a quality felt tip line won't fade when you're erasing pencils out from under it. That's why I recommend the Staedtler's over Pigma Microns. The Microns lay down a very nice line, but they fade noticeably when you're doing cleanup.
Also, the ink dries much faster, reducing the chance of nasty smears, and a quality felt tip line won't fade when you're erasing pencils out from under it. That's why I recommend the Staedtler's over Pigma Microns. The Microns lay down a very nice line, but they fade noticeably when you're doing cleanup.
Sakura are nice, they have a much.. blacker black, if that makes any sense, than Staedtlers in my opinion, but every time I use them I find that the ink dries slower, the nibs get crushed easier, under general usage (they stick out farther from the metal area than most felt pens, this gives you more line variance but the tips often kink up, bend, smush, and other nasty things)and they also tend to blot. A lot. Really.
I use nothing but Staedtler, I have a Mars graphic pen set and a BUNCH of pigment liners. The pen set is good but upon leaving it unused for a few months I came back to them and much to my dismay they did not work for crap, so I do reccomend the pigment liners.
Do a clean set of lines over the entire picture in the thinnest grade of lines (I don't even know the actual measurement anymore I just know the number of the pen >.<; ) and then take a thicker pen (still staedler, they come in sets with four different thicknesses) and accentuate the lines where you need to.
I never, ever have to clean up an inked sketch in photoshop or any of that jazz. It scans clean black and white =P
I use nothing but Staedtler, I have a Mars graphic pen set and a BUNCH of pigment liners. The pen set is good but upon leaving it unused for a few months I came back to them and much to my dismay they did not work for crap, so I do reccomend the pigment liners.
Do a clean set of lines over the entire picture in the thinnest grade of lines (I don't even know the actual measurement anymore I just know the number of the pen >.<; ) and then take a thicker pen (still staedler, they come in sets with four different thicknesses) and accentuate the lines where you need to.
I never, ever have to clean up an inked sketch in photoshop or any of that jazz. It scans clean black and white =P
I don't use masks at all in PS. (Well, I do when I'm coloring) but not for pencils. I just use Levels (CTRL+L in most versions of PS) and when I'm all done with everything, I put a 40-50% unsharp mask on it, makes the details in the pencils pop, and helps counter the image degradation you get from saving as a JPG.
Oh wait, Unsharp Mask... masks... I get it. It's just a sharpness filter. I think the default Sharpen filter is too strong, the unsharp mask filter allows finer control.
Oh wait, Unsharp Mask... masks... I get it. It's just a sharpness filter. I think the default Sharpen filter is too strong, the unsharp mask filter allows finer control.
Comments