Inking in Adobe Illustrator
I will concentrate most of my tutorial on Illustrator because that is the software that I use myself. I will be inking the sketch. which you can see here.
Getting Started
Creating Your Panels
Select the Rectangle tool. Draw a rectangle that covers your document.
Make sure you have a stroke on your box, and no fill (so you can see your sketch underneath).
Use the Rectangle tool to draw in your panels (for simplicity, my demo here only has one panel). If your panels have an irregular shape, you can also use the other shape tools or the pen tool.
When you are finished, Select All (Command+A) to select all your shapes. Then go to the Pathfinder window. If you do not see it, go to Window–>Pathfinder. Find the button that says “Exclude overlapping shape areas” and click on it.
All of the shapes you’ve drawn will now be combined into one shape. Thicken the stroke and change the fill color to white (or black, for a “frame” look). You can see that your panels have been cut out of your larger rectangle shape, so you can see your sketches in all the panels.
If you need to tweak the size or position of your panels, use the Direct Selection tool (the white arrow) and click on the center of the panel. Then use the free transform tool to modify it.
Inking Your Drawing
Lock your panel layer so you don’t accidentally ruin it.
Create a new layer and place it underneath your panel layer.
Tool Settings
Use the Brush tool and start inking your lines. Vary the thickness of your line to give it some interest.
Use the Pencil tool to block in your solid black areas.
Fill in further details, texture, and hatching.
Create a new document in Illustrator. Place your sketch by going to File–>Place.
In the resulting window, find your sketch file, check the box that says “Template,” then click Okay.
Your sketch will be placed at the center of your document at 50% transparency on a locked layer.
The Pencil and the Brush
There will be two main tools that you will be using to ink your drawing: the pencil tool and the brush tool. For more geometric shapes, you might also dabble with the pen and shape tools, but it will mostly be the pencil and brush if you are going for the traditional hand-drawn look.
The Pencil – If you were to draw a stroke with this tool, it would be a thin line with no variation in width. It is not good for drawing lines, but it useful for drawing organic shapes. I use it mostly for solid black areas.
The Brush – If you were to draw a stroke with the brush, you get a nice calligraphic line. This is the tool you use for drawing your lines.
Because of the nature of these tools, remember a couple simple rules:
If you’re using the Pencil tool, use no stroke and a black fill. If you’re using the Brush tool, use a black stroke, with no fill.
The Inking Process
You can now draw on this layer. Any strokes that you make “outside the lines” will be hidden by the frame of your panel layer.
You can change the settings of either the brush or the pencil by double-clicking on it in the Tool palette.
You can also change the shape and size of your brush by double-clicking on its icon in the Brush palette (Window–>Brushes).
Use brushes of different sizes to get a good variety of line in your drawing. It is easier to make a bunch of brushes beforehand so you don’t have to change settings all the time.
You can find more detailed instructions about this process in one of my previous tutorials:http://danidraws.com/2006/12/13/video-notes-bake-sale-brush-tool/
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