Yeah, vectors/ lines with constant thickness usually don't look very good. Thanks for the examples

TIP TIME: I recently discovered something nice in the pen tool that combines the accutacy of vectors with the style of a pressure sensitive pen. After marking a path with the pen, check the box mark 'simulate pen pressure'. It produces a great result imo. See Ichigo's hair, lots of straight lines and curves that need to be exact.

I use regular (full) photoshop. I probably wouldn't know what to do with the brushes, but sure, why not :p

Cool sketches, btw. The anime girl was cool too. Are they yours?

Question: Do you know of an easier way to create smooth cruves in PS? I use the regular brush, but it's very hard to draw a prefect curve (I often undo/try again a lot till I get it right), or I use the pen tool (the vector tool) to get exact results. I'm thinking perhaps there's an option for line smoothing, like some applications have sometimes. Any idea?

I finaly got my new tablet and I started playing around with it. Right now I'm just doodling and re-learning Photoshop now that I'm using it with a pen. Here are my first experiments.

This eye was my first tablet/pen experience. I could never have don't this as quickly with just my mouse and I doubt I could have accompleshed such nice eyelashes at all.

This is my second tablet/pen piece. This is a character from a graphic novel that I've always wanted to make. Maybe now that I have a tablet I can work on it some. Although where I'll find the time I have no idea.

Cartoon style characters are a favorite of mine. I love how similar the tablet/pen is to paper. Sketching is fast and inking is even faster and coloring/shading is a dream. I may have to redo my avatar now that I have the tools to do cartoon sytle art better.

I love using my new tablet. I wish I had left my mouse behind years ago. I had to completely rearrange my Photoshop workspace and go back to my two handed approach that I had the bad habbit of not using recently. It's been  fun and I plan to do a serious art piece soon. I might to it as fanart. I might do a new Halo piece or maybe Metroid or Zelda. Or maybe I'll just do something original and let the piece guide me. I usualy enjoy doing it that way more.

For linework I use....

...a standard round tip/shape. I just make sure the pressure is set to size jitter and opacity/flow jitter is OFF. Set the spacing as low as you can (1-9% is good) and it will give you nice clean marks, much moreso than the default brush, especially when you go large and want to render your work (paint/blend it). You can turn "Smoothing" on, it will help your lines. Then it become a matter of how you use pressure... quick and easy lines = better results.

Brush Engine Settings:

Notes: Spacing = 1%, brush size is 3px or more... (depends on your artwork really). Play with the size of the brush, for me it tends to be smaller brushes are easier to control for linework... big and bulky brushes tend to become harder to get a 'fine' 'whispy line'

Transfer is NOT ON. That means No opacity/flow jitter whatsoever. Those should also be at 100% in the toolbar also. See the 'Smoothing' is checked, it will help with smoothing your line, but it doesn't fix everything... basically, the fast and looser your draw, the better your line.
Note: Though you could use a 80-90% opacity though for your linework to leave a slight hint of transparency and that could be interesting?... it just depends on the look you want to go for.

Set pressure sensitivy to Size Jitter, make sure the minimum diameter is 0%. I set this higher though for blending/rendering, like 80~100% and turn opacity/flow pressure sensitivity back on.


Your line looks a little blotchy like you were 'feathering' along to create a long line by building it with tiny strokes? It's better to zoom out and tilt the canvas how you using rotation feature to make that long sweeping line... If you have CS5 or newer, you can use the 3D accelerated canvas rotation feature for this. You don't seem to be using a low enough minimum diameter for your brush size in the painting, so if you turn that down, that should probably help you get a whispier line.

This is an example of what I am able to achieve with the settings above doing some linework over a piece I just had up on the screen already (not really meant to add line for it)



I put the various brush widths to the test as an example of what you could achieve. I do really like as thin as I can get for whatever works in the piece, but you make want a thicker line in some places. You can make a variable line with it very easily by just etching over something you've already put down to slightly 'thicken' areas, to add emphasis, and it gives you significant control over appearances. The 5px is OK, but considering the piece didn't really need it, it was hard to make it work lol... the 3-4px probably would've been enough of a variation since it was a small image...

Make sure you set your eraser tool to similar settings as your brush (Very important). Like definitely turn your spacing down... most brushes you render stuff with you will want your spacing as low as possible. Only time I turn it up some is when I am using a 1000px sized brush and my computer acts like it's dying lol... pretty much fixes that.

There is advanced, but adding some texture to your brush even if it's a small size can give you an small hint of a grain to your linework. It just depends on what you want to achieve...

Edit: I forgot to answer your other question. No, those two were not my pieces. I have a huge collection of images with God knows what in it... I just went and got something for an example's sake

I like being greeted by TruckOSaurus's dog everytime I open the thread. :3

BUT WILL IT BLEND? haha

Congrats :) Now let's some new artwork from you!

*** Yeah, that's what I thought XP - I'll stick to the pen tool if I need something to be exact.

*** You're talking about the shirt? Yeah, that's exactly what I was doing. I was gonna do it better later, but it was getting late and I had uni the next day.

*** Doesn't doing this repeatedly have some negative side effects? I'm not sure, but when I rotate images using the free transform tool, it usually leads to some artifacts, especially around sharp edges or line.

I read your whole post, thanks for being so specific. The screenshots were perfect cuz the text was kind of confusing XP

I think I have a problem with trying to be too exact. I really really like artwork that looks free and natural, so I don't really know why I stick to doing it my crazy way. I'm gonna finish Ichigo this way since the hard part is over (most important part of anime fanart is the face), but after that I'm gonna try make myself be more natural.

I'll be sleeping soon and I seriously just checked before bed. I will come back with a more detailed post later... but I can answer this part quickly:

The tool I pointed out in the screenshot is not a permanent rotate. It does not actually alter the image in any way. It's just a 3d accelerated feature in the newer Photoshop(s). It's like for when you need it to draw a line in a weird angle. It's the same as if you turn a piece of paper in real life to get at something better with a pencil. There's a reset canvas button at the top when you're done.

I think there's a quick flip canvas feature too that you can do with a shortcut key, but I don't remember it off hand...... I just use the perma-flip and then hit undo when I'm done checking the image that way.

hmm that would be quite useful. I'll definitely try it out and see how it goes.

I love it all! Seriously, I wan't to draw more like this.

Just make sure you show us what you make, or else... 

I put this in my OP (it's called Coolorus)

But I definitely recommend this to replace the standard "color picker" (if you can even call it that) for your program... it's only like $10 so it's a very minimal investment, but it helps a lot.

I highly highly super duper recommend it. Especially if you are still learning color and really don't want that clunky interface to distract you from your colorwork. It's speeds my work up a ton...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6w2X2k4skI

There's another one too called "MagicPicker". I do believe it has a mixer palette as well