drawing Drawing Tutorial

Detailed background and linearting

I had been feeling like making one. Sharing nearly everything I know about linearting and backgrounds. May this be of use to some of you :'D

Tutorial category: drawing  
Tutorial type: Step-by-step   
Submitted by: red*rogue
Tools used: Java/Chibipaint was used to make it. But any other drawing tool can be used as well.

This tutorial is based on:
Keep for tutorial by red*rogue

 

Step 1

This tutorial is about sketch + background + lineart. If necessary: I’ll go in depth on how to draw manga and anime characters and body, although I don’t find it that magical/mysterious and I hope my explanation in here is good enough. If I feel like it, I might do a tutorial on colouring later.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: know what you want to draw.
By this, I do not mean you go to find the first good looking anime picture on google and redraw that.
Get your own idea B|

Ok. If you don’t have an idea for now, then that is entirely okay. I’ll just show you what I have in mind.

-Rough ideas-
I have a picture in my head that I want to have on the screen. I can’t just randomly start drawing it, so first I’ll just divide the screen in parts. In those parts, I’ll draw a simple sketch of the things that have to be in those parts. Giving me a rough idea of how things will look like on the canvas.

 

Step 2

-Making things less rough pt1-

Yes, backgrounds.
“But, Red! You never draw backgrounds.”
Indeed I do not, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t know how. I can also draw more styles than only just manga but I can’t be bothered to do so.

Some things you need to know for drawing backgrounds.
- Horizon
- Vanishing point
- Vanishing lines

They’re a real hassle to me. But heck, let’s do it.
A horizonline pretty much determines the horizon. Depending on where you put, you can create interesting perspectives.
-Put it high on the canvas and it seems like you’re inside the drawing, looking at the scenery from a lying or crouching position.
- Put it low on the canvas and it seems like you’re flying, viewing it from a balcony or you’re just extremely tall.
- Put it in the middle and it seems like you’re standing in the middle of the scenery, together with the characters.

Of course, it can’t hurt to experiment with where and how you place the horizon. Just look at my horizon~!

 

 

Step 3

-making less rough 2-
Vanishing point
It’s a point, or a dot, that helps you draw perspective. Through this dot you will draw lines from one end of the canvas to the other end. These are vanishing lines. These vanishing lines all have to go through the vanishing point!! If you are sure you have made enough…

 

Step 4

-making things less rough 3-
You can start drawing on it, following your own vanishing lines (or you can call them ‘perspective lines’ if you like) like I did over here c:

I used the 1px lines tool right away and it looked clean right away. Why I did that? Because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to see what line is supposed to be what when I finally came to linearting. But if you feel like it, you can just sketch your background :)

[[ I hope the background story made sense ]]


Tips for drawing backgrounds:

“I have no idea what to draw in it D:!”

Depending on what you’re drawing, draw the things you find in similar places you’ve been to. If it’s a city, you can think of the lights on either side of the road, traffic signs, traffic lights, trashcans, junk, sewers, roads, trains and their tracks and their station, buildings in different architecture styles, trees, plants, sidewalks… and PEOPLE!

 

Step 5

-Making things less rough pt3-
When that’s done,it's time to draw the character. A good thing to get familiar with is YOUR OWN BODY.
- The way it can and can’t move.
- The lengths of certain body parts in comparison to the length of other body parts.
- The proportions of everything.

If you do not know how to draw something from a certain perspective, grab yourself a big mirror and pose in front of it. Sounds silly, but it works for me. Not like I’m great at drawing poses and correct bodies, but it could’ve been way worse ;)
Also for hands, people have huge difficulties with hands. Use your own hands as example. Just move it in the way you want to draw it, look at it from the perspective you want it to be drawn and redraw that. No need to google on that.

Ok. So a friend of mine told me that there would be people having no clue how to draw a body. So here are some clues. First you draw the “skeleton” over your rough sketch of the character. Make sure all the proportions and lengths of the limb, size/shape of the head are alright. If you are unsure, then you can always take a look at your own body. I find my own body pretty reliable, haha ^^.

If you’re skeleton is correct, you can ‘dress it up’ with hair, eyes, nose, clothes etc.

 

 

Step 6

Problems that might occur when drawing characters in perspective:

“My character doesn’t fit in the perspective like you did! It looks like he’s standing bend to left/right/front/back!”
A simple trick to that:
I bet you have drawn walls. Well, those walls are standing straight up, don’t they? Make a new layer, draw a line over their ‘vertical’ wall line, drag that line to your character and it will function as their spine c: . That’s the trick I applied ^

If character seems too big or too small, draw them a bit smaller or a bit bigger. In my experience, it's just a matter of trial and error. I'm sure there's a technique to that, but I'm still figuring that one out P:

 

Step 7

- Checking if all makes sense-

Now just make sure that everything in your work makes sense. This is what I usually check on.
- Arms length
- Legs length
- Size head
- Eyes are on 1 horizontal line
- Mouth, nose and chin are on 1 vertical line

For backgrounds, I don’t really have checks for backgrounds … I don’t draw them that often P: I think that they usually go alright as long as you stick to the vanishing lines and horizon

 

Step 8

-Linearting pt1-
There are many styles of linearting. Some people don’t lineart at all. For me, it depends on what I feel like drawing.
There are many lineart styles and you just have to find the one that fits you the most. Some people are amazing at drawing 1px lineart while with others, like me, seem like they can’t keep their hand still and the lines end up super wobbly.
If you want to learn about that lineart style, ask an RMD artist or a dA artist or search up tutorials on RMD or dA about that particular lineart style.

The lineart style I’m going to teach you is one where you have to emphasize lines. If you draw wobbly lines, then this is a lineart I recommend you. All it requires is the Java pen.
Put the pen on 1px. Pick the colour that you desire for your lineart and put the scattering on 0%. Put the sketch layer on 20-40% or whatever. Create a new layer on top and call it lineart.

 

Step 9

-Linearting pt2-

Just draw the regular line for the jaw of the character. Look at the first picture. Just look at it.
Just. Look. At. It.

Now look at the second picture. Does it seem better now? Do you see the difference? Do you get it?
I case you didn’t (and I can imagine, if this lineartstyle seems completely outer space to you), I will try to explain:
- lines are drawn from thin to gradually thicker back gradually thin. The end of the line has to be thin.
- The part of a line where a lot of other lines are about to meet is supposed to be drawn thicker.
- Things that appear more forward to the viewer is supposed to be drawn thicker.

If you need examples of the lineart style, I recommend Tetsuya Nomura. He designs for the Final Fantasy games, The World Ends With You and he’s the creator of Kingdom Hearts. If you recognize those styles, you can probably understand for a bit what I’m talking about. Although my lineartstyle doesn’t emphasize lines as much as his.

 

Step 10

This took 3,5 hours... so beware... o.o

I hope this tutorial helped. It's my very first tutorial so if you have any tips and/or questions feel free to tell/mention. I'm open to feedback c:

__LAST TIPS__
It could never hurt to look around and insert the horizontal line and vanishing point/lines in your own point of view. I often randomly stare at stuff and figure out how to draw them in my head through all kinds of theories and techniques that I know. Objects. Persons. Surroundings.
I’m just a nerd like that P:
I’m happy when I realize that the stuff I have learned can be applied somewhere xD