Learn the Art of Digital Inking!

Learning digital inking techniques is one of the most fundamental skills anyone interested in digital art must have! Don't be scared, though...as there are a lot of ways to do digital pen and ink techniques!

Whether or not it is gesture drawings or contour drawings, you need to figure out how to use your digital art program to ink correctly!

Inking goes back to around 5000 years ago where it first originated in China. Since then, inking has evolved from various natural sources such as stones and seeds, to the manufactured materials of various pens and papers we are used to seeing in today's modern society.

But the main idea of inking still hasn't changed: to outline or highlight an idea.

This time, you will learn digital inking from a digital art program!

1. Digital inking with a mouse

Before we can even begin to ink, know that it's very difficult to do it with a mouse. You should invest in a digital stylus like the WACOM Graphire or the WACOM Intuos series (Note: if you have purchased a WACOM stylus product, it will come with Painter Essential or Photoshop Elements for you to play with).

Having said that, it's still possible with the mouse if you use something called a 'pen tool' (in Photoshop) or anything equivalent to it. This tool will create a path for you to create a digital outline!

With three sections on this example, here's how you can create a digital outline!

For the initial step (like the left eye), just click around the area of the shape you want to outline. Clicking a path with a square in it will delete the anchor point while clicking the lines in between the squares will create a new anchor point!

Once you have an outline with the necessary anchor points...

...holding CTR + left click on any anchor point will move it where you want it to be while holding ALT + left click on an anchor point will change the curvature of the path using the anchor point as a base (the example with the nose)!

After when all the curvatures are in place, then all you have to do is fill in the path with black to create your nice outline (like the right eye)!

2. First computer trick

This step is for you to create a quick sketch without being as meticulous as using the pen tool. Besides, aside from setting up what you need through program preferences, you should try to get comfortable with drawing on the computer!

The feel is a little different but it's no more complicated than those sketches you do at school, when you're not paying attention to the instructor, as a little child.

So without further ado, pick a small brush type, creating a digital canvas size of choice in your digital art program, and begin to ink on a new layer! Start large and manipulate the size of the sketch with transformation options on your digital art program.

Here is a quick sketch that I have finished. Originally, my settings are based on the pressure sensitivity options. I paint very light and very quick to get the idea of what I want down first.

The first trick to getting a really well defined digital inking sketch is to duplicate the layer that I sketched on. Each duplication of the sketching layer results in doubling the darkness of the lines. It's quick, effective, and very easy to do!

From there, you can just clean up the lines with an eraser!

3. Second computer trick

The second computer trick is to artificially create the illusion of an ink drawing. This step involves a fair good knowledge base of the digital art program that you are using.

Unlike the first sketch that we did, which only involves the digital brush and eraser, this one requires a bit more control. In this sketch, we are focused more on outlining a solid shape.

This is how you do it: paint a solid shape. Merge the layers to get the best solid shape so you can't see the background behind it. Then, preserve its transparencies so you can paint within its confines without worrying about stepping over the boundaries of the solid shape.

For this sketch, I've created a quick couple. There are various solid shapes that stack on top of each other. There's one solid shape for the face, the hair, the neck, and clothing on its own respective layer.

Remember how I said that we are going to simulate an ink drawing? Well, in this example, to create the outline around the figures, I went to a digital art option called 'stroking' (a Photoshop layer style).

What this does is it creates a black border on each of the shapes. That's why I had different shapes for different parts of the body like the head and the hair as it helps distinguish what to outline. Another thing I did was play around with the contrast to get that digital inking feel.

If your drawing software does not have the option to create an outline, just draw it in manually!

Nifty, isn't it? It's very useful if you want a cartoon feel to your drawings.

4. More inking fun

Digital inking is more than just learning to sketch on the computer. It's all about getting a drawing style down quickly and easily.

You can either do it meticulously using the pen tool, spend hours cleaning up the ink drawings getting it ready for digital painting, or you can already being painting solid shapes and using a few program cheats to get that inking feel.

Of course, you can always mix and match the different digital pen and ink techniques that we have listed. The choice is up to you!

In the meantime, have fun with learning and getting a feel for how to digitally ink on the computer!

I hope you enjoyed this lesson on digital inking. Don't forget to submit any artworks that you have because I would love to see what you are able to come up with!

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