Getting the Feel and Learn the Art of Digital Inking!

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 through software

Before we can even begin to ink, know that it’s impossible to do it with a mouse. You should invest in a digital stylus like the WACOM Graphire or the WACOM Intuos series.

Even more so, you need a digital art program. If you’re running Windows, there is always Paint that you can try. However, if you have purchased a WACOM stylus product, it will come with Painter Essential or Photoshop Elements for you to play with, which are light years ahead of the Windows Paint program!

Once you have acquired both a digital stylus and the digital art program of choice, you can begin your digital inking.

2. First computer trick

Besides 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!

3. Second computer trick

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.’

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.

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 ideas down quickly and easily. As such, you can always spend hours cleaning up the ink drawings getting it ready for digital painting.

On the opposite end, you can already being painting solid shapes and using a few program cheats to get that inking feel. The choice is up to you but only choose the latter if you clearly have an idea in your head as to what the digital painting should look like. If not, it will only frustrate you.

Either way, digital inking is essential to create sketches on ideas to show off to your clients before you start signing for the finished work. It will save time and sanity!

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

Return from Digital Inking to Digital Art Techniques.
Return from Digital Inking to the 2d Digital Art Guide.