This is why I love Wolfwalkers. Not only are the construction lines and rough finished edges beautiful but they actually serve as a visual cue that reinforces the narrative and characterization. I LOVE WOLFWALKERS OML
Indeed. Society has thick, clean lines while the wolves and the forest have sketchy lines, really a good visual way to hammer in how different they are. Plus I really like how in tense moments the lineart gets particularly sketchy.
Oh my gosh other WolfWalkers fans?! I'm so happy people are finally talking about this masterpiece. In my opinion the best film ever made, and certainly the most beautiful non-Ghibli animated movie in existence.
I used to be a traditional artist but assholes at school kept ripping my drawings on purpose and throwing them away,so I switched to digital,can't rip my drawings now assholes XD but after I graduated high school,I did some traditional drawings,I don't do them very often though,but it's fine,I draw on paper when I want to
Worst thing, I have this amazing confidence in my lines on paper, because I know I can't change them anyways I might as well have fun instead of worry, but digitally??? Don't make me do this!
Oh I feel this. I started out copying mlp, and wanted my lines to be uniform to the T. Bur then my friends had non uniform line art, and it blew my mind. Then I tried different brushes til I found my love. The ink pen / calligraphy pen and I never looked back.
Yeah I noticed that imperfect lines usually looked way better to me than "perfect" lines. So right now I'm trying to tone down my perfectionist tendencies when doing my lines, really makes things quick and easier.
I call those small imperfections the "soul" of the line. Be it changes in value, width, or over/undershooting the endpoint - it adds something that, say a flawless circle made with the circle tool/ruler, lacks. Heck, I've noticed that a lot of professional webtoon art often skip perfectly connecting the two lines that make up the nose in profile. From afar, you don't notice and even up close at 800% zoom it still fits.
i have ALWAYS been fascinated with anatomy, posing, perspective, conveying action or movement, and even shadows and color contrasting, but never, NEVER have i enjoyed lineart. this video has certainly helped me feel more confident in the "chicken scratch" style, as many professional artists ive seen have said its messy, ugly, and generally conveys self-consciousness or anxiety.
I was told that the chicken scratching was bad and you should have smooth, clean lineart, but yknow what? My art looks better with the chicken scratch. The imperfections are what make art- well, art!
I vastly prefer sketchy art over everything else so I hate this narrative that sketchy lines are somehow inferior. It must make so many artists with appealing works feel insecure
@@raccoonchildit literally all depends on the style the artist themself is going for. Animations that use rigs? Probably would work better with clean and perfected line art over everything else! A drawing that's supposed to convey a lot of motion in one go? Sketchiness would add to that! It all depends, there's no such thing as a "better" way to go about art. It's all about intent!
To me, the problem with chicken scratch lineart was never about the lineart itself, but about how you make your strokes. The real problem is ONLY drawing with small strokes and going back and forth to make them (only using your hand/ moving only your fingers and maybe wrist to draw). This is very costly to your hands and really limits you. The better way to draw would be: being able to make both small strokes with your hands, but also bigger strokes with your entire arm, moving you elbow and shoulder as you draw. I often feel that the art teachers focus too much on the appearance of the chicken scratch lineart and don't get the real lesson across to their students. In a way, I think they might make the problem worse, cuz the students get to caught up in the appearance of the line and not so much about how that line is being made. Plus focusing in the appearance only makes you more insecure about you lines, when you need confidence to be able to make those big strokes without fear.
This really was a wake-up call to me! I was always so obsessed with getting the line art perfect that it left me with a headache! But I now realize that it doesn't matter as much as I thought it did.
Same. For years, I want to perfect line as there is a lot of people saying why my line are sketchy but this video just told me to just get the work done like my favourite spacecraft slapped me out of my perfectionism side and remind me to get it done than perfect.
drew for about 2 years. Used to watch a lot of tutorials. Burned myself out. Stopped for almost 3 years. Recently am getting back into. Keep getting tutorials pop up on my feed and I absolutely ignore the shit out of them because I want it to be fun like it was when I started. This is the first piece of advice I have seen that has actually felt helpful in reclaiming my art journey. Thank you.
YES! YES!!! I remember spending hours all night trying to perfect my character's line art. Soon I came to the realization that that wasn't the most important part. It was the details, the shading, and whatnot. THOSE are what people look at. I still struggle with being perfect with my lines when I've barely gotten far enough into the drawing. But I'm getting better.
I actually did this when getting my art more ment for comics! Even made a brush for it so i could go even faster without it looking horrible. I really only care about line art on the eyes, mouth and reference sheets. The sketch and coloring to me should always have the most effort.
Alternative title: The curse of perfectionism I got it. And I actually feel accomplished, when I can surpress it for a change and get something done faster, while the slight messiness just doesn't matter. It feels easier for me to do something in higher quality, while it takes a lot more effort to go reasonably quick and dirty. But it certainly means, that I have a hard time finishing up projects. This video is so very right. Perfectionism doesn't only eat a lot of time, but also limits the personality of art. And this basically counts for any field, where anything artistic is created. I have this gripe with the movie industry for so long. Everything is ridiculously overprofessionalized, there is no soul in modern productions anymore. In the visuals, but also characters and story, everything needs to perfectly adhere to some script. Decades ago, actors could improvise, not every detail was written down and many things were just done as they come. It's the same story with movies, games and independent art projects: A simple and cheap project can be infinately more successful than a AAA project.
I remember having the same realisation a few years ago. Since then, I've also been waaayy happier with my lineart, but also much faster. The idea of favouring quick and energetic drawing rather than slow and perfectionist seeped into other aspects of my art and now i'm really happy where my drawing style is.
Honestly, Thank you. I needed to hear someone actually saying this. I suffer a lot with perfectionism and that's something I'm actively trying to change. The first step is not to obsess over lineart and being okay with it not being flawless. This video was a great reassurance. 💖
ive always wondered why my line art doesnt attract much interest but now that i think about it, this video felt like you learned a simple skill which that can only do not really much but can drastically impact your art in a lifetime, so i say thanks to you making me unlock a newfound skill :3
I did two works recently for my job, one was a sketch cleaned up and perfected a little some details and for the other I decided to make very perfect lines. Guess what! the one which was a cleaned sketch looked better with the different line sizes and imperfections. Then, one week later you came up with this video... I wish you were here two weeks ago!
i stopped creating art because i couldnt achieve straight lines no matter how hard i tried, this just made me realise how silly that was. i cant wait to start making art again now
as a traditional artist, I feel this in my soul. I'm trying to experiment with my style and atm I always really love my (cleaned up) sketches but don't like the inked versions as much... so I'm thinking I should just skip the lineart step and apply marker directly to the sketch
this is such amazing advice, i always worry about my lineart not being perfect enough even tho i still spend hours on it, i think i need to work on just letting it go and not overstress over absolute details who no one sees
this is great advice. i used to spend 4 hours just on lineart because i kept obsessing over perfect lines😭since i spent so much time on the lines, i was not nearly good enough at colouring. its better to fix a drawing by colouring than fixing it by lines
I've also noticed that imperfect lines feels more natural than perfect lines. You can feel how the drawing was drawn and how it was expressed. From there on, I started doing just 2 sketches: first one being the core shape and skeleton and pose, second one for overall final shape and everything. I still separate sketches on what part they are like clothing, skin, small details, accessories, etc. but mostly just put them in 1 or 2 layers.
I’ve been trying to get better at art and I really struggle with line art bc I have shaky hands so it’s nice to see someone say it’s okay to not have perfect straight line art
This has gotta be the best art tip video on the plant. Short sweet and straight to the point. And I’m gonna carry this advice with me for like, the rest of my life. Thank you!
This is great. I always struggled with line art and would spend like hours just to make it look exactly how I wanted it to. If I put in enough time, it would turn out well… But doing it was so incredibly BORING. So one day I just did what you mentioned in the video. I just altered the sketch layer until I thought it was good enough to color, and it did SO MUCH for me. I actually started having fun drawing again and could spend more time on aspects I actually liked doing like coloring and shading. I also think my art style improved because of it! I'm not saying it's bad to make perfect line art or perfect coloring, if that's what you want to do then go for it! But if there's an aspect you don't wanna do, you can just- not do it! That's the cool thing about art, it could be literally anything! There are no rules you have to follow! You don't even need skill, you can just slap anything onto a canvas and it WILL be art! The only thing you need to do to be an artist, is Create. ❤
Just got randomly recommended this video, so glad I did! The video was a nicely produced, entertaining, and educational anecdote/lesson with an amazing artstyle (so surprising to see on an art channel amiright). Thank the RUclips algorithm gods
Sketchy art styles just look so cool and dynamic, I’m currently working on improving my art style to look like this and I already see some improvements. Moral of the story…Perfectionism is dangerous.
I just recently started cleaning up my sketch instead of doing lineart, it’s so much better! Less time, less stress, and it looks more interesting and dynamic!
I just started my first digital drawing where I firmly told myself at the start "SELF, NO PERFECT LINE ART!" and of course, of COURSE I love it. Thank you for making this amazing video and making sure we ALL KNOW IT. 🥰
AMEN, SISTER - clean line art was *the biggest* stressor when I got into digital art; it was only when I stopped caring about perfect lines when I unlocked my true, unique art style, and I started drawing more because I no longer had to dread about the lines!
Hey I just wanna say thank you, believe it or not, you've given me the will to draw back, and that's huge for me. Both in digital and traditional forms, I really like to draw, but, I've found whenever I did something without the clean, final lineart, I felt like I was doing something worthless I liked the look of it more, but, I couldn't add color and detail, or even if I liked it as is call it finished, because it was dirty, a sketch. In the long run, it kinda took my will to draw away, I rarely do doodles on paper when bored This video inspired me to try digital art again, but most importantly, to use the "sketch", to keep the first lines I am not exaggerating when I tell you with this, art has finally gotten fun again, I actually enjoy the drawing process. So uh sorry for this huge paragraph, but, thank you. You've really helped me a lot, I am really glad I found this video
I needed to hear this today. I’m just getting into digital art and I can’t rest until my lines are exactly as I want them. But my favorite art is often sketchy as hell!
Learned this doing a small piece of concept art where i didn't want to put in much time, and solidified this practice when I realized my sketches always look better than my finished work. I've been experimenting with ways of doing messy lineart to find something I like since.
Oh hey this is actually pretty neat! I remember being so burnt out on drawing so I said "Eh whatever Ima just make it messy and see what happens" And it actually had far more character, ive been trying to draw this way ever since as its so much more fun and really brought back my joy in digital art. Im glad someone else also knows about this!
I love imperfect drawings, but I definitely always feel the pressure to make a drawing look clean. It wasn’t until I got into painting where I realized how important the focus of your subjects are versus the outline. If the things that matter, matter, the other other things don’t matter as much. Hierarchy, emphasis, proportion, space, contrast, form, color, etc. Line is only one aspect of the design elements and principles and it isnt always necessary. This video is a great reminder for me.
Wow! This is the best way anyone could’ve ever explained this, I’ve ALWAYS tried for perfection and smooth lines, but now I see that smooth lines aren’t always needed!
Same right here. I used to spend hours doing lineart and one day I realised that when you add color, it doesn't matter. Been revelling in junky, messy lineart ever since.
1:23 YES! Exactly this, ive given up on linearting entirely and am doing this, because my sketches always turn out better than the line art, so why not use and clean up the sketch instead?!
oh my god you don’t understand how much I needed this video I always hated how I couldn’t draw perfect lineart but now I realize that it doesn’t even matter that much
I think the struggle I have with perfect lines in my art is the fact that, no matter how hard I tried, I was never able to kill my perfectionism. "If it's not perfect, it's worthless." I KNEW it was a bad mentality to keep myself in, but I'd just keep telling myself that, and for the people that loved seeing my art, anything less than perfect was an insult to them, so the lines HAD to be perfect. I've still got a long way to go, and it's probably going to involve getting into a better headspace. I honestly feel like my art is better when the linework is sloppy, so, I REALLY just need to approach it with a different mentality, I think.
Even Disney had a whole era, from the 60s to the mid-70s, where their lines were incredibly rough and scratchy (specifically due to them using xerography to save time and money)
This is such a lovely tip for many reasons. 1. It makes the creation process so much kinder on the artist and 2. I love how much life it pumps into each sketch. Another gem of a video Crowne.
After watching this I know realise that me wanting to make all my lines look perfect is one of the reasons I feel demotivated, cause I'm too impatient to be a perfectionist in line-art. I feel like this simple video has given me the key to open one if my many holes
I stopped the perfect line art stuff recently and I’ve improved greatly! I like looking at posters and other stuff and noting how it isn’t perfect! It’s helped a lot!
i sorta came to this conclusion myself a few months ago, but seeing this now has really reinforced that it's the right idea for me. since ive stopped worrying about perfect lines my art has just become so much better. i care less about perfection and more about just enjoying it, and that really makes it come across better. i think no matter what you do, as a general rule, people need to stop striving for perfection all of the time. imperfections make things real.
One of the things I struggle with as a hobby artist is perfectionism. My music, art, and anything creative really struggles at the hands of my need for perfectness in every stroke. Seeing all the good art out there that doesn't have perfect lines and watching your video is really good for dialing back that anxious "Undo! make it *better*!" voice. Thanks!
Recently I rewatched Disney's John Henry short, and realized that the style was so striking because of their use of sketchy lines and not fully erasing construction lines. Just like this video said, there was way more focus put towards framing, lighting, posing and everything else, and the rough line work only gave it more character. Very good video that I think many artists can benefit from
been working in a rough line method for a while now, i treat it more like sculpting now, even erasing opacity in areas to simulate light etc and it feels wonderful, really brings that handmade feeling back to the art. I've also found then setting it to a lower opacity and multiply to look wonderful with the colors underneath.
THIS IS LITERALLY HOW MY ART IS i cannot imagine drawing anything else that hasnt a rough sloppy sketchbook-esque line look i roughly trace out lines (i mean like, lazy back and forth like you would a sketch) then keep it as that i LOVE rough sketching!
hey, so i just found this video and i really connected with it. i came to the conclusion that clean lineart wasn't always the best choice for my art a while back; i used to spend hours and hours of my time making sure every line was perfect, but it just burned me out so much, i never bothered with making sure the pose, shading, colour, values, etc were any good. my art improved SO much when i started to just use the sketchy style in all of my art rather than just keeping it to the sketch layer!
As someone who loves sketchy looks but has been trying to have perfect lineart bc that's how I thought it's supposed to be, I DESPERATELY needed to hear this thank you 😭💖💖💖
Yep that's one of the reasons I dropped that style and started making a more sketchy or completely without lineart lol. I didn't know it was allowed to make those linearts for profesional work (thought it had to be either completely sketchy or perfectly clean), so thanks.
This...this is the exact same reason how I found out about "perfect lines." I, too, saw a piece that someone had done. It was gorgeous! Back then, I couldn't draw digitally at all. I was annoyed and frustrated because I have naturally shaky hands and I couldn't draw a straight decent line to save my life. Learning that larger pieces aren't perfect and when you saw the whole it was just beautiful...it absolutely blew me away! Right then and there I felt a weight fall off my shoulders and now I don't care (well sometimes I do with mechs) that my lines aren't perfect!
"Do something that makes a visual difference" is huge to learn. Even on things that may look 'detailed' or 'realistic', it took a lot of dramatic changes to make those small things. enjoy yourself
Dude thank you so much. You have no idea how much of my time was spent on doing the line art trying to make everything perfect. Like when I was younger I would use mulipltle layers to do line art so I could erase overshooted lines instead of just keeping it all on one layer because of how insecure I was. Line art has always been my least favorite part of the process for me and it always made my art look worse. Thank for giving me an new perspective on life.
i learned this lesson not too long ago. man oh man, it's so liberating not to worry about having perfect lines hahaha not only is it far easier and faster, i find my art turns out better when i just clean up the sketch a bit instead of doing lineart
Wha- how have I never seen any of your videos or Channel then you pop up, out of random, and give the most. Greatest digital art advice I have ever heard in my entire life I am flabbergasted and will be a better artist
As someone who's actually really really trying at making the lineart perfect for the first time recently. The fact that this video popped up in my feed to today is near insulting XD
I finally feel validated!! I used to only draw with pencil and paper, so I embraced the "messy" effect of the graphite for my artstyle. But recently I've started transitioning to digital art, and I always felt frustrated when every single video on digital art advice said "lineart has to be clean", "don't make it exactly like your sketch or it'll look weird", "every line has to be done on one single stroke, don't do a scratchy effect". Each one of those advices were basically saying that my style was "wrong" for digital. But recently I've seen some beautiful digital illustrations, and when I zoomed them in, guess what? The lines embraced sketchiness and messyness! So I had to remind myself, and I'll remind any artist reading this: advices are good, but not for every single artist. We all have different styles and different objectives. A storyboard artist isn't going to use the same techniques as a book illustrator, an artist specializing on portraits doesn't have to focus on "how to draw better" tutorials when they're specifically for animators (despite the video not saying it, because that happens a lot), so on and so forth. If you ever feel like a certain art advice is only doing more harm than good for you, then ignore it. Make what you feel truly helps you.
I think the reason I was so obsessed with perfect lines is because I watched Solar Sand’s channel back when I was trying to improve. And he went on and on about messy line art so I internalized the idea that my line work had to be clean and perfect.
I recently got rid of my lineart all together a few months ago, and now I am planning to reincorporate it, I am a traditional artist, so I used to use fine liners to get my lines done, but now I want to replace them with sumi ink done with a chinese calligraphy brush, and hearing now that it doesn't have to be perfect, and in fact that perfection makes it better, makes me feel a lot better about this decision
It also started to dawn to me that perfect linearts aren't always mandatory if when you see the full picture everything looks nice. I'm like not going over my lines as much as when I started digital art after seeing that people seemed to like my "messy" art-style, so I'm going now with it 😁
Yes! I remember back when I used a lot less little lines and more big lines and trust me. If you compare them the newer art looks way more cleaner than I ever did before! So we can say we kinda had similar experiences lol.
This is one of the first thing I learn when I decided I wanna draw. If it look good, don't change it. Similar to "If it work, it's work" or "It's not a bug, it's a feature"
this video is so motivating, i stress out so much over my line art, but my drawings always look better when it's sketched/chicken scratched with more detail between the lines. thank you so much!!
For a while now everytime I do lineart I remind myself to stay loose and sketchy and it is WAY more fun that way It’s so cool to see you make a video on this topic :D hope more people can embrace messy lines lol
I've had this exact same revelation a while back, though for me a lot of my art problems stemmed from small comments I heard over my life. Some negative, like 'your animals look too expressive' or 'that looks pretty anime', the latter of which made me frantically try to change things to not be that way, but I didn't know how and felt bad seeing good, comic-realistic art of humans. But one was a positive. "Your line art is so clean!" It was from a friend who asked me to collab as the line artist when making a gift for another friend. It was a compliment, but it made me feel like I shouldn't give up spending hours on perfect lines and, yes, S-5 on SAI. And though that was 6 years ago, I've only recently started allowing myself not to kill my enthusiasm by spending too long perfecting lines. It took me that long to get over the feeling that I was abandonging one of the only clear aspects I ever got praise for. I sadly don't have the confidence to take commissions so I treat art more as something for my friends and D&D, but I still like improving what I enjoy, it's just hard to commit to completing a piece when I have so many other things I could be doing and sketching was always more fun than the colouring struggle.
this really reminds me of my own experiences starting out in digital art/animation. Now I spend the time I used to use making my lines as smooth as possible, making them more messy and imperfect lmao.
ive spent alot of time hearing "your lineart should be perfect" having ti drilled into my head, but honestly i feel in love with my own style. I my lines are very sketch heavy which i feel adds a bit to the fuzzy appearance of my characters. in short. yeah, lines can be as perfect or as unclean as you want them to be
Dude, I recently had this epiphany a few weeks ago, and I've actually enjoyed making my lines a bit messier! It feels super good to just lay back and not worry about perfection.
I've actually been struggling with disliking my linework and being unable to finish pieces ... and this reminds me that I really shouldn't be as worried about it as I usually am, especially because some of my favorite stuff from last year has been messier art that I cleaned the sketches to make. Considering Artfight is coming up in a few months and I have a handful of characters I want to retweak the designs of, this was a super helpful reminder. Thank you.
"now i erase messiness off a sketch till its useable" This hit me... i started doing that and thought id just kinda lost some will to sketch well but now i realise id just kinda found a way to streamline my work, just hearing that actually helped a lot
This is why I love Wolfwalkers. Not only are the construction lines and rough finished edges beautiful but they actually serve as a visual cue that reinforces the narrative and characterization. I LOVE WOLFWALKERS OML
Oh, is the Wolfwalkers club over? I hope it is not
I brought snacks!
Indeed. Society has thick, clean lines while the wolves and the forest have sketchy lines, really a good visual way to hammer in how different they are. Plus I really like how in tense moments the lineart gets particularly sketchy.
Oh my gosh other WolfWalkers fans?! I'm so happy people are finally talking about this masterpiece. In my opinion the best film ever made, and certainly the most beautiful non-Ghibli animated movie in existence.
OH MY GOD I LOVE WOLF WALKERS SO MUCH I WISH I WAS A WOLF WALKER I WIISH I WAS A WOLF
That movie was absolutely gorgeous. I just wish the plot details landed with me
I don't think I've ever seen your actual drawing style before, just your animations. The difference is drastic and I love it.
Are some old and some newer?
as a traditional artist, i think i definitely needed to hear this
yeah the anxiety that comes with trying to get perfect lines often makes my hand shakier lol
I used to be a traditional artist but assholes at school kept ripping my drawings on purpose and throwing them away,so I switched to digital,can't rip my drawings now assholes XD but after I graduated high school,I did some traditional drawings,I don't do them very often though,but it's fine,I draw on paper when I want to
Worst thing, I have this amazing confidence in my lines on paper, because I know I can't change them anyways
I might as well have fun instead of worry, but digitally??? Don't make me do this!
@@adamk-paxlogan7330Sucks wow, that's incredibly mean, I hope you're away from those awful people now
@@adamk-paxlogan7330Sucks No hate but what were you drawing?
Oh my, I feel like this video was made for me directly. I gotta be more loose.
well well well, look who it is!
@@huangyboy I could say the same buddy. :D We're here to learn, aren't we?
God same here
Oh I feel this. I started out copying mlp, and wanted my lines to be uniform to the T. Bur then my friends had non uniform line art, and it blew my mind. Then I tried different brushes til I found my love. The ink pen / calligraphy pen and I never looked back.
Mlp artstyle raised me
Yeah I noticed that imperfect lines usually looked way better to me than "perfect" lines. So right now I'm trying to tone down my perfectionist tendencies when doing my lines, really makes things quick and easier.
I call those small imperfections the "soul" of the line. Be it changes in value, width, or over/undershooting the endpoint - it adds something that, say a flawless circle made with the circle tool/ruler, lacks. Heck, I've noticed that a lot of professional webtoon art often skip perfectly connecting the two lines that make up the nose in profile. From afar, you don't notice and even up close at 800% zoom it still fits.
i have ALWAYS been fascinated with anatomy, posing, perspective, conveying action or movement, and even shadows and color contrasting, but never, NEVER have i enjoyed lineart. this video has certainly helped me feel more confident in the "chicken scratch" style, as many professional artists ive seen have said its messy, ugly, and generally conveys self-consciousness or anxiety.
I was told that the chicken scratching was bad and you should have smooth, clean lineart, but yknow what? My art looks better with the chicken scratch. The imperfections are what make art- well, art!
I vastly prefer sketchy art over everything else so I hate this narrative that sketchy lines are somehow inferior. It must make so many artists with appealing works feel insecure
@@raccoonchildit literally all depends on the style the artist themself is going for. Animations that use rigs? Probably would work better with clean and perfected line art over everything else! A drawing that's supposed to convey a lot of motion in one go? Sketchiness would add to that! It all depends, there's no such thing as a "better" way to go about art. It's all about intent!
To me, the problem with chicken scratch lineart was never about the lineart itself, but about how you make your strokes. The real problem is ONLY drawing with small strokes and going back and forth to make them (only using your hand/ moving only your fingers and maybe wrist to draw). This is very costly to your hands and really limits you.
The better way to draw would be: being able to make both small strokes with your hands, but also bigger strokes with your entire arm, moving you elbow and shoulder as you draw.
I often feel that the art teachers focus too much on the appearance of the chicken scratch lineart and don't get the real lesson across to their students. In a way, I think they might make the problem worse, cuz the students get to caught up in the appearance of the line and not so much about how that line is being made. Plus focusing in the appearance only makes you more insecure about you lines, when you need confidence to be able to make those big strokes without fear.
I'm that person that goes for perfect lines all the time. I need to try this.
perfect line-arters where y'all at?
might try this as well :)
I always draw perfect line art, so I might also try it.
@@AltKaxREAL It's really hard to let the imperfect line sit there. It's like it's staring me in the face.
@@AltKaxREAL here
Have you tried it, to give us an update?
This really was a wake-up call to me! I was always so obsessed with getting the line art perfect that it left me with a headache! But I now realize that it doesn't matter as much as I thought it did.
Same. For years, I want to perfect line as there is a lot of people saying why my line are sketchy but this video just told me to just get the work done like my favourite spacecraft slapped me out of my perfectionism side and remind me to get it done than perfect.
drew for about 2 years. Used to watch a lot of tutorials. Burned myself out. Stopped for almost 3 years. Recently am getting back into. Keep getting tutorials pop up on my feed and I absolutely ignore the shit out of them because I want it to be fun like it was when I started.
This is the first piece of advice I have seen that has actually felt helpful in reclaiming my art journey.
Thank you.
YES! YES!!! I remember spending hours all night trying to perfect my character's line art. Soon I came to the realization that that wasn't the most important part. It was the details, the shading, and whatnot. THOSE are what people look at. I still struggle with being perfect with my lines when I've barely gotten far enough into the drawing. But I'm getting better.
This is what I love, messy art that just looks good!
I actually did this when getting my art more ment for comics! Even made a brush for it so i could go even faster without it looking horrible. I really only care about line art on the eyes, mouth and reference sheets. The sketch and coloring to me should always have the most effort.
Alternative title: The curse of perfectionism
I got it. And I actually feel accomplished, when I can surpress it for a change and get something done faster, while the slight messiness just doesn't matter. It feels easier for me to do something in higher quality, while it takes a lot more effort to go reasonably quick and dirty. But it certainly means, that I have a hard time finishing up projects.
This video is so very right. Perfectionism doesn't only eat a lot of time, but also limits the personality of art. And this basically counts for any field, where anything artistic is created. I have this gripe with the movie industry for so long. Everything is ridiculously overprofessionalized, there is no soul in modern productions anymore. In the visuals, but also characters and story, everything needs to perfectly adhere to some script. Decades ago, actors could improvise, not every detail was written down and many things were just done as they come. It's the same story with movies, games and independent art projects: A simple and cheap project can be infinately more successful than a AAA project.
I remember having the same realisation a few years ago. Since then, I've also been waaayy happier with my lineart, but also much faster. The idea of favouring quick and energetic drawing rather than slow and perfectionist seeped into other aspects of my art and now i'm really happy where my drawing style is.
Honestly, Thank you. I needed to hear someone actually saying this. I suffer a lot with perfectionism and that's something I'm actively trying to change. The first step is not to obsess over lineart and being okay with it not being flawless. This video was a great reassurance. 💖
I'm definitely a perfectionist myself to the point that's it's become almost mentally damaging, so I really needed to hear that rn, thanks
i just realized that since im a kid i never liked perfect lineart, i always loved sketches, i always loved messy drawings lol
ive always wondered why my line art doesnt attract much interest but now that i think about it, this video felt like you learned a simple skill which that can only do not really much but can drastically impact your art in a lifetime, so i say thanks to you making me unlock a newfound skill :3
I did two works recently for my job, one was a sketch cleaned up and perfected a little some details and for the other I decided to make very perfect lines.
Guess what! the one which was a cleaned sketch looked better with the different line sizes and imperfections.
Then, one week later you came up with this video... I wish you were here two weeks ago!
I love a sketchy line style! It FEELS real, like I can feel the artist’s effort and love for it
i stopped creating art because i couldnt achieve straight lines no matter how hard i tried, this just made me realise how silly that was. i cant wait to start making art again now
as a traditional artist, I feel this in my soul. I'm trying to experiment with my style and atm I always really love my (cleaned up) sketches but don't like the inked versions as much... so I'm thinking I should just skip the lineart step and apply marker directly to the sketch
this is such amazing advice, i always worry about my lineart not being perfect enough even tho i still spend hours on it, i think i need to work on just letting it go and not overstress over absolute details who no one sees
this is great advice. i used to spend 4 hours just on lineart because i kept obsessing over perfect lines😭since i spent so much time on the lines, i was not nearly good enough at colouring. its better to fix a drawing by colouring than fixing it by lines
I've painfully learned this lesson a few years ago. Not only did it make my art faster to make and nicer to look at, it also made it fun again!
Wow I feel called out. But I also got good at "perfect lineart" and it's so satisfying for me
I'm getting ready to start cleaning up my traditional sketches in a digital program for the first time and I don't think I've ever heard better advice
I've also noticed that imperfect lines feels more natural than perfect lines. You can feel how the drawing was drawn and how it was expressed. From there on, I started doing just 2 sketches: first one being the core shape and skeleton and pose, second one for overall final shape and everything. I still separate sketches on what part they are like clothing, skin, small details, accessories, etc. but mostly just put them in 1 or 2 layers.
I’ve been trying to get better at art and I really struggle with line art bc I have shaky hands so it’s nice to see someone say it’s okay to not have perfect straight line art
im literally starting cleanup/line art for my capstone animated film and I see this...timing is impeccable
This has gotta be the best art tip video on the plant. Short sweet and straight to the point. And I’m gonna carry this advice with me for like, the rest of my life. Thank you!
This is great. I always struggled with line art and would spend like hours just to make it look exactly how I wanted it to. If I put in enough time, it would turn out well… But doing it was so incredibly BORING. So one day I just did what you mentioned in the video. I just altered the sketch layer until I thought it was good enough to color, and it did SO MUCH for me. I actually started having fun drawing again and could spend more time on aspects I actually liked doing like coloring and shading. I also think my art style improved because of it! I'm not saying it's bad to make perfect line art or perfect coloring, if that's what you want to do then go for it! But if there's an aspect you don't wanna do, you can just- not do it! That's the cool thing about art, it could be literally anything! There are no rules you have to follow! You don't even need skill, you can just slap anything onto a canvas and it WILL be art! The only thing you need to do to be an artist, is Create. ❤
Just got randomly recommended this video, so glad I did! The video was a nicely produced, entertaining, and educational anecdote/lesson with an amazing artstyle (so surprising to see on an art channel amiright). Thank the RUclips algorithm gods
Sketchy art styles just look so cool and dynamic, I’m currently working on improving my art style to look like this and I already see some improvements.
Moral of the story…Perfectionism is dangerous.
I just recently started cleaning up my sketch instead of doing lineart, it’s so much better! Less time, less stress, and it looks more interesting and dynamic!
I just started my first digital drawing where I firmly told myself at the start "SELF, NO PERFECT LINE ART!" and of course, of COURSE I love it. Thank you for making this amazing video and making sure we ALL KNOW IT. 🥰
AMEN, SISTER - clean line art was *the biggest* stressor when I got into digital art; it was only when I stopped caring about perfect lines when I unlocked my true, unique art style, and I started drawing more because I no longer had to dread about the lines!
Hey I just wanna say thank you, believe it or not, you've given me the will to draw back, and that's huge for me.
Both in digital and traditional forms, I really like to draw, but, I've found whenever I did something without the clean, final lineart, I felt like I was doing something worthless
I liked the look of it more, but, I couldn't add color and detail, or even if I liked it as is call it finished, because it was dirty, a sketch.
In the long run, it kinda took my will to draw away, I rarely do doodles on paper when bored
This video inspired me to try digital art again, but most importantly, to use the "sketch", to keep the first lines
I am not exaggerating when I tell you with this, art has finally gotten fun again, I actually enjoy the drawing process.
So uh sorry for this huge paragraph, but, thank you. You've really helped me a lot, I am really glad I found this video
I needed to hear this today. I’m just getting into digital art and I can’t rest until my lines are exactly as I want them. But my favorite art is often sketchy as hell!
Learned this doing a small piece of concept art where i didn't want to put in much time, and solidified this practice when I realized my sketches always look better than my finished work. I've been experimenting with ways of doing messy lineart to find something I like since.
Oh hey this is actually pretty neat! I remember being so burnt out on drawing so I said "Eh whatever Ima just make it messy and see what happens" And it actually had far more character, ive been trying to draw this way ever since as its so much more fun and really brought back my joy in digital art. Im glad someone else also knows about this!
I love imperfect drawings, but I definitely always feel the pressure to make a drawing look clean. It wasn’t until I got into painting where I realized how important the focus of your subjects are versus the outline. If the things that matter, matter, the other other things don’t matter as much. Hierarchy, emphasis, proportion, space, contrast, form, color, etc. Line is only one aspect of the design elements and principles and it isnt always necessary.
This video is a great reminder for me.
Wow! This is the best way anyone could’ve ever explained this, I’ve ALWAYS tried for perfection and smooth lines, but now I see that smooth lines aren’t always needed!
Same right here. I used to spend hours doing lineart and one day I realised that when you add color, it doesn't matter. Been revelling in junky, messy lineart ever since.
1:23 YES! Exactly this, ive given up on linearting entirely and am doing this, because my sketches always turn out better than the line art, so why not use and clean up the sketch instead?!
oh my god you don’t understand how much I needed this video
I always hated how I couldn’t draw perfect lineart but now I realize that it doesn’t even matter that much
I think the struggle I have with perfect lines in my art is the fact that, no matter how hard I tried, I was never able to kill my perfectionism. "If it's not perfect, it's worthless." I KNEW it was a bad mentality to keep myself in, but I'd just keep telling myself that, and for the people that loved seeing my art, anything less than perfect was an insult to them, so the lines HAD to be perfect. I've still got a long way to go, and it's probably going to involve getting into a better headspace. I honestly feel like my art is better when the linework is sloppy, so, I REALLY just need to approach it with a different mentality, I think.
Even Disney had a whole era, from the 60s to the mid-70s, where their lines were incredibly rough and scratchy (specifically due to them using xerography to save time and money)
This is such a lovely tip for many reasons. 1. It makes the creation process so much kinder on the artist and 2. I love how much life it pumps into each sketch. Another gem of a video Crowne.
After watching this I know realise that me wanting to make all my lines look perfect is one of the reasons I feel demotivated, cause I'm too impatient to be a perfectionist in line-art.
I feel like this simple video has given me the key to open one if my many holes
I stopped the perfect line art stuff recently and I’ve improved greatly! I like looking at posters and other stuff and noting how it isn’t perfect! It’s helped a lot!
i sorta came to this conclusion myself a few months ago, but seeing this now has really reinforced that it's the right idea for me. since ive stopped worrying about perfect lines my art has just become so much better. i care less about perfection and more about just enjoying it, and that really makes it come across better. i think no matter what you do, as a general rule, people need to stop striving for perfection all of the time. imperfections make things real.
You uploaded this exactly when i was having a small marathon on your channel.
The roughness made it beautiful
One of the things I struggle with as a hobby artist is perfectionism. My music, art, and anything creative really struggles at the hands of my need for perfectness in every stroke. Seeing all the good art out there that doesn't have perfect lines and watching your video is really good for dialing back that anxious "Undo! make it *better*!" voice. Thanks!
Recently I rewatched Disney's John Henry short, and realized that the style was so striking because of their use of sketchy lines and not fully erasing construction lines. Just like this video said, there was way more focus put towards framing, lighting, posing and everything else, and the rough line work only gave it more character. Very good video that I think many artists can benefit from
been working in a rough line method for a while now, i treat it more like sculpting now, even erasing opacity in areas to simulate light etc and it feels wonderful, really brings that handmade feeling back to the art.
I've also found then setting it to a lower opacity and multiply to look wonderful with the colors underneath.
A tip video that goes straight to the point and isn't milked for over 10min? I thought it was not possible
THIS IS LITERALLY HOW MY ART IS
i cannot imagine drawing anything else that hasnt a rough sloppy sketchbook-esque line look
i roughly trace out lines (i mean like, lazy back and forth like you would a sketch) then keep it as that
i LOVE rough sketching!
This is such good advice, and definitely something a lot of us need to hear. It's the 80/20 principle in a nutshell.
hey, so i just found this video and i really connected with it.
i came to the conclusion that clean lineart wasn't always the best choice for my art a while back; i used to spend hours and hours of my time making sure every line was perfect, but it just burned me out so much, i never bothered with making sure the pose, shading, colour, values, etc were any good. my art improved SO much when i started to just use the sketchy style in all of my art rather than just keeping it to the sketch layer!
As someone who loves sketchy looks but has been trying to have perfect lineart bc that's how I thought it's supposed to be, I DESPERATELY needed to hear this thank you 😭💖💖💖
Yep that's one of the reasons I dropped that style and started making a more sketchy or completely without lineart lol. I didn't know it was allowed to make those linearts for profesional work (thought it had to be either completely sketchy or perfectly clean), so thanks.
This...this is the exact same reason how I found out about "perfect lines." I, too, saw a piece that someone had done. It was gorgeous! Back then, I couldn't draw digitally at all. I was annoyed and frustrated because I have naturally shaky hands and I couldn't draw a straight decent line to save my life. Learning that larger pieces aren't perfect and when you saw the whole it was just beautiful...it absolutely blew me away! Right then and there I felt a weight fall off my shoulders and now I don't care (well sometimes I do with mechs) that my lines aren't perfect!
Love this type of art
"Do something that makes a visual difference" is huge to learn. Even on things that may look 'detailed' or 'realistic', it took a lot of dramatic changes to make those small things. enjoy yourself
Dude thank you so much. You have no idea how much of my time was spent on doing the line art trying to make everything perfect. Like when I was younger I would use mulipltle layers to do line art so I could erase overshooted lines instead of just keeping it all on one layer because of how insecure I was. Line art has always been my least favorite part of the process for me and it always made my art look worse. Thank for giving me an new perspective on life.
I needed to hear this from a professional.
i learned this lesson not too long ago. man oh man, it's so liberating not to worry about having perfect lines hahaha
not only is it far easier and faster, i find my art turns out better when i just clean up the sketch a bit instead of doing lineart
Thank you for this! I always felt insecure about my line art never looking “perfect” but this puts things into a whole new perspective!!
Wha- how have I never seen any of your videos or Channel then you pop up, out of random, and give the most. Greatest digital art advice I have ever heard in my entire life I am flabbergasted and will be a better artist
As someone who's actually really really trying at making the lineart perfect for the first time recently. The fact that this video popped up in my feed to today is near insulting XD
I finally feel validated!! I used to only draw with pencil and paper, so I embraced the "messy" effect of the graphite for my artstyle. But recently I've started transitioning to digital art, and I always felt frustrated when every single video on digital art advice said "lineart has to be clean", "don't make it exactly like your sketch or it'll look weird", "every line has to be done on one single stroke, don't do a scratchy effect".
Each one of those advices were basically saying that my style was "wrong" for digital. But recently I've seen some beautiful digital illustrations, and when I zoomed them in, guess what? The lines embraced sketchiness and messyness!
So I had to remind myself, and I'll remind any artist reading this: advices are good, but not for every single artist. We all have different styles and different objectives. A storyboard artist isn't going to use the same techniques as a book illustrator, an artist specializing on portraits doesn't have to focus on "how to draw better" tutorials when they're specifically for animators (despite the video not saying it, because that happens a lot), so on and so forth.
If you ever feel like a certain art advice is only doing more harm than good for you, then ignore it. Make what you feel truly helps you.
I absolutely love you for this confirmation! OMG! Amen! Im done with trying to be way to perfect!
I think the reason I was so obsessed with perfect lines is because I watched Solar Sand’s channel back when I was trying to improve. And he went on and on about messy line art so I internalized the idea that my line work had to be clean and perfect.
I recently got rid of my lineart all together a few months ago, and now I am planning to reincorporate it, I am a traditional artist, so I used to use fine liners to get my lines done, but now I want to replace them with sumi ink done with a chinese calligraphy brush, and hearing now that it doesn't have to be perfect, and in fact that perfection makes it better, makes me feel a lot better about this decision
It also started to dawn to me that perfect linearts aren't always mandatory if when you see the full picture everything looks nice. I'm like not going over my lines as much as when I started digital art after seeing that people seemed to like my "messy" art-style, so I'm going now with it 😁
I think I've been feeling this but never knowing what this was until you've outright said it here, beautiful video
Rough lineart have same charm like traditional media, it's feel organic n unique
Always love artist who can master this kind of technique
finally raw line art is making a come back
Yes! I remember back when I used a lot less little lines and more big lines and trust me. If you compare them the newer art looks way more cleaner than I ever did before! So we can say we kinda had similar experiences lol.
honestly needed to hear this because i tend to spend a a bit of time trying to make sure my lines are as decent as possible up close. omfg
This is one of the first thing I learn when I decided I wanna draw. If it look good, don't change it. Similar to "If it work, it's work" or "It's not a bug, it's a feature"
I really needed to hear this, it's a struggle to decide how to handle workflow.
I sometimes just forget why my IRL art looks better than my digital, thanks for the reminder!
this video is so motivating, i stress out so much over my line art, but my drawings always look better when it's sketched/chicken scratched with more detail between the lines. thank you so much!!
For a while now everytime I do lineart I remind myself to stay loose and sketchy and it is WAY more fun that way
It’s so cool to see you make a video on this topic :D hope more people can embrace messy lines lol
Ive been so nervous about getting into art. But this really has helps cause Ive definitely spent far far too long focusing on my lines.
I've had this exact same revelation a while back, though for me a lot of my art problems stemmed from small comments I heard over my life. Some negative, like 'your animals look too expressive' or 'that looks pretty anime', the latter of which made me frantically try to change things to not be that way, but I didn't know how and felt bad seeing good, comic-realistic art of humans.
But one was a positive. "Your line art is so clean!" It was from a friend who asked me to collab as the line artist when making a gift for another friend. It was a compliment, but it made me feel like I shouldn't give up spending hours on perfect lines and, yes, S-5 on SAI. And though that was 6 years ago, I've only recently started allowing myself not to kill my enthusiasm by spending too long perfecting lines. It took me that long to get over the feeling that I was abandonging one of the only clear aspects I ever got praise for.
I sadly don't have the confidence to take commissions so I treat art more as something for my friends and D&D, but I still like improving what I enjoy, it's just hard to commit to completing a piece when I have so many other things I could be doing and sketching was always more fun than the colouring struggle.
this really reminds me of my own experiences starting out in digital art/animation. Now I spend the time I used to use making my lines as smooth as possible, making them more messy and imperfect lmao.
I used to be obsessed with perfect lines too but now I just clean up my sketches till I'm happy! Messy lines lead to more expression! :D
ive spent alot of time hearing "your lineart should be perfect" having ti drilled into my head, but honestly i feel in love with my own style. I my lines are very sketch heavy which i feel adds a bit to the fuzzy appearance of my characters. in short. yeah, lines can be as perfect or as unclean as you want them to be
Dude, I recently had this epiphany a few weeks ago, and I've actually enjoyed making my lines a bit messier! It feels super good to just lay back and not worry about perfection.
If this finally lets me get places with my art I will thank you forever
Coming back to the "There's perfections in imperfection" mindset, and I agree. While some styles do requires perfect lines, most of them don't
I've actually been struggling with disliking my linework and being unable to finish pieces ... and this reminds me that I really shouldn't be as worried about it as I usually am, especially because some of my favorite stuff from last year has been messier art that I cleaned the sketches to make. Considering Artfight is coming up in a few months and I have a handful of characters I want to retweak the designs of, this was a super helpful reminder. Thank you.
I have dyspraxia, which is a hand-eye coordination disability. This video really reassures me, thank you!
"now i erase messiness off a sketch till its useable"
This hit me... i started doing that and thought id just kinda lost some will to sketch well but now i realise id just kinda found a way to streamline my work, just hearing that actually helped a lot
Thanks for the reminder. I'll make sure to keep this in mind in the future. :)