02-06-2011, 03:44 PM
I tend to do a bit of what Baboy already said, although I use Paint Tool SAI since I don't have Photoshop.
I usually do my sketching digitally, although a digital sketch or a scanned one works fine either way. I'll set up a bunch of layers beforehand and keep the sketch itself on the bottom layer, or the second from the bottom if I want to go ahead and set up a background color. Depending on how dark the sketch is, I'll also usually decrease the opacity until the lines are lighter but still visible. Otherwise I sometimes will make kind of a wonky line but won't be able to tell right away because it blends in with the sketch.
Once I move onto the lineart, I tend to work on multiple layers instead of just trying to do it all on one. That way you can do quicker lines if you need to (Which helps if you want a line to come out smoother.) and then just erase anything that overlaps with another object if you need to. You can also toggle the opacity on different lineart layers too, if you need to work over one part of the lines and don't want to get mixed up as to where exactly the lines you're drawing are going.
While this is a SAI-only thing, it's a good idea to try playing around with the vector-like linework layers you are provided. While drawing lines manually doesn't always look too great (Since the program tends to make them a bit too angular due to setting up nodes for the line that was drawn.) you can use the line and curve tools to make base lines and then tinker with them until they do what you want. Plus, since it's vector stuff, you can resize things easily without them losing quality. One thing I like to do with this is do my lineart, scale it up so that it's much larger, edit the weight of the lines, and then once I'm finished will all the coloring, save it as one big image and then later resize the whole thing since shrinking it down hides mistakes that you might have made.
I won't go too much into coloring since Baboy is probably better off with explaining that. Heck I hardly even use masks, I just do this sort of "color like a preschooler and then just erase anything that went out of the lines" thing. Plus my coloring isn't always very consistent because of how often I play around and emulate other styles.
Hopefully this helps enough; I'm not too great at explaining things. Maybe at some point I could record a video of me doing a basic drawing if seeing these things done would help more than being told about them.
I usually do my sketching digitally, although a digital sketch or a scanned one works fine either way. I'll set up a bunch of layers beforehand and keep the sketch itself on the bottom layer, or the second from the bottom if I want to go ahead and set up a background color. Depending on how dark the sketch is, I'll also usually decrease the opacity until the lines are lighter but still visible. Otherwise I sometimes will make kind of a wonky line but won't be able to tell right away because it blends in with the sketch.
Once I move onto the lineart, I tend to work on multiple layers instead of just trying to do it all on one. That way you can do quicker lines if you need to (Which helps if you want a line to come out smoother.) and then just erase anything that overlaps with another object if you need to. You can also toggle the opacity on different lineart layers too, if you need to work over one part of the lines and don't want to get mixed up as to where exactly the lines you're drawing are going.
While this is a SAI-only thing, it's a good idea to try playing around with the vector-like linework layers you are provided. While drawing lines manually doesn't always look too great (Since the program tends to make them a bit too angular due to setting up nodes for the line that was drawn.) you can use the line and curve tools to make base lines and then tinker with them until they do what you want. Plus, since it's vector stuff, you can resize things easily without them losing quality. One thing I like to do with this is do my lineart, scale it up so that it's much larger, edit the weight of the lines, and then once I'm finished will all the coloring, save it as one big image and then later resize the whole thing since shrinking it down hides mistakes that you might have made.
I won't go too much into coloring since Baboy is probably better off with explaining that. Heck I hardly even use masks, I just do this sort of "color like a preschooler and then just erase anything that went out of the lines" thing. Plus my coloring isn't always very consistent because of how often I play around and emulate other styles.
Hopefully this helps enough; I'm not too great at explaining things. Maybe at some point I could record a video of me doing a basic drawing if seeing these things done would help more than being told about them.