ADVICE ON CLEANING UP YOUR SKETCHES WITH LOW ZI RONG

1 Tightening up your roughs

I usually start with a rough sketch, working out the pose and the flow of the other objects such as the costume and hair. Then I’ll take a quick second pass to refine parts of the picture and add more details that can aid in my line-work process later. If you’re working on a single layer it can be easy to accidently erase portions of the original sketch when you’re zoomed in and focused on adding details, resulting in the overall composition being altered. I recommend using a new layer to flesh out the details, while keeping the original composition on another layer for easy reference.

2 differentiate layers with colour

I find it useful to change the colour of my pencil before cleaning up your sketch. Even if you reduce the opacity of the sketch layer during the clean-up stage, unwanted lines that are overlooked might be mistaken for lines from the original sketch. Changing the colour of the sketch to another colour can make the distinction between the sketch layer and clean-up layer more obvious, and reduce stray lines when cleaning up. Using colours to highlight different areas that you might want to separate into layers also serves as a visual reminder when lining them.

3 Adding weight to your lines

I find it useful to change the colour of my pencil before cleaning up your sketch

Apart from certain art styles or production requirements, giving your lines different thicknesses helps to add depth to your drawing. In general, drawing thinner lines of elements closer to the light source and thicker lines for those further away can make your art pop. One example when it’s not necessary to add weight to your lines is for animation production, when production time is limited and the consistency of lines between frames is more important.

4 Rotating and flipping the canvas

To achieve clean and smooth-flowing lines, it’s usually better to clean up curves correctly in a single stroke. Most painting software enables you to rotate and flip the canvas freely to adjust the angle at which you tackle those curves. Flipping the canvas as you draw is also a good way to check the balance of the image if you’ve been staring at your artwork for too long.

5 Checking the developing art work

As mentioned earlier, during cleanup we tend to zoom in and focus on the finer details of the artwork. We end up taking localised decisions on how certain strokes would be cleaned without bearing in mind context of the whole image. This might result in, for example, a well-drawn hand that’s clearly out of proportion when compared to the rest of the body. Therefore, it’s important to zoom out occasionally to check everything’s still on track as you clean up your sketch.