Step 06: Freehand Inking

We can now begin to create a nice, black line version of our sketch. We will work first on the more intricate parts of the image, those parts with short lines or large amounts of turns. There are several methods we can use to accomplish this task, but one of the easiest is simply drawing over the image. This will give us some great practice using the brushes and layers in Photoshop.

1. Make sure the Ink layer is selected (the Ink layer needs to be blue in the Layer palette)

Be careful NOT to draw on the Sketch layer as the lines you draw will merge with the blue sketch and will be impossible to separate. Keep all changes and additions you make to the sketch on different layers! By keeping your ink and sketch separate,  you are free to turn the visibility of your sketch on and off as you please to see your progress and compare what you have inked with the original sketch.

Before we start inking, let's choose the brush we're going to use. When you draw in black you may notice that true black only occurs in the center of the line you've drawn and that around it are various shades of gray gradually fading out. For our project, when you are done inking and it comes time to color, you will be filling in parts of the image based on boundaries set by where the pen lays down true, solid black.

Let's take a quick look at an example. Below is the junction of two pen strokes. The one on the left was done with a normal brush, and the one on the right has its thickness controlled by how hard the user pressed down on a drawing tablet with a stylus. They both look solid enough from here...

Below we've zoomed in 4 times and highlighted true black with red. In the normal brush example on the left, the red forms a solid border. In the drawing pad tablet one on the right, the red becomes sparse where the lines are thin.

If we were to try to color this, we'd have to spend time fixing the corner by hand. Imagine having to do this to every point where one brushstroke meets another throughout a picture. That's a lot of tedious work! Let's make sure that as we ink we are using a large enough brush.

For our inking, we will want to use a brush width large enough so that later on when we remove all the non-black color we will still have some solid black lines and are not faced with the scenario above. So let's set our brush now...

2. Activate the Brush Tool, the resulting Option bar will look similar to the one below...
   
3. Click the drop-down arrow next to the Brush Size option
4. Double-click the 5 pixel brush, as indicated below:
   

Now we can begin drawing. Unlike a real paint brush, here you have the option to undo (Ctrl+Z) and erase the lines you draw. It might be helpful for you to keep one hand over the undo keys when drawing. If you're new to this, keep in mind that using a mouse to draw won't come naturally the first time you try it. Like any tool, it may take some practice to get the hang of.

5. Begin inking your Catgirl

As you work, be sure that you are drawing only on the Ink layer. You should zoom in pretty far to ensure that your work follows the sketch lines.

DO NOT ink the long, unbroken lines in the sketch (such as her arms and legs), as we will ink them in the next step when we cover Path inking and they will look much better than we could do by hand. Keep in mind that if you free-hand the long lines you will get no credit for it. YOU MUST USE PATHS on your drawing!

You may notice in the graphic that some areas that are supposed to look fluffy may seem kind of dull, like in the graphic labeled Untapered below. We can add a little extra snap to the edges here by drawing out past where we need to with the brush tool, and then narrowing the edges to a point with the Eraser tool. The Eraser tool works just like the Brush tool, except that it removes color instead of adding it. Working with the Eraser is easy...

6. Be sure the Ink layer is selected
7. Click the Eraser Tool (be sure you're not accidentally using the "Background Eraser" or "Magic Eraser" tools)
8. Go to the Tool option bar and change the eraser size to 5 pixels (we want to use the same size eraser as brush)
9. Zoom in and work slowly around your graphic looking for pointed areas that appear rounded
10. Use the Eraser tool to gently remove the excess pixels so that your points look nice and pointy

The effects of tapering our line work can be seen in the graphic below and to the right, labeled Tapered.

Untapered

Tapered

Notice how the points of her ears, cheek, mouth, etc. are nice and crisp and actually look like real pointed hair (sort of >_>).

By the end of this step you should have a character with her head, hands, feet, and assorted other parts with short lines inked. Look back over your character at this point and be sure that there are no areas of malformation (if there are, just erase them and redraw them), and that you have the level of detail you are happy with. When everything looks good to you, move on to the next step.

Save your Cartoon file!