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Yasmina-K β Tutorial - Lines in SAI
Published: 2010-04-29 09:45:02 +0000 UTC; Views: 27331; Favourites: 419; Downloads: 368
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Description
This only works with a large canvas and/or a high resolutionNo one asked me for it, but it might be handy to someone. I only discorverd the pressure checkbox a couple of days ago. The next day I decided to make a tutorial, just for the hell of it. It is very basic, and you probably already knew about this, but then again you might not have known about this already...
I hope it is easy to follow and that my English is alright. If you see any grammar or spelling mistakes: TELL ME!
If you have any questions about the way I draw or colour, or just don't understand something I wrote in here, be sure to let me know. I might add it to this tutorial or make another one.
Please tell me what you think, and if you used this for your work please show me! No credit needed!
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Comments: 191
Glad you like it! There is a different tool which is much better: pen layer. Try that some time! It gives you more control and vector like lines.
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I've never considered using the Binary pen for lineart. I guess I'll try it out.
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This tutorial is somewhat old, but the binary tool has some advantages when you work on a big canvas (it being binary helps with coloring). However, I would suggest using linework layers, which gives you very nice pen tools to use, which are vector based. The lines are easily modifiable and very very clean. It is how I made my more recent line works 
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THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! this is by far the best tutorial for line-art I have seenΒ
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Well thank you! There are other (better) methods to draw lines though, I have changed the way I work since then. But hopefully you still did find this helpful.
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Thank you so much! This helped me so much!
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I am glad it helps out!
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I just got sai and the problem was my resolution was on 40 THAT"S TERRIBLE
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Working on high resolutions (minimum of 150, preferably 300 or higher) is a must if you want your drawing to be printable. Also a large canvas can help. Draw on canvassas that are large (I'd say larger than 2000x2000 pixels). There are some templates you could use that already have these settings, ready to go. Β
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I haven't used DA in forever but I needed to log in to tell you that I'm pretty new using SAI and that this helped a LOT! I hadn't realized how useful the binary brush could be! Thank you so much!
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So you used the Binary tool on separate layers to ink this? I think you were supposed to ink on just 1 layer above your sketch?
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That is exactly what I did. It gives me more freedom. If I happen to make a mistake, I could erase it easily without having to worry about lines around it. When you finish the linework, you can always merge all the linework layers together so you have only one left.
Everyone works differently. I just happen to prefer working this way.
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I do te same thing and is very useful.
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That sounds like a great idea.
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Huh, you're one of the few people I've seen that uses the binary tool for lineart. The lines look very crisp.
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Thanks for the comment!
Actually I don't use this method anymore. I do think that this method is very clean and nice. The binarytool doesn't feather out the edges (I believe it is called anti-aliasing when it does feather out). Because of that you get a nice solid black line, and it makes the artwork 100% black and white. It makes coloring easier sometimes.
Now I use the inklayer and its inking pens, because it gives me more room to make mistakes. And it is easy to make clean lines digitally with it.
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I've never had this problem before so I don't know what's wrong...but when I zoom in my lines are really pixilated. How can I get it to stop doing that?
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It is supposed to be really pixelated. The thing is that the binary tool doesn't feather out, if you know what I mean. The clean pixels can make coloring very easy and give you really clean lines. Be sure to work on a large canvas and high resolution, lowest resolution is 150dpi I think. Your lines shouldn't look pixelated when zoomed out.
Nowadays I draw my lines differently. I am thinking of making a small tutorial on that as well in the near future.
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Thank you very much for your reply
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I use a mac, and recently downloaded a version of SAI from DA. Unfortunately, it has not pen pressure. I don't know if it's the brand of tablet I have, or if I need to set the settings in a specific way. Do you know how I could change the pen pressure?
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Usually you could change the pressure sensitivity in the settings of your tablet. Read the specifications of your tablet to know if it actually is actually has pressure sensitivity. If it doesn't, there is nothing you can do about it but buy one that has.
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You're very welcome!
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I been using photoshop all this time but, someone told me PaintTool SAI is better at drawing. I'm going try start using it. Thanks for the tutorial!
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It is not necessarily better, but it is much easier to use. The features in Sai are awesome and easy. Though it is a pretty light/small drawing software.
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btw, will you be making more tutorials?
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I don't know. Would you like to see more from me? If yes, what is it that you'd like to have a tutorial about?
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yep, from you. well hmm maybe go over what the different tools do in that program?
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If it is just about the tools, you should try and play around with them. Believe me, you learn more from playing around with settings than from a tutorial from me. I don't know everything about Sai, I just know how I work with it
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I been told the lines are much easier to draw then photoshop. ya, your right, it's light and small. I hope it helps me with my drawings.
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I clicked pen pressure on and SAI still won't pick up my tablet's pressure.....
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Does your tablet support pressure sensitivity? Look for the specifications.
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C: i fixed the problem already ^.^
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I cannot color the lineart! DX
I did what you said about creating a new leyer above clicking clipping group but nothing happens
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It should work. You clipped the color layer, right? Show me a screenshot of your sai window when working on that image, so I can figure out what is wrong.
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I still have the similar problem. xD I have it colored and the color layers are below the line art layer as I created the new layer above the line art layer and clicked on the clipping group. For the line art layer, should it be normal or set to multiply since I color through multiply line art layer to make it easier. >_>; To see what I'm coloring than have it normal. I tried it before I colored the whole thing without coloring the line art. Still dealt the same issue. :< I don't not know what I did wrong or it's not compatible since some SAI program varies.
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The colorlayer should be the clipped layer NOT the lineart. The color layer should be directly above the lineart layer or lineartfolder. So the layer order should be as followed:
Color (check the clipping group box)
Lines
Then it should work. If it still doesn't work, send me a screenshot of your work in sai, so I have a better idea of what your situation is, and I might find out what's wrong...
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I tried that to color the lines first, but I wanted to be sure I'm clicking on things properly. D: I'm using other artist's line art to practice on. 3:
Maybe, I should screen shot it for you so you can see where I'm trying to start first.
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The problem when you use another artist's lineart is that it doesnt have a transparant background, but a white one. So the lines aren't separated from the background. This means that clipping a layer to it doesn't work, bacause it doesn't "notice" the lines. It sees the layer as a 100% filled layer.
Let me try to explain better: What does a clipping layer do? When you make a layer into a clipping layer, it will only show parts that have filled pixels in the layer that it's clipped to. So if you have a layer clipped to a fully transparent layer (empty layer) it will show nothing of the clipping layer. If you have a transparent layer with a couple of lines on it, the clipping layer will "clip" those parts that overlay those pixels and show ONLY those parts. Everything that is outside those parts will not be shown. If you have a fully white layer (not transparent, in some cases white layers are transparent), the clipping layer won't clip anything and shows the whole layer.
Now, how do you go about this problem, cause you still want to color the layers. There are a couple of ways you could get the same effect as with a clipping layer:
1. Try setting the layer with the color you want for the lines to a different mode, usually either overlay or screen. So you have the colorlayer(set to either overlay or screen) above the linelayer.
2. Make the white disappear. In some cases you could just select the white parts and delete them so you get them transparant. However, when your lines are semi-aliased it is tricky in sai.
Anyway, try those out and if you still can't get the right effect I could try to show you.
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That made a perfect sense, but not all line arts have transparent background. I'll take a note of that for the next time.
I figured that out about the screen mode to color the lines over the white background.
You are so much help.
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Exactly. In this tutorial I only covers the lineart you make yourself in sai. Sai uses layers and those are always transparant in the beginning. So only when you fill the whole layer in a color (it can be white also) it turns into a non-transparant layer. Sai has this as a standard setting. It makes coloring lines and other stuff much easier.
When you download a lineart from a website, it usually is a jpg file. Jpeg doesn't include information like transparency or layers. It is a flat image. That is what makes coloring lines difficult. Only a couple of file extensions include that information (ex. .psd and .sai in this case).
I'm glad I could help, even if it wasn't much help.
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I am in desperate need ogf hhelp. This was a great tutorial, but i have tried to fix my pen pressure, end nothing works! I have A Zeniq pen tablet. Any tips?
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I am not familiar with any Zeniq tablets. I myself use a Wacom. You should check the specifics of your tablet to know if it supports pen pressure at all. If it does, check out the manual you got with the tablet. Most brands offer online support via their website. Maybe you can find out something there. I am sorry I can't be of much help.
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It's really great and help, thankyouu so much~
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Your very welcome. Though this tutorial has really dated, I do my lines differently now.
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