The hardest part of drawing is getting started. I’ve been trying to draw for most of my life. I’ve done some stupid webcomics where and there, had an art blog, of sorts, and all the while I’ve never been satisfied with what I’ve produced.

And I’m not necessarily talking about my art style or skill or whatever. I mean simpler than that. Namely my line work. I don’t understand it how so many people can get such great line work onto their computer screens. Every time I draw, ink, scan, and do the little digital adjustments…I…I’ve tried it all. I can’t make my lines look decent. It’s always like blurry. Or rough. Or just looks like my pens are bleeding all over the place.

But the inks look fine before I scan them! They look clean, smooth, sharp, what have you. But going from paper to computer screen it transforms into shit. I can not figure out what I’m doing wrong. I’ve researched, asked for advice, and copied other artists’ techniques and I can never reproduce a clean line.

I’ve even tried digital inking. Now the lines are just fine, but I can not seem to adjust to the odd differential between the tablet and the screen. It’s off. I’ve gone as far as trace over a drawing of, say, a circle. Drawing slowly so the computer registers every second. I trace it with the precision of a surgeon. When I look up there’s a lopsided oval starring back at me on my monitor. I’ve made all the adjustments and tweaks to the hardware and programs that I can. I’ve paint, ms paint, corel, paitner, photoshop elements, photoshop cs, photoshop everything tegaki„ flash, manga studio, everything I could get my hands on that people have recommended. I’ve went so far as to buy three different tablets, each more expensive than the last. My pen movements are not represented on the my screen.

I’ve gone through hundreds of dollars worth of pens and ink and other utensils as well. Microns, prismas, ball point, ink well, bic, copic, sharpie, faber-castell, staedtler, ink pens, fountain pens, dip pens, i even bought shoots of bamboo used as dip pens and NOTHING has worked. I’ve tried lined paper, computer paper, photo paper, art paper, bristol board, dozens of others. I’ve tried 4 different scanners, currently using a dell, and I can not get a good scan of my images. I just can’t afford the $3,000 art scanners, but if I could it would probably be sitting in the pile of other crap that hasn’t worked.

How do you people do this? No, wait, never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’ve asked dozens of people for advice. Even industry professionals. I can’t even convey to them what I’m talking about either. They just can’t comprehend not having decent line work. I feel once I can solve this problem I will be able to actually work on moving forward with my work.

Here is the last thing I drew, (inking over a sketch of one of Josh Lesnick’s ff9 fanart)

After I make some photoshoppy adjustments

resizing

“finished”

I mean I didn’t spend too long on this, but it’s still the same line work effect I keep getting. How do I make this cleaner? It looks so rough, smudgy, so, just plain shitty.

I’ve tried scanning at all the dpi’s, all the contrast and brightness adjustments, everything, and the end result is always the same. Is it my scanner? Is there a magic pen no one’s told me about? Or a magic paper? Something? If only I could get decent lines maybe I could grow as an artist a little but I feel so stunted, so helpless. And I’ve felt this way for years.

Come on! What’s the secret!?