Read Part I of Inking in Adobe Illustrator

The Pencil and the Brush

There will be two main tools that you will be using to ink your drawing: the pencil tool and the brush tool. For more geometric shapes, you might also dabble with the pen and shape tools, but it will mostly be the pencil and brush if you are going for the traditional hand-drawn look.

The Pencil – If you were to draw a stroke with this tool, it would be a thin line with no variation in width. It is not good for drawing lines, but it useful for drawing organic shapes. I use it mostly for solid black areas.

The Brush – If you were to draw a stroke with the brush, you get a nice calligraphic line. This is the tool you use for drawing your lines.

Because of the nature of these tools, remember a couple simple rules:

If you’re using the Pencil tool, use no stroke and a black fill.

If you’re using the Brush tool, use a black stroke, with no fill.

The Inking Process

- Lock your panel layer so you don’t accidentally ruin it.

- Create a new layer and place it underneath your panel layer. You can now draw on this layer. Any strokes that you make “outside the lines” will be hidden by the frame of your panel layer.

- Tool Settings: You can change the settings of either the brush or the pencil by double-clicking on it in the Tool palette.

Use brushes of different sizes to get a good variety of line in your drawing. It is easier to make a bunch of brushes beforehand so you don’t have to change settings all the time.

You can find more detailed instructions about this process in one of my previous tutorials: http://danidraws.com/2006/12/13/video-notes-bake-sale-brush-tool

Other Tips:

- Use the Brush tool and start inking your lines. Vary the thickness of your line to give it some interest.

- Use the Pencil tool to block in your solid black areas.

Finally, hide your sketch layer, and you’re done!

Read Part I of Inking in Adobe Illustrator