When we talk about an Outline or "Ink lines", these are somewhat of a hold over from the classic days of Cel or Traditional Animation, but it's still a really good design idea for a lot of characters as it makes certain parts of a character "pop".
Click the Images to see the Full Picture!
I've demonstrated this with the picture above where we have two circles. The circle on the right clearly "pops" out of the picture far more than the one on the left.
There are other practical reason's why you might decide to use an outline, but for now I'm just going to stick with "Because it makes it look good!".
There are several different techniques you can use when creating your outline, but I am just going to talk about two of them.
The first, most well known, most used and most ugly (at least to me) is the basic Stroke Outline built into Adobe Illustrator (shown above). The Stroke Outline adds a mathematically perfect outline around the desired shape. While this all sounds alright in theory, I find that in practice it makes the characters look far too Computer Generated. There's no style or character to a basic stroke outline and can make your work look very Amateurish.
You can download various Illustrator Brushes that will change the way your Stoke appears, but I'm going to show you how you can do it manually - without learning anything new!
The Second method - the one I will be using on the Fox drawing, is Simply a new shape drawn behind the shape you wish to have the outline! Take a look at the picture above and compare it to the last. There is a lot to be said for some Randomness! Don't try and copy my lines exactly, make it your own! Thats the whole point! When people start using the same brushes, in the same way, you get a lot of artwork that just, well, looks the same! Try and put some of yourself into your designs - it's the only way to make them unique.
This method of creating a darker shape behind your artwork is a common one used by Professional Animators. It gives you great control over how your outline looks, as well as solving a lot of other animation problems caused by other outline methods.
Like before, I start by turning the Visability Off for all of the layer's I don't need to see. This makes it a lot easier to draw around the shape you need. I then make a New Layer and place it underneith the layer of the shape I am going to draw. Remember to keep Renaming your layers as you go!
I now start to draw around outside of the shape leaving a small gap between the line of the shape and where I'm drawing. It would be a bit pointless to just draw straight over the line of the shape, because you wouldn't see any of the shape you're creating!
Before you know it, you've got a really nice looking shape, with an outline! Remember, don't try and make it perfect, the unique choppyness is what you're looking for here!
All you need to do now is use the same technique you used for the head on the rest of the body parts.
I made a new outline shape for each individual part - including the individual shapes that make up the different parts of a limb - like the legs. Otherwise you will have problems when it comes to animating.
No comments:
Post a Comment