Straight Lines

In this Photoshop digital painting tutorial we'll tackle a deceptively simple task: straight lines. When learning to draw and paint digitally, this is a fund...

Are you good at drawing straight lines? How about freehand straight lines? This video explores the art of drawing straight lines in Photoshop. There are a few different ways to approach it within the software - each having pros and cons. Ultimately, the best method will always be 'freehand', which takes a lot of practice. In a way, this assignment is just like a musician practicing scales or an athlete running drills. There's no trick to drawing a straight line freehand - it's simply a mechanical motion that you hone with practice. If you can't do it right away, that's normal. Good luck drawing straight lines! And if you like this video, please remember to click the "Like" button at the bottom of the post!  The only advertising for Ctrl+Paint is word of mouth, so I'm counting on you guys to spread the word.  Thanks!

Assignment: Draw Straight Lines. Lots of them.

Things to consider: Draw from the elbow and shoulder, keep your wrist rigid, have patience (this takes a lot of practice)

Fluid Linework

Are you having trouble getting confident, clean, digital lines? There's some tricks to fluid linework that will make your life a lot easier. Ctrl+Paint Store...

Drawing on a USB tablet can be challenging.  Especially if you're used to drawing on paper, it's likely that your sketched lines are less confident than you'd like.  This video offers a solution!

Line Removal Pt. 2

This 3 part tutorial explains how to remove lines from your digital paintings. --- Free Brushes & Worksheets: http://www.ctrlpaint.com/downloads/ Ctrl+Paint ...

This video finishes my explanation of removing your linework from a painting. Once again, we see the power and versatility of working with layer masks to non-destructively hide the initial drawing.

If you don't know about the basics of masks, make sure to watch these three videos first: Masking 101 pt 1,  Masking 101 pt 2, and Masking 101 pt 3

Line Removal Pt. 1

This 3 part tutorial explains how to remove lines from your digital paintings. --- Free Brushes & Worksheets: http://www.ctrlpaint.com/downloads/ Ctrl+Paint ...

Paintings often start as line drawings. Eventually, you'll paint over those lines - resulting in a full painting. If you made that line drawing on its own layer in photoshop, you're able to remove those lines in a totally risk-free way! This video shows how to use a layer mask to easily remove the linework and replace it with a painting.

If you don't know about the basics of masks, make sure to watch these three videos first: Masking 101 pt 1,  Masking 101 pt 2, and Masking 101 pt 3

The Power of Line Weight

What impact can the thickness of your lines have on a drawing? This video teaches the basics of line weight. Ctrl+Paint Store: http://ctrlpaint.myshopify.com...

Sometimes a line can be more than just a line. This video explains how to fit extra information into a simple line drawing. Adding a bit of extra thickness might seem like no big thing, but if you use the weight of lines intentionally you can infuse your artwork with depth and energy. Though these are not hard and fast rules, you can use the information in this video as rules of thumb for your future line drawings.

Sketching: Lines

Ctrl+Paint Store: http://ctrlpaint.myshopify.com/ Full Free Video Library: http://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/ note: This video was originally created for Ctrl...

A safe approach to most drawing is going from general to specific. Large scale before details. This video shows how apply that general form to sketching line-work in Photoshop using layers. Of course, drawing is a personal process and your technique might differ. This is the method I derived over time from my experience as a Comic Book student in art school, and a concept artist after college.

Clean Lines pt. 2

In this Photoshop digital painting tutorial I'll continue explaining clean line-work technique, this time with an emphasis on circles and ellipses. --- Free ...

In pt. 1 I showed you the basics of creating clean straight and curved lines in photoshop. This video shows a sample workflow: creating a mechanical prop using the techniques introduced in the previous lesson.

Reader Anders was nice enough to expand on the topic in his own video here.  Check it out.

Clean Lines pt. 1

In this Photoshop digital painting tutorial I'll show some techniques for achieving clean linework. To follow along with the associated worksheet, check out ...

Clean linework can be a challenge to create with a stylus. This video offers a solution. If you were an industrial designer it would not be considered "cheating" to use a ruler or an ellipse template. Likewise, you're not breaking any rules by utilizing some of Photoshop's mechanical aids for drawing technical linework.