How perfectionism is affecting your line art (+Tips for artists)
Tips to beat perfectionism, draw faster, and how Japanese illustrators go about drawing line art.
Hey there!
If you've read manga before and if you closely observe how it's drawn, you would notice that the artist has used a lot of slightly crooked or scratchy lines in their drawings.
Pro manga artists have to meet strict deadlines, and they often have to prioritize speed over quality. So naturally, their lines would often overshoot or contain little gaps in between their line art.
Yet somehow, they aren't that noticeable when you're immersed in the story as a reader.
Because as a reader, you're just going to look at the panels for around 1-15 seconds each and move on.
Moreover, the imperfect lines drawn by the artist aren't that noticeable, even if you stop for a few minutes to view the art as a whole.
That's why it's kinda dumb to spend time perfecting every single line.
It's very time-consuming, and it even makes the art look less dynamic and too mechanical. (Artists who draw stylized art would get what I mean, here).
I know this fact very well. Yet… why am I still perfecting my lines?
I'll be drawing– and I'd suddenly notice that I'm wasting time, perfecting tiny lines that no one is going to notice.
As soon as I realise that, I try to draw more loosely and faster, leaving some imperfections here and there.
I let go of perfectionism.
I feel like I've become faster.
And I started to enjoy the process.
…and it lasts only for a while.
As soon as I let my guard down, perfectionism slowly creeps on me and I default back to perfecting teeny tiny lines again.
I would get lost in the process, I would draw while getting lost in thought, and I'd be– perfecting my lines…
Once again, I would realize what I'm doing as if I just snapped back to reality from being hypnotized. And I realize it's slowing me down, and I would try to draw faster lines again.
This cycle repeats over and over again, and at one point, it just started to feel like I'm trying to break an impenetrable barrier.
Perfectionism has truly become a bad, automatic habit of mine, which is hard to break because I often subconsciously do it without even realizing it. And it makes drawing kind of frustrating.
If you haven't accidentally developed this troublesome habit yet–
#1: Thank goodness!
#2: There are a few things I need you to know, so you won't get stuck like me in the future.
#3: Or if you're already struggling with perfectionism, I shared a few tips in this article that really help me, and I hope you'll find them to be helpful as well.
Reminder: don't only focus on perfecting your lines!
I didn't always have this habit of perfecting my lines.
I saw artists who use very clean lines in their artworks, and so, I practiced drawing clean lines a lot to draw like them.
I would focus on the line thickness, stability, and smoothness of the lines and curves, I would not overshoot or undershoot, I would connect all the lines without leaving any gaps (which is not a good thing if you didn't know. More on that later in this article).
Maybe I focused on the line art part of the process too much, and missed out on practicing the more important skills like developing an understanding of human anatomy, perspective, form, and structure.
Because giving your drawings form and 3 dimensionality is way more important than drawing flawless lines.
When I used to draw without getting haunted by perfectionism
Before I switched to mainly digital art, I used to draw more loosely on paper. Heck, I would even do a lot of scribbling instead of using actual techniques like hatching or cross-hatching.
Let me show you an example. Look at this old drawing I drew a few years ago:
At first glance, it would just look like a pencil drawing of scenery and a wooden bench, with sunset and a lot of trees. But if you zoom in and look at one of the trees, you would see that it's all just very scrappy scribbles.
Yet, when you look at the drawing as a whole, you can see a scenery with a lot of things you can recognize.
It's almost as if it's an illusion that tricks our brain into thinking that a page full of scribbles has some things in it.
The point is, if you think you don't have problems with perfectionism, you may accidentally fall into the trap before you even realize it (like I did), so watch out for that.
Perfect lines vs imperfect lines
I said perfect lines are too mechanical and time-consuming, right? I drew these two line art on top of the same sketch, to demonstrate:
As you can see, the left image is where I tried drawing very perfect lines. It took 1 hour to finish. And on the left side, I focused more on the speed and used lines of varying thicknesses, while still maintaining the quality. It took 30 minutes to finish.
The difference is small, but I think you’re starting to see why drawing perfect lines is not necessary, right?
What if you have already developed this habit?
What if you have already developed this habit of trying to draw perfect lines? What if you're struggling with perfectionism when drawing as well?
If you've already experienced this, you may know that when you try to draw perfect lines– several things happen:
#1: You slow down significantly, and doing the line art will become a time-consuming part of the process.
#2: Drawing will start to feel like tedious work.
Perfectionism– for some reason, it drains the fun out of whatever you're creating and makes it difficult to enjoy.
One tip I learned to fight perfectionism that helps me draw better is: Using the timer!
I said in one of my previous articles that if you have an art block, use the stopwatch instead of a timer because you can see how much time you spent drawing, and it'll motivate you to keep drawing— rather than using the timer and looking forward to breaks.
But this rule only applies when you're dealing with an art block.
When dealing with perfectionism, timers are the way to go. Because when you set a time limit, you will be forced to draw faster, and you won't spend time perfecting little parts of the drawing that no one is going to notice.
Another thing you can do is: following the line drawing techniques that Japanese artists use, which is what I'm going to explain next.
How Japanese artists draw line art (and what we can learn from them)
It's good to practice drawing clean-looking lines, because lines that are too wobbly and crooked will be distracting and will lower the quality of the overall artwork, but don't overdo it and remember: the key is to find your sweet spot.
Remember to also focus on the 3D forms of the object or character you're drawing. If the form is sketched well, the artwork will look amazing even if you draw imperfect lines.
That's what the professional Japanese illustrators are doing and teaching, and their illustrations look amazing.
There is a Japanese illustrator I admire, Naoki Saito. He said, “If you want to draw good lines, put 90% of your effort into the rough sketch. The final clean copy of the lines is just a bonus”.
This a really good advice! And I often recall it when I'm doing line art. (Naoki Saito is awesome! Be sure to check out his artworks and his YouTube channel.)
I also watched other professional Japanese artists follow the same rule of thumb and teach it to aspiring artists as well.
If you're interested in learning more about their line drawing techniques, I highly recommend watching Naoki Saito’s video, where he teaches about how to draw good line art. (Note: be sure to turn on English subtitles if you don't understand Japanese):
Here’s a fun fact that you don't want to miss: “Line art”, “Line drawing”, and “Inking” are the same step of the drawing process. The terms “Line art” and “Line drawing” are usually used by illustrators, while “Inking” is a term used by manga artists.
Thank you for reading! I hope you liked reading this article, and I hope it was helpful. Come again next week on Friday for a ✨new post✨
- Harshini