#then i went wayyyyyy in to mimicking mike mignola's style and now i think i have a nice healthy middle lol

[panthermouthh]

Hi there!! I recently discovered your art and I’ve been absolutely obsessed with your art style ever since, especially your line art! Do you have any tips for how you get such balanced line weight and any techniques/brushes you use?

Thank you so much!! I'll try to explain what I personally do as best I can but I can ramble so apologies for that lol

I don't like my lineart brush to be completely smooth, I like the more textured brushes. I downloaded a slightly textured brush about three years ago and that’s all I’ve used since-- unfortunately I can’t remember where I got it from. But if you want textured lines there’s plenty about to download for free. If you use procreate you can adjust the default brushes to your liking. I haven’t looked for any others because I like mine well enough and I am too lazy to find more lol.

As for lineweight, it's one of my favourite things to play with! I have Guidelines for myself rather than hard rules, but I think it is very important to do one thing-- remember where the light is hitting your subject, even if you aren't doing a fully rendered piece. Use the thicker lines to exaggerate shadowy areas on the form, and thinner lines elsewhere. If I don't do that the eye can get confused and the line weight will just look like an unstructured mess.

(Adjust your pen pressure so that it's very sensitive, and you don't have to use much force. Your hand may accidentally add something you wouldn't have thought of. Don't think too hard about getting it perfect, if it works it works.)

I also like to exaggerate certain bumps and curves on the human body! It can hint at bones, muscles and joints where I may not be trying to be 100% anatomically accurate lol. People's minds fill in a lot of missing detail!

Remember brushes and tools will only get you so far aesthetically and to study your subjects, study other artists, take things you like and ignore things you don't. The techniques that work for you will stick. Eventually you'll have a weird amalgamation of all the things you love and that will be your ~style~

I hope this helps you!