Hey look at this! It’s a smooooooth line. But how do you do that when drawing?
Yet another common rebuttal to learning art is complaining that you don’t have a steady hand for it. Which means one of two things: First, there are folks that have an actual hand tremor which can make things more difficult, but we’ll get to that later. Mostly, it’s from people that think that drawing is like writing, and they don’t realize that it’s possible to change how you move your arm!
Especially as a beginner, it’s easy to fall into a habit of drawing by moving your hand, or your wrist. And some folks have done this forever and still are great artists! But if you want the fast track to making those nice clean marks, you need to consciously change how you draw a line — every line. I’ll stick some resources in the description for this. But the short story is that if you focus on moving your arm at your shoulder, you can build up muscle memory that will help you make consistent lines every time. But you have to be proactive about it, because you’ll naturally want to fall back on moving your arm at your wrist and elbow. This is one of those big secrets that should be more common knowledge, because most people don’t even think about this when starting out.
Next, some of you may have a tremor that makes your hand naturally shake. That’s OK! Because digital art is here to save the day with stabilizers. Almost every drawing app has a built-in smoothing function that you can activate and tune to help you make those smooth marks. Procreate, a drawing app for iPad, has loads of settings specifically tailored for this. And if you’re drawing on a PC, Lazy Nezumi is a great stabilization tool that can work on any app, too. I actually recommend that everyone try out a stabilizer to get a feel for how it can help you in your art.
Finally, as you get more confident in your drawing, you’ll naturally have smoother lines. Drawing lines more quickly and confidently can actually be beneficial, instead of trying to slowly and carefully move your hand across the page. You don’t need a special kind of arm to draw. You just need practice, and to re-think how you use what you have. Get doodling, and I’ll see you again soon!
Resources#
| Production Info | |
|---|---|
| Music | Simon Jomphe Lepine - Water View |
| VRChat World | Midnight Rooftop by ImLeXz |
| VRChat Avatar | Freakhound by Ghost Cabbit |