When Messy Sketches beat Clean Linework

You’ve done it! You’ve made the perfect sketch! Time to turn it into something nice to share online. You start playing with colors, shading things in, and then you add in clean linework and… what? Why does the sketch look better than the clean version?

Kanjon here! Today we’ll talk about how to channel the messy energy of sketches into something that looks great in finished pieces. If you’ve found this on your recommendations, check out my channel and I’ll convince you to learn to draw!

How do we make finished artwork look less stiff? Let’s think about it. When you’re sketching, you’re often drawing lines multiple times, “feeling out” what looks nice. Those sketchy lines let your brain pick the path that looks best, and also give your drawings a little bit of weight. But when you turn that into clean linework, particularly when working digitally, a few things tend to happen: First, you’re often zoomed in, and even with nice smooth lines on the screen, this process erases some of the subtle microscopic motions that helped keep your drawing looking alive. Connected to that, the line weight or size often gets lost very easily for the same reasons, and you end up with really plain looking edges. Both of these things you might subconsciously try to “clean up” as you work and it can quickly erase the original feeling in your sketch.

Second, there’s something called “level of detail” that can take a lot of work to master, and it’s hard to practice by itself. You’ve probably noticed this before when an artist gets it wrong: maybe the background draws your focus away from the characters. It’s like the focus on a camera! Sometimes stuff like that is intentional. But often there’s too much detail where there shouldn’t be and this, yep, applies to linework. If you carefully line and make clean edges, you’ve accidentally added in detail. If the rest of your drawing isn’t at that level of detail or more, it starts to look off.

Also: line color. No shame here, we’ve all done it but… stop using solid black for line-work, unless you have a very specific reason for it. Try colors that are only slightly different from your characters, or react to the lighting. Even something just a little bit off-black helps. Maybe even vary it through your drawing!

So yeah. Turns out linework’s pretty hard. You can of course practice that, and it can look super cool when done well. But if you’re struggling with it or just don’t want to make clean linework, bring that sketch layer up top and use that! You can clean it up a little if you want still. This tip often has a lot of artists nodding knowingly, and then a lot who are appalled at the very thought of leaving a messy sketch on top. If this shocks you, start zooming in on some art you come across. Fairly often you’ll think it’s clean linework, but when you zoom in: it’s a sketch!

Art’s one of those things where reaching perfection is impossible, so don’t worry about trying for that with your linework. Let your art feel alive and have your own motions in it. If you want to strive for cool clean linework, that’s awesome! But never feel like you’re a fraud if you don’t feel like doing it every time. We’re all imposters a little bit. Go make a mess and create some sketchy art!