Tutorial for Inking in Illustrator

Adjust your brush size and stroke pattern to achieve different effects while inking in Illustrator.

Adobe Illustrator offers several stroke styles and brush sizes to ink a drawing. You can use the same techniques shown with the Pencil Tool as with the Paintbrush Tool. Adobe Illustrator CS5 includes a Variable Width Stroke Tool that lets you change the width of a stroke that can be thicker or thinner across curves. With this new tool, create a line with the Pen tool first, then adjust the line as needed by clicking on the Width Points along the line to change its width as needed.

Instructions

Inking in Illustrator

1. Open Illustrator and create a new print document. Click the "File" menu and select "Place." Locate your sketch in the navigation window and click "Template." Click "OK." The sketch is placed in the middle of the document at 50 percent opacity in a locked layer.

2. Click the "Rectangle Tool" in the Toolbox. Click the "None" Icon beneath the Fill Color box to make the rectangle transparent. Then drag the tool so it is completely over the sketch.

3. Zoom into the sketch using the "Zoom" settings at the bottom of the window.

4. Click the "Paintbrush" tool. In the Options bar, select a "1 pt" brush, "Basic" Stroke, with an Opacity of "100%."

5. Begin drawing over the lines of your sketch. Note that when you release the mouse button, any jagged bumps in the line are immediately smoothed out.

6. Select the "Charcoal" Stroke from the Options bar to create more ragged ink strokes -- looking as if they were drawn with charcoal instead of a pen.

7. Draw very fine lines by reducing the brush size to as small as "0.25 pt" in the Options bar.

8. Cover large areas by using a larger brush stroke, such as "3 pt" and selecting a "Tapered Stroke" in the Options bar. This is very useful when creating shadows, as in a comic book, while maintaining the inking effect of a brush, rather than just filling an area with color, especially if you leave small gaps between brush strokes.

CS5 Variable Width Stroke Tool

1. Set up your sketch in Illustrator CS5 and create a transparent layer above it as described in the previous section. Zoom into the document so it fills the screen.

2. Click the "Pen Tool" and trace over a straight line in the sketch.

3. Select the "Variable Width Stroke Tool." Place the tool over the line until you see a "Width Point." This is a dot on the middle portion of the line. Click on the dot and drag it with the mouse in any direction. The width of the line transforms, larger or smaller depending on your needs.

4. Draw a curved line with the Pen Tool. Select the "Variable Width Stroke Tool" and hover the tool over the line. Note there is a Width Point wherever the line curves. Drag the tool over the Width point to change the width of the line at that point.

References

• DaniDraws; The Complete Digital Comic, Part 2: Inking in Illustrator; August 2007
• VectorTuts+; Illustrator CS5 Variable Width Stroke Tool: Gestural Sketches and Digital Inking; William Beachy; March 2011
• VectorTuts+; Illustrator CS5 Variable Width Stroke Tool: Perfect for Making Tribal Designs; William Beachy; February 2011