#my honest opinion...the most important thing is maintaining enough energy to finish. therefore sometimes you must do some weird stuff

[malenjoyer]

Hello! I hope this doesn’t sound weird, but I just wanted to tell you about how your style has inspired me so much!! Probably an ask you’ve gotten a lot, but I just have to know; how do you go at line work? It looks so good when you do it. Like, you’ve perfected where to leave gaps, what should be thick and thin, what should be subtle shading, etc. I’m so jealous! Do you have any suggestions on how to improve in this area? I’d love some insight!!

Thank you! That's very unexpected to hear but also kind of nice! :D That's the first time anyone has said that to me.

For line weight, Mark Morales covers it very well here

Aside from using line weight to show light source, you can also use it to emphasize stuff, which is what I like doing. I think it's essentially the same logic though- I just bend the rules often to make it work the way I want it to. Lots of trial and error and fixing stuff.

As for the gaps, I don't really know how to explain it without sounding a little weird. I think it's just something I developed as a habit where areas where you're supposed to connect with thin lines, I just don't finish it. Most of the time I don't finish my lines, because I don't need to. I live and embrace the karma of not connected line art when I color it.

I think my style boils down to How do I draw good with the least amount of work which sounds questionable, but the less I focus on whether each individual line connects or looks good, the more stamina I have for the rest of the drawing.

If you've got this hamster, you're like 60% of the way there.

Real answer: probably try doing gesture drawings with the least amount of lines possible with 2 minute timer to simulate what happens in my brain when I do line art. you can try to apply the line weight stuff and think okay where would I apply thickness to show shadow or emphasize curves