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DarlingMionette — SAI Tutorial - Lineart
Published: 2010-04-23 16:50:06 +0000 UTC; Views: 116934; Favourites: 2336; Downloads: 1823
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Description
A quick tutorial for PaintTool SAI, explaining the various line-art tools and how to use them
Needed: Paint Tool SAI. Tablet is optional, as you'll only need it for the Pen tool.
You can get Paint Tool SAI here: [link]
There's a free 30 day Trial, or you can buy it. An English version is available
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NOTE: You can now download "DarlingMionette's SAI Resources" here:
[link]
It is a .zip file of all my brush settings, textures, blank do-it-yourself resources, instructions for creating custom content, and associated start-sai.exe file that lets you register these files to your SAI without editing the .conf files manually :3 All in one convenient place. All of my current brush settings have been updated to match the files in the .zip file, and contain image examples for each. Be sure to read the README's! If you like it, then drop me a +fav on this deviation
. Thanks!
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Comments: 493
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hehe <3 sai's lineart tools are awesome . haha it's why i started using the program, and will never go back!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I shall agree with you on that
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There is a free version of SAI for if you can't afford to buy it
It takes a little bit of common sense to figure out the downloading though, because it's not as simple as buying it. Cause basically, it's a different version and takes a bit of 'manual' downloading. There aren't really any instructions. But it is legal!
There are plenty of tutorials on Youtube though.
Or, here's the direct link, but I recommend a tutorial, or you could make a mistake.
[link]
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
yes i already knew about it ^^ i have it linked from my sai brushes tutorial ^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh this is incredibly helpful! excellent job!!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you for the tutorial! It was very helpful.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
XD you'd be surprised how many people don't know its there!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
yes, my copy is, but you can download a 31 day free trial ^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Augh, I'm working on Photoshop Elements 2 (like, from the 90's?) and I wish I had a tool like this. I use a black brush to darken all of my lineart and it takes HOURS of tracing over lines and erasing. I wish I had something like this...
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
it's actually super easy to get XD and there's a 31 day trial, you could test it out
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I have a really old computer, so trials almost never work for me, but I'll check it out. Thanks!
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I believe that this toot pretty much answered all my questions.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
well good
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Hey! I'm really sorry to bother you, but I came back looking for this tutorial, since it was such a good one, but when I was about to try it out, I noticed that I don't have any of the lineart tools? 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
don't panic XD create a new layer - but make sure it's a LINEART LAYER. There are actually two types of layers
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Oh this is so helpful, I've been struggling with lineart in SAI. Thank youu <3
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thanks for this~ I've actually owned SAI for over a year, but never really used it! I heard that the lines were cleaner than Photoshop, but I never could get them to look better than I did in openCanvas, so SAI just sat untouched on my computer, which is sad, since it's licensed and nice :c. But this tutorial has got me playing with it and seeing it in a new light 8D!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is very helpful, thank you so much.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
really good tutorial. and what if i dont have Pen Tool ?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
everyone has one, just create a new lineart layer (not a normal layer it's a separate button) it'll give you the set of lineart tools that has the pen tool in it
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
oh ye... found it few hours ago xD thx for ur tutorials!))
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
XD i'm glad you found it helpful
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is a very good tutorial, however I'm having trouble getting the pen tool to be a clean and crisp as how your "The Pen Tool" lines look. When I stroke the pen tool or line tool it comes out kind of blurry like in Photoshop. Any advice on fixing this?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
1. check the nib.. it's at it's best when you use the square flat nib (fourth one)
2. check the edge hardness.. this should crisp it up a bit ^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
1. Nib is on the square. Yes ^^
2. However the Edge Harness feature is for some reason "unclickable." I can't access it for some reason. Picture 6 in your tutorial is a good example of what I mean.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
check to see what default brush your pen is made out of - it -should- be a pencil type, if not you can make a new brush that'll work better for inking ^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hmm, could it be cause I'm using a mouse that its not working? That the lines are coming out differently? Maybe some visual could help both of us here:
Basically this is how it looks on my end: [link] Same look it has for photoshop brushes. Since the tutorial said to use the lineart layer for lineart, I've tried to use the regular pen tool as you see there. However that is the result, unlike yours with it having the same settings. Am I missing something?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
you're zoomed in at 150% XD that may be part of the problem. zoom out to 100 and see if it makes a difference ^^ but yes, if we're talking an actual pen brush with a mouse, that could be the cause of it. I recently formatted my computer over the weekend and today when i loaded SAI (without my wacom drivers) it too case out looking similar to what you've shown me. as soon as my pen tablet drivers were loaded, I was back to making clean lines again 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Dx Oi.. Looks like I'm gonna have to stick with Illustrator again until I can actually pick up a tablet. Oh well.
Thanks for your patience.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
aww the curves/lines tools arent bad - i do 99% of my inking with them using my mouse XD. i rarely use the freehand tool for inking itself. you should try it
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
^_^ Oh don't worry I have tried it, and its pretty nice and very accurate if used right. I'm debating since I want my lines to look as clean as possible.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you so very, VERY much for this. You explained it perfectly. I just finished line-arting something using this tutorial and it was the fastest and easiest I've ever done line-art on the computer.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
yay! i'm so glad it has proven helpful
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is THE most awesome tutorial I've read for SAI so far. Excellent job!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Wwwwow! Thank you for telling me about the lineart layer and the extra set of tools it comes with. I was wigging out for a while because I was unable to do perfectly straight lines on Sai, but now I know Line and Curve tools are at my disposal.
Thaaaaaannnnnk yoooooouuuuuuu! <333
(I'm normally not this crazy, but you deserve it.)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
XD i'm glad it proved helpful
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I really love your colour pallet!! Did you choose them all yourself, or find them somewhere?
Also, this is super helpful!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
XD lol I chose them, I was working on a commission at the time and those were my skin palette's XD
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You should maybe think about maybe putting out the pallete if you want x':
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Incredibly helpful. ^^ thank you.
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this is very helpful. but I have a few problems, when I save my file as .sai, it wont save the layers, and I'm unsure why, but it saves the layers when I save it as .psd; also I don't have half of those tools mentioned :/
but this will be very very helpful for the future. ^^
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