Build CONFIDENCE in your LINE strokes with these drawing practices

I talk about figure drawing practices you can utilize to gain a stronger confidence in your line strokes.

00:00 INTRO
01:01 Example artists with great confident and decisive strokes
02:00 Habits to avoid for this practice
03:30 Negative space drawing
05:25 Contour Drawing (Not Blind)
07:01 Loose and fast contour gestures
08:20 Bold and Decisive I
10:29 Bold and Decisive II
12:16 Bold and Decisive III
13:25 Combine all practices
14:39 Final final final


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Equipment I use:

Software I use:
Animation - TVPAINT
Animation - Adobe Flash/Animate CC, ToonBoom
Compositing - After Effects
Painting and Illustration - Photoshop
Video Editing - Premiere
3D - BLENDER

[galenpemberton]

"So I'm a really sketchy person naturally"

Note to self, don't piss off Toniko

[tuser]

Didn’t realise how little confidence I had in my linework until seeing you draw, no wonder animating takes so long when each and every line is getting redrawn over and over, thanks for this.

[jessejayjones]

I love a good line confidence practice ❤️ I used to do this kinda stuff in meetings all the time..

[purizumuart]

This immediately eased up the pressure when drawing!

[dj__alien]

This video helped me TREMENDOUSLY! I sometimes struggle with overthinking everything when I draw, but the idea of quickly getting line to paper and defining a character with as few lines as possible has helped me a lot. Thank you so much! 😁👍

[SwordTune]

It's not that I lack confidence in my lines, my lines just lack any semblance of the direction I want them to be.

[khunagueroagnis]

My friends always told me I had confidence in my line strokes, now i know what it means, a compliment! And thanks for the video!

[OkamiSam]

love this tutorials, going straight to the point, no long intros, not introducing themselves and their whole story, no referencing other tutorials or selling you their course that will magically give you what you need in a try to appeal to your fears and doubts. Just keeping things simples and with effective excercises

[othmaneanimation]

I find that the roughs should be very rough, to get down the sense of motion and the character's weight, and to explore what it is I'm trying to convey to the viewer (whether it's a scene or a looping short). My secret weapon is Lazy Nezumi - nothing compares to it. I've compared it to the stabilizer in Toon Boom Harmony and Storyboard Pro and I've compared it to the one in TVPaint and Photoshop - they don't hold a candle to it. Plus, you can use the tool to quickly make bezier lines, ellipses or lines and perspective.

[Alesauria]

Something that helped me to build confidence in my strokes was drawing with a pen, and never with pencil, get used to not erasing, with practice you'll see how much good it could do

[kikolektrique]

This really helps me a lot! I’ve just got into drawing and I’ve been doing it for about a 100 days. So far I’ve only been using repetitive lines to make one line, but I should just use one line instead. So thank you!

[aslightlyconcernedcranium]

This guide is incredibly helpful! It really points the 'just draw' to the right direction.

[Luka.shrekie]

I never thought about negative space as an approach with the gesture training, that was pretty insightful (I mean the entire vid was helpful!). Thank you!

[bluemonkeyheads]

it’s been difficult for me figure out the best way to improve my line stroke confidence beyond doing repeatedly drawing a bunch of lines and using a sharpie. thank you so much for this!! these are great suggestions i’ll definitely try them out

[gostowl]

Thanks for these exercises. They’re good basic techniques but used in helpful ways. These are great for shifting to an animation mindset that other lessons don’t provide.

[smoage]

I appreciate this! In a previous video of yours I found when I went to looking for ways to improve my drawing speed, you made an offhand comment to the effect of, "if you draw really sketchy it's because you're not confident, stop that." Which was frustrating because I was trying to find ways to unlearn old ingrained practices. This is great because you're giving ways to do just that. It's really easy to develop bad habits with drawing that stick for a long time, these little tips to improve give context and tools to push out of those habits. Honestly it means a lot to me that you revisited this topic and makes me want to revisit your videos. Thank you!

[El_Rosita_Fungoso]

Curiously I was thinking about decision with my lines, inspired by Normand Lemay, Moderndayjames, Tristan Yuvienco, Grace Liu, Kenna Jean, because really I want confidence and clarity in my sketches how they do, and BAM, this video appeared like you first video about how to draw faster when I was more stuck in that subject, you're the best :')

[Luna-Fox]

0 dislikes??? It's been so long since I've seen a video without any, and honestly I hope it stays that way.

[Vendisok]

All of these are great, best one imo is the Bold and Decisive exercise that has you counting the number of lines, specially without erasing those lines and living with them.

[poego]

To be honest, best thing for getting good with line confidence is to use nib pens with dip ink. You basically have to think hard before you begin because as soon as you dip the pen, there's a timer before it starts to dry on the nib. So you go into the drawing with a plan, and you draw quickly and decisively. It FORCES you to make quick decisions and to go with what occurs and not sweat the small choices as much as keeping the final goal in mind.

In general, putting down the digital pen or analogue pencil and going with pen makes for a very natural way of getting decisive with lines since there's no erasing, so just going loose isn't a possibility really. You have to THINK about it before hand, which is the key to drawing confidently, rather than simply putting random lines down and hoping for the best one to magically appear in that area.