PART I: YOUR FACE
Step 06: Freehand Inking	open online photoshop Back to homepage

This step will finish off our line work by filling in the smaller lines. Let's get started by making sure we have the right brush settings.

1. Make sure your Face05 file is open in ToolPic
2. Activate the Brush Tool (this works best for freehand inking because the lines we are going to make are pretty short)...
   
3. The Brush size should be set to the same size you used when creating your Shapes in the last step...
   
   Remember that I set mine to 4, but your size may be different

We finally get to use our Freehand layer. Note that because our Freehand layer is sitting on top of our layer stack that whatever we draw on it will appear to hover over everything on the lower layers.

4. Lock the Cartoon layer so that we can be certain we do not make any changes to it in this step - all layers should now be locked...
   
5. Click the Freehand layer to make it the active layer - it should be highlighted in gray...
   
6. Unlock the Freehand layer...
   

Now we can begin drawing. Unlike a paint brush in real life, here you have the option to undo (by using Ctrl+Z) and remove the lines you draw. It might be helpful for you to keep one hand over the undo keys when drawing. If you're new to drawing with ToolPic, keep in mind that using a mouse to draw won't come naturally the first time you try it. Like any tool, it may take some practice to get used to it.

Let's add the smaller lines to your face one piece at a time. Don't draw slowly or try to follow every single line exactly (your face will look very squiggly as though you were trying to draw it while riding a bike down a hill covered with rocks). Instead use short, quick strokes. How many lines you add is up to you, but don't over do it as the lines will begin to merge together. We want a general outline of your face, not a line for every single tiny thing.

As you work, be sure that you are drawing only on the Freehand layer. You should zoom in pretty far to ensure that your work follows the lines of your picture.

7. If your ears are visible, draw in the small lines that make the creases (folds in the skin on your ears), so that you go from something similar to this...
   
   to something similar to this...
   
   If you can't see your ears, just skip to the next direction
8. Draw in the lines necessary to complete your eyes...
   
   Don't go overboard as too many lines in the eyes will make it hard to see the color you will add in the next step

For my eyes, I put lines around the iris (the colored part of the eye) and the pupil (the dark center of the eye) as well as small lines between his eyeballs and his eyebrow to represent the crease he has there. What lines you add are up to you, just be sure not to go overboard.

9. Draw in any lines you wish to include on your nose - for my image, I added in a small curve to represent the little bump on the end of his nose...
   
   Feel free to add more lines to your nose if you wish (if you can see your nostrils, you can add black dots to represent them)
10. Draw in any lines you wish to include to complete your mouth - for my image, I added in some teeth lines...
    
11. Add in any lines you wish to give contour to your cheeks...
    
    I added two small curves on the cheeks and two tiny lines at the corners of the mouth, but feel free to add in more lines if you wish
12. Add in any additional lines that you wish (forehead, chin, eyelashes, etc.), just be sure the lines you add to your image are not a distraction - for example, if I were to add in eyelashes they would not look very good since my guy has very small lashes...
    
    So for me it actually looks better if I leave them out, but if they will work on your cartoon then certainly add them in
13. Decide if you want lines in your hair - if you do add them in now (obviously you don't have to add in lines in your hair, but you can if you wish - just make sure you do not over do it as too many lines look bad); for my image, he actually looks better with no lines in his hair, so I'm going to leave the hair blank

Be careful not to go crazy with your lines. If you add in too many it will look ridiculous. Take a look at the image below...

See...ridiculous...

You want just enough lines to give your face some nice contour so that you have a nice, complete face at this point.

When complete, you should have something similar to the image below...

Of course, your image will be different, but it should be as simple as the image above. If you have too many lines, the image will be overly complicated. What we want is a clean, simple image.

14. Lock the Freehand layer

We need to take some time now to make sure that our lines all match and that there are no gaps, which will cause problems when we try to add color in the next step.

15. Make the Cartoon layer the active layer - make extra sure you are drawing on the Cartoon layer
16. Unlock the Cartoon layer
17. Select a point on your head (such as the very top of your head or the very bottom of your chin) and zoom in on your line - you want to zoom in pretty far so that you get a good view of your line...
    
18. Select the Hand Tool...
    
    This will allow you to reposition your image on the screen without actually moving your line around on your layer
19. Click and drag on your face to reposition it on the screen and follow your lines and look for any malformations (if you don't know what malformation means, go to dictionary.com and look it up), for example you may notice a gap...
    
    or a spot where the lines do not match up well...
    
    If you find any problems, continue with the next direction, if you don't notice any problems after going over all of your lines then skip to the text after direction 21
20. To fill a gap, simply select the Brush Tool and draw to fill in the gap...
    
21. To fix lines with ends that do not match, select the Eraser Tool...
    
    and remove the overlap portion of the line...
    
    then use the Brush Tool to draw to fill in the gap...
    

Don't be too worried if your outline is not perfect. You will eventually (in Step 19) reduce your face to a much smaller size so you will not notice most imperfections. For example, you may notice that both of my corrections above are not absolutely perfect lines, they each have a slight bend to them. Notice also that I'm not freaking out about it because once my face is shrunk down those small deviations will not be noticeable. Remember that you are creating a cartoon version of yourself and thus it will not be a perfect duplicate of your actual face. This is good and what we want.

At this point your inking should be done. Don't worry if your outline does not look as good as mine - it shouldn't if this is your first time working with ToolPic. That's OK - the more you work with the program the better your work will become. The only way to improve is to practice.

22. Click File then click Save as PSD
23. Name the file Face06