Inking Tool

The Inking tool helps you draw controlled, smooth curved lines. You can use it for making sharp ink-like strokes over the top of pencil sketch layers. It also works as a way of gaining some fine control of your painting strokes.

smooth Strokes than can be modified

Capturing strokes

To use your current brush with extra inking guidance, click on the Inking Tool icon in the toolbar. This tool works best with brush settings that emulate an ink pen. A brush whose width responds to your stylus pressure is ideal.

[[v1.2-Inking-Tool-00-toolbar-icon.png]]

Then draw a stroke as normal. You’ll see control points follow your stroke on the screen. When you finish, buttons for accepting or rejecting the stroke will appear on the screen.

[[v1.2-Inking-Tool-02-captured-stroke.png]]

The Inking tool is sensitive to your pen pressure and tilt, just like Freehand. You can also adjust the level of detail that’s captured by zooming in and out before starting the stroke. If you want a simpler stroke (fewer control points), zoom out first.

Refining strokes

Once you’ve drawn the initial shape of the stroke, you can adjust its shape by moving the control points.

Editing the position of a node requires the stroke to be redrawn, so you will see some flickering. This is normal.

Detailed refinement

You can adjust the amount of pressure or tilt, or the length of time spent at a control point by selecting it onscreen, then adjusting the sliders in the Tool Options panel.

[[v1.2-Inking-Tool-03-tool-options.png]]

While the stroke has its control points visible, you can change colour or brush. This allows you to try out different effects and settings.

Finishing up

Clicking the accept button or starting a new stroke tells MyPaint that you’re happy with how it looks.

[[v1.2-Inking-Tool-03-refined-stroke.png]]

MyPaint converts your stroke to pixels immediately. It does not store vector information for Inking tool strokes.

[[v1.2-Inking-Tool-04-final.png]]