As of right now, you should have 3 layers in your image file. The two white layers, with the sketch layer in the middle.

To start inking, the first thing you need to do is make a new layer. Name this new layer "ink" or "line art" or something to that effect. I name mine "ink". To name a layer, click on the button, then right-click on the new layer and choose "Layer Properties". This will give you a dialogue window that will let you change the name and color of your layer. Don't touch the color option for now.

Now, let me introduce you to your new friend, Pen Tool (). The Pen Tool will be used more than any other tool in this whole tutorial, so let me take a minute to help you get aquainted with it.

First off, you need to know what settings to use with it. I always use the top tool bar to adjust tool settings.

In those first three buttons, make sure you have the "paths" button toggled. That's the button in the middle. That will make it so the pen tool just makes work paths for you, and doesn't automatically make lines. This is good.

Next is a big mess of buttons. You want the first button toggled, that looks like the pen tool icon.

Now that these settings are applied, lets make our first line. It's up to you where you start in your drawing. Just because I always have, I'll be starting with Sakura's hair.

First thing to do is make a starting anchor point. Anchor points dictate the path that your lines are going to take. So, choose a starting spot, and click there. This will make your starting point.

I've seen two ways to move from here. I'll show you both, and then tell you why I don't use one of them. First, we'll talk about what I don't use.

The way some people do this is to just add more points along the line, and eventually hit all (or most) of their lines at once. This might be faster, but it doesn't look quite as nice. You wind up with knobby curves that are made up of a bunch of straight lines. I feel it's worth it to spend more time and get nice curves.

Once you have your starting point, pick a spot along the curve that you're drawing. The farther away from the starting point, the better. I start with the hair because I can usually cover a whole line in one stroke. When you chose your second point, click and hold on that spot. This will make another anchor point. When you drag the mouse, it will curve the line between the two anchor points. Just drag the mouse around until you make the curve you want, and release the mouse button.

Now that your path is created, you have to stroke it. Stroking a path is easy, but can also cause big frustration. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you check your brush settings first. To do this, choose the brush tool () from the tool bar. Then, right-click somewhere on your image. This will bring up the brush setting window.

A brush setting somewhere around 2 or 3 pixels is ideal if you like thin, non-descript lines like me. For this tutorial, I'll be using a 3 pixel brush.

Now that your brush is set, go back to the . Right-click on your image again to bring up the pen tool menu. In that menu, choose "Stroke Path", This will bring up the stroke path box.

Make sure the Tool is set to Brush, and click okay (don't use "simulate pressure"… it won't look good.) After that, right-click again and choose "Delete Path". This will give you a nice crisp line.

That's basically all there is to inking. Occasionally you'll come across a line that you can't cover all at once. You can either to it parts at a time, or try to work through with the same path. The path becomes unpredictable if you try to add a new anchor point after one with a curve in it. I recommend sticking to two-point work paths, and doing parts of a line when necessary.

Inking is one of the more involved and time-consuming steps to coloring a drawing, and can easily become frustrating. It's a fairly basic skill that only gets better with practice.

Tip: When inking a part of the drawing where the object is overlapped by another object, such as eyebrows behind hanging hair, or two crossed sword blades, sometimes it helps to draw the whole line through on a new layer above the ink layer, and then erase the part that is behind the overlapping object. This way, the line looks more like a broken single line, rather than two separate lines. Just don't forget to merge the extra layer into the ink layer when you're done.

After finishing the inking on the drawing, my Sakura looks like this.

Move on to Base Colors