Radial Speedlines
Radial speedlines are often used to highlight a particularly dramatic moment, although you can also use this technique to suggest movement towards or away from the ‘camera’. They can be created in much the same way as we made our linear speedlines, the key difference being we use a circular path instead of a straight one.
1) Here’s my starting image, of my character Ray calling out a bad guy. Set up your masks and groups like before.
Note: You can use larger images for this than you could with the linear speedlines. However, as there is a limit to the brush spacing allowed, using too large an image can lead to unnaturally regular speedlines.
2) Grab the circle tool, set to path rather than shape. Hold option and shift then click on the focal point of your image and drag outwards to make a perfect circle. This circle will run through the centre of each of the speedline strokes, so make it nice and big or they’ll protrude too far into your image.
3) Now all you need to do is stroke the path as before, and you’re done! Usually there’ll be fewer lines in this kind of image.
There are plenty of ways to modify this technique. You can double up layers to make some lines bolder, use the eraser to get rid of awkward looking lines, and adjust the presets on the fly to tailor your speedlines to your image. You can even try adding some in white, or creating your own hand drawn brushes instead of the vector triangles. Experimentation is the key and there are lots of different effects that you can create with this technique.
Good luck!
It doesnt seem to work right for me, I click path, make it then try to make the speedlines and it just stays the same angle, 0. Maybe because I have the wiindows version hmm
Make sure the ‘Angle jitter’ of the brush is set to ‘direction’. I’m not sure what version of photoshop they put that option in but you’ll need it for the brush to work correctly.
If I do that then they point every which way with no regard to the path I chose. They go left right, everywhere, and I have a very steady hand, especially when dragging down. I have CS3. The brush itself works fine, perfect motion lines but the direction is wonky.
If you use a directional one, you need to actually use the path tool and ‘stroke’ it. The easiest way is to select the path, then select the brush tool and hit enter. Even if you have a steady hand, it’s going to jitter about if you try to do it by hand. Also, make sure that while the brush is set to direction, the slider is set to zero.
awe shoot, I didnt see the stroke path instructions, perhaps you should bold it or something, it seems to be easy to miss. Here I was trying to do it by hand. Silly me.
I was going over it again and suddenly I noticed it said stroke path, not brush path. Thanks for the quick reply. I was going to delete and say I figured it out but you beat me to it.
You’re welcome. Hope you have fun with it!
oh yes, this is exactly what I need, I’m going to link to your tutorial in my webcomic on the next html update. http://www.drunkduck.com/Insanity_of_Xade if you want to take a look :)
hi im a big fan of ur drawings, i have one of ur books, how to draw more manga and i am slowly learning how to draw like that. i hope u come out with new books!
Where is the circle tool? I’m not finding any. I really want to do the radial speedline but I’m having trouble finding the circle tool and trying to change that into path mode. Please help.
The circle, line, rectangle, and rounded rectangle tools are all under the same button. Either click and hold that to bring them all up so you can select the one you want, or hold shift and press U until it comes up.