Change the thickness of a line drawing after it's been done.

[CurvyArtGoddess]

Hi!
New to Artrage- Trying to change the thickness of a line drawing that is complete already. I did it all at a smaller size and would now like to make it thicker without having to re-draw it. Is there a way to select the lines and thicken them all?

Thanks!!!

[HannahRage]

The easiest way is to use the Transform tool - this is the multi-way arrow icon (or press Shift + T). Select just the line using the Selection tool - the dotted box symbol on the inside of the tool picker (or Shift + S). If you can't find them, tell us the edition of ArtRage, and we'll direct you.

If you need to scale it up quite a bit, it might start getting a little fuzzy, so you want to redraw it, but you can use your existing line as a guide (e.g. turn it into a stencil or use the Selection tool). It doesn't sound like you need to do anything complicated, but if you do need something more than a quick transform, describe what you're after and we can give you more advice ^_^

[CurvyArtGoddess]

Thank you!

[CurvyArtGoddess]

So I tried selection and it changes the size, but what I am really trying to do is change the thickness of the lines, not the overall size. I drew it with a 2pt pen and I would like to try it at 4 pt or 6 pts, so thicker, which will make it a bit bigger, but mostly thicker. I'm not sure how to accomplish that.

Thanks!



The easiest way is to use the Transform tool - this is the multi-way arrow icon (or press Shift + T). Select just the line using the Selection tool - the dotted box symbol on the inside of the tool picker (or Shift + S). If you can't find them, tell us the edition of ArtRage, and we'll direct you.

If you need to scale it up quite a bit, it might start getting a little fuzzy, so you want to redraw it, but you can use your existing line as a guide (e.g. turn it into a stencil or use the Selection tool). It doesn't sound like you need to do anything complicated, but if you do need something more than a quick transform, describe what you're after and we can give you more advice ^_^

[HannahRage]

It's going to depend on the shape of what you're editing, but you can use Transform to stretch sideways - hover over the handles on the left and right, instead of the corners. Or switch to the 'free transform' tab and skew freely ;D

[CurvyArtGoddess]

Sorry- I'm still not getting it- when I hover and drag it elongates the image. I want to make the lines thicker/bolder/wider?

[CurvyArtGoddess]

Like going from This to THIS

[markw]

Hello CurvyArtGoddess (that’s a great forum handle by the way:cool:)

Without seeing exactly what you are trying to do it’s hard to give a definitive answer but from what you have said so far my gut feeling is that you are not going to be able to do what you want to do to the existing lines. At least not without a great deal of fiddley work if at all.

It sounds to me like you are looking for the sort of control over a line that you only get in a Vector based app.
In a Vector app if you make a line/path with a pen tool or brush that mark becomes an object in itself and you can change it’s width at any time after making it simply by changing the path’s Stroke setting.
ArtRage is what is often referred to as a Raster based app so once a mark is made it inherits the properties/settings of the tool that made it at that specific point in time which can’t be adjusted after the fact. They can be distorted, as suggested by Hannah above, or even blended into other painted areas, possibly change it’s colour, erased etc… But the width of the line is/was a property of the tool that made it not a property of the line itself.

I think you may just have to bite the bullet, so to speak, and redraw the lines at the width you want on a new layer using the old drawing as a template/tracing image.

[CurvyArtGoddess]

Thank you! That is very helpful and answers some other questions I have been having.

[HannahRage]

It does sound like you might need vector, as you want to increase the line thickness in all directions but not the empty space, so it's not proprtional scaling, but just to make absolutely sure, this is what I meant before:


Drag the handles on right and left, and it will stretch the paint to be wider.

93056

[markw]

Actually one thing dose occur to me, if you have ArtRage 5, you might try and run over your lines using the Warp filter using the Easy Bulge Preset.
It has to be said this will be an inexact approach and will depend a lot on the steadiness of your hand, but it might be worth a try.
Go to Edit > Filters > Warp… > Presets > Easy Bulge.

[sueellen]

Something I have used a few times -- as long as the design is simple and the lines not very close together -- is to make a stencil from the layer contents, set the stencil to "Guide Mode" and then follow the stencil with the line of my preferred size.
93093