Just started using fine liner pens for drawing now. I'm learning the grips at the moment, does anyone have any tips or tutoirals I could know?

So as a general rule of their design fineliners should be used to do final, and precise linework. The tips of fineliners are little plastic tubes. The tips should be pressed close to perpendicular to the page. The strokes should be measured and fairly slow compared to the lighter, faster strokes of sketching; this will get you the complete, consistent, solid and ‘fine’ lines they’re designed to provide.

When you sketch with fineliners you wear out the tips faster, the friction+angle+pressure could split the tip, or otherwise damage and make your lines spotty and inconsistent and/or render them effectively useless.

using them for more mechanical illustrations will get them to last longer, however I think the best thing you can do is understand the intended use and techniques, and have those in mind, but still experiment and learn for yourself how to work them. You may like the results sketching gets you, even if it’s not the ‘intended way’ and that’s fine.

Pen & Ink Drawing by Alphonso Dunn

Oh my god I didn't know about that!

Thanks for telling me about this, I was aiming to make these pens last longer. I'll try out some techniques that'll help me with some linework.

Thanks!

Also, to add to what Jack said, you really can't be too gentle with them. They do a phenomenal job of putting out a nice amount of ink without needing to be forced or rushed. If you take your time, you'll get incredible results.

You can get some seriously incredible results with these if you have the patience for stippling. It's something I LOVED to do with mine. If you do, you're tapping too hard. No matter what, If you're new to them, you're probably tapping them too hard. I've seen people go at their paper, making audible "tap tap tap" noises like they're playing an instrument. These aren't ballpoints. You'll ruin your tips if you're not careful.

Good luck learning! Fine liners ended up being the #1 thing I used in my art when I was learning because I LOVED the way they looked.

That slow and deliberate movement described, but being carefull you dont stop standing still inbetween, while holding pressures for , or the ink will slowly seep out a little bit, resulting in little dot smudges.

Like if you happen to make a sharp straight corner, but stand still for a short bit before turning, you could get these little corner dots.

On the other hand, if you go shading, making it like half dark by tight lines next to eachother, you could do those with quick light strokes instead, as long as you can stay consistent with those.

Can make for a nice contrast between the actual line-art and lines of the shading effect. Hard to stay consistent though, kinda gotta train the strokes into muscle-memory, if you wanna go with that.

(Can look pretty cool if you can keep all of those shading lines at the same angle too)

Like Jack put it well, experiment and see what ya like.