Practical Inkscape for Comic Artists: The Right-Handed Illustration Keyboard Layout
Inkscape’s support for alternate keyboard layouts, while still pretty rough, can be used to the comic creator’s advantage. Customizing a keyboard layout to put the most often used commands underneath one hand means less time spent hunting for the right key to push to perform the command that’s needed. It can also mean eliminating the need for extra keys to be held down to perform the action. If you’re skilled at editing XML files, and want a layout optimized for comic artists, illustrators, and other users whose primary purpose is to draw using a tablet, you can create your keyboard layout…or you can use the right-handed-illustration.xml file that comes with every copy of Inkscape. The goal of this layout is to eliminate, as much as possible, the use of the menus and toolbars within Inkscape, so that you won’t have to move your mouse pointer away from the part of the drawing you’re manipulating. Even with a tablet, this can be a costly maneuver, and will eat away at your available drawing time.
If you’ve used Blender or Toon Boom Studio, you’ve already experienced how the Right-Handed Illustration layout works, as it follows the golden rule of Blender: “One hand on the keyboard, one hand on the mouse”...or in this case, the stylus:
All other keyboard shortcuts are the same as the default keyboard layout.
If you want to give this keyboard layout a try, copy it from <inkscape dir>/share/inkscape/keys/right-handed-illustration.xml into ~/.inkscape/keys/ (for Linux and Mac OS X) or into Documents and Settings/<username>/Application Data/Inkscape/keys/ (for Windows). You can always copy default.xml back from the same keys directory if you want to switch back. Mac users will have to browse the application bundle (right-click and choose Show Package Contents). You’ll need to restart Inkscape for the changes to take effect.
So why is it better for illustration work? Here’s an example of my own workflow when drawing a cartoon character. Remember, the goal is to eliminate, as much as possible, the use of the menus or the toolbars for performing actions on the drawing. The keyboard is almost always the fastest input device if you’re performing simple, repetitive, actions.
(Since this tutorial is about the use of the keymap in my usual workflow, and not any actual drawing, you’re only going to get pictures of my hand on the keyboard.)
After creating a new document, I switch to the Calligraphy tool, show the whole page, switch to a blue color, and draw a rough version of the character. I’m not the most accurate artist with a tablet, and there are definitely areas of the drawing that I’ll either need to undo after I’ve drawn them. I’m also going to zoom in and out a bit.
Compare the different positions I need to move my hand into with the Default layout to perform these actions…
Calligraphy tool
Undo
Zoom in/out
...to the positions needed with Right-Handed Illustration keymap:
Calligraphy tool
Undo
Zoom in/out
(Zooming by tapping the stylus with the middle button held down is also an option, but since it’s a hybrid keyboard/mouse command, I won’t include it in the analysis. You can also use a mouse scroll wheel to zoom in and out, but that would require dropping the stylus or twisting your hand to use the wheel on a nearby mouse, neither of which is efficient.)
See the difference? You have to move your left hand across the keyboard much less when using Right-Handed Illustration, and you also don’t need to stretch and twist your hand and fingers quite as much. Not only does all that movement eat away at precious drawing time, it might also cause injuries to the muscles and tendons in your hand.
Next, I’m going to tight pencil my drawing. I’ll create a new layer, switch to a darker blue color, and start drawing a more detailed version of John’s head. The actions required for this step are the same as the last.
After that is inking. This step requires much more precise use of stylus and keyboard, especially when cleaning up the inked drawing. I’ll create another layer, select black as my drawing color, and start inking. This step requires a lot of zooming, panning, and undoing, just like before. Once the drawing is inked, I typically Simplify all of the lines, so that any node cleanup afterwards is manageable. While the Select All step is the same for both, Simplify is different. In default.xml:
Simplify
In right-handed-illustration.xml:
Simplify
(simplifying your drawing like requires setting the options.simplifyindividualpaths key in preferences.xml to 1)
Next, I find the parts of the inked drawing that I need to clean up in various ways. Some of this may require scaling my inked lines using the Select tool so that they touch. Some lines will need the Node tool to fix individual points, and some lines will need to the Thinned or Thickened as necessary using the Calligraphy tool to make them stand out. In default.xml:
Node tool
Select tool
Calligraphy tool
And in right-handed-illustration.xml:
Node tool
Select tool
Calligraphy tool
(You can use the Function keys to select tools as well, but I find that the distance to move to reach the Fn-keys is too far, especially if you’re trying to keep your fingers on the home keys as you are with this layout.)
One great optimization in this step is using the [Space] bar to temporarily switch between Select and the last tool you were using. I used to want to use the [Space] bar as the Pan tool (and you can in the most recent development versions of Inkscape), but I’ve found that having a fast tool switch has sped up my inking step even more so than a fast Pan tool. Pan is what the middle mouse button is for.
Finally, I’m going to paint my drawing using the Paint Bucket tool. This will require a lot of use of the Fill dialog, since I don’t have all of the colors I need set up as swatches. I’m also going to have to zoom in and fix the occasional fill errors with the Node tool. In default.xml:
Show/Hide dialogs
Zoom in/out
Node tool
And in right-handed-illustration.xml:
Show/Hide dialogs
Zoom in/out
Node tool
And the drawing is complete! You can see how much more wrist-twisting and finger-stretching is needed when you’re using the default keymap. While it may not seem like using the Right-Handed Illustration layout makes a lot of difference for a single drawing, the speed difference is huge (in my opinion) when you’re drawing a 200 page graphic novel. Try it and let me know what you think!
All Default layout photos superimposed to show hand movements
All Right-Handed Illustration layout photos superimposed to show hand movements