Clearly defining depth in your pencils

Whether communicating with an inker or just to keep track of them for yourself, having clearly defined foreground mid ground and back ground elements is a must for bringing your work to life, and of course communicating depth and space to your readers.  This is something that is very easy to overlook as the trend these days is to simply pack as much detail in to your panels and possible.  While this can work some of the time.  It's a bad idea to do all of your work this way.  You work a great deal harder and actually flatten out your drawings.  When it comes to detail, you have to know when to just 'leave it out'. The first person I saw who really relayed this idea to me effectively was Alvin Lee.  His work is so clean and economical in terms of line and detail that it's staggeringly beautiful to me.  I find it's harder to achieve than work that really has it all packed in there as it is easy to cover up fundamental errors with detail.  It's something I strive to master.  Really good manga artists are great at this type of work as well.  Always think level of detail, backgrounds have little, mid-grounds some, and foregrounds have tons. One simple, fairly mechanical, trick that has helped me though is the use of three different leads.  I use 2h, 4h and 6h Tombow mono's respectively for foreground, midground, and backgrounds.  Even though it's a bit of a hassle to use three leads, I find that it allows me to draw each area in my natural style, with little or no alteration in physical technique.  This allows more natural and flowing strokes in all areas of my work, and doesn't stifle my hand from trying to draw lightly or more heavily in various areas.  The reason I use Tombow's is also important.  All of their leads are virtually smudge-free and erase very clean which is great for peace of mind,  They are a bit pricey but well worth it.  I use regular pencils but I believe you can get mono lead for holders as well.  I use soft lead for sketching, layouts, or to work fast, but always finish my work in harder lead because soft lead blunts way too fast, and to strike clean lines with them you have to exert enough pressure to actually 'etch' the paper or board, which makes clean erasures impossible, so naturally I recommend getting used to harder leads for finished work.  If you really focus on seeing the depth in what your drawing and 'organize' the spaces within accordingly you will find that you pages instantly become more three dimensional and communicate so much more with your audience.  Best Wishes!

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