I'm really struggling with line-weight and I was wondering

>>2356092
It depends what your going for, if your painting realistically its to help guide you.
other than that usually lines represent edges and/or shadows (so I'm not really sure what you mean by no shading)

>>2356099
I was referring to weight specifically, why would an edge be thicker? Is it contrast, is it depth, is it shadow, is it to seperate major forms from the details, is it to pull the viewers focus? Is it just one of those things, or is it a combination? Do you use different types of weight for different effects or does one approach work for all artworks?

I want to be able to do a clean drawing and have it stand on its own as a complete work of art, the problem with examples with shading or colour is that filling those lines immediately pulls attention away from the linework itself and makes it less important. With proper examples of pure clean linework, it's been really difficult to figure out what exactly works.

It can represent a few things.
Commonly it's used for two in particular - the first is to indicate what's in light and what's in shadow. Darker lines in shadow, thinner lines in light. The second is to have thicker lines for closer objects and thinner lines for further away.

There are other uses too, but those are the two biggies.

>>2356112
Without proper examples of pure clean linework*

File: DanaGibson2.jpg (224KB, 1293x857px) Image search: [Google]

224KB, 1293x857px

>>2356092
There is no formula. Really, there's very little you can read to fully grasp it. It's really a case-by-case basis thing you can only truly understand through experimentation and copying masters. In general heavy lines draw more attention than light lines, so you can use heavy lines to imply boldness or strength or hardness and vice versa.

However it's really up to you per illustration, you may want to lend hardness or 'strength' to something soft like a wedding dress for whatever reason.

Then in terms of more graphic designs, like Mucha (the artist who did the work you posted), lines get used for stuff that doesn't exist in nature, like outlines. Mucha is actually a great artist to study for understanding line weight, because he was both a master of representation and design. Hell, all of graphic design owes Mucha a HUGE debt.

This book has a number of line drawings from Mucha that you may find helpful:
http://store.doverpublications.com/0486236722.html

>>2356092
I'm in the same boat as you. There was one pic with a comic character-ish guy showing when to vary line weight but I lost it, can someone post if they have it

File: 1442097839790.jpg (417KB, 690x1048px) Image search: [Google]

417KB, 690x1048px

can't believe no ones posted this yet

File: 1451159256465.png (474KB, 1000x2700px) Image search: [Google]

474KB, 1000x2700px

or this

>>2359618

Because its trash

>>2359618
>2359707 is right. Unless you are interested in the specific field of generic comic book illustration, this is bad.

File: ingres draw.jpg (144KB, 903x974px) Image search: [Google]

144KB, 903x974px

>>2356112
>is it a combination?
yes.
you should track down some masters who were known for their linework. Most of them used some shading too, because why would't you, but Ingres (his drawings), Flaxman, Hokusai (drawings rather than prints), schiele, hockney are all good bets.

You should also remember that a lot of line weight came from the natural use of older media. If you draw with a pen nib or a brush, there will always be variance in weight - and so you need to control it.

>>2359809

How so? Obviously it's simplified for clarity, but how is it inapplicable to other fields of art?