The Rules of "Ligne Claire"?

Hi,

I draw a lot, and I was wondering if anybody knew if there is a book or guide which contains the "rules" of the ligne claire style?

Hello cuthbert - I believe there is a book that contains a lot of what there is to learn concerning ligne claire... it's called The Calculus Affair!

Thanks tybaltstone.

Calculus Affair is indeed a very good example, because it contains different kinds of landscapes and characters. I was just wondering if there wasn't a book with more information about the techniques Herge, Jacobs, de Moor and more recent artists use(d).

Or maybe a book about how the studio used to divide the work?

[Combined two consecutive posts - Moderator]

Well there are a couple of Tintin-themed "how to" books, under the banner, L'atelier de la bande dessinée avec Hergé, available in French.
If you follow this link you will find the first volume J'apprends à dessiner les personnages, and the second, J'apprends à raconter une histoire is linked from that page.

Don't really know if that's what you are after; there are other books about B.D. drawing in the "what other users bought" section on Amazon.fr - perhaps there might be something there for you?

It is really a European/ Francophone tradition, so that is probably the best place to start...

The best book I could think of for learning how to work in the ligne claire style would be Comment naît une bande dessinée? - par-dessus l'épaule d'Hergé by Philippe Goddin.
Unfortunately now out of print, this book seems to cover the working method of Hergé, and has plenty of illustrations (I think Flight 714 is used as an example throughout the book). A little more information about it : Tournai - Casterman - 1991 - 47 pages - 285 x 150 mm - Cartonné

It goes into more depth than Le Musée Imaginaire(which also looked at some of Hergé's procedures), being devoted entirely to the subject, and features such things as rough sketches, inking, technical drawings (the Carreidas jet itself, cockpit etc.), cover designs, titles and more.
It looks really fascinating, and I think it probably gives the most in-depth analysis of Hergé's working method to date.

Failing that, there's a section in Hergé & Tintin, Reporters, also by M. Goddin, which chronicles the 'making of' Tintin in Tibet.

And studying the original artwork, for example in the Chronologies series, or Hergé Dessinateur / 60 Years of Adventure would probably be very informative, being able to see the state of artwork with regard to gouache retouching, lettering etc.

Thanks Richard, I got my hands on a second-hand version of, Comment naît une bande dessinée? , and it's great! Thanks for the tip!

I've been using the style off and on, much like my father did in Tennessee--he was the one who introduced me to Tintin. The standard for "ligne claire" isn't so well-defined, but there are some things it does need:
1)equal line thickness (everything looks as though the same exact size and color Copic marker was used to draw it, and that's usually the truth!)
2)A thicker line, anywhere from using a 0.7mm pen and upward
3) Flat coloring
4) No shading and rarely, if ever, shadows
5) Most, but not all, lines are connected to other lines (this isn't always possible)
It tends to resemble a Japanese block print, if you look at some of those....

The ligne claire style takes a lot of information (shading, softer outlines, etc) and compresses it into a few very sharp lines.You can still figure out what something is supposed to be or who someone is, but without so much on the paper.
Ligne claire isn't easy to do though...I've found that where a "traditional" black and white drawing with shading can take about two to four days total (this is compressed, I may work on a drawing for only an hour a day,) a ligne claire one with full color can take twice that. My main reason is that if you make a mistake, it's VERY obvious in ligne claire, and it's difficult to hide it. Getting it right is really, really time consuming, but fun too!

Courtney