Best way to make even, long creases or grooves?

Question

Hi, I've been following the course and everything's been going well, until I tried to make the tail groove shown in the reference picture. I've tried multiple approaches and all of them cause the groove to either be lumpy (like in the picture) or uncontrollable and hard to make follow the tail fin along the edge.

Is there a trick to making these kinds of long creases even? It's really hard to keep a consistent thickness when you have to crease 5-10 times to get the full length of it.

Thanks!

Answer 1 · 2021-08-25T14:06:14Z

Kent Trammell replied August 25, 2021 2:06pm

This is a great question. I recommend 2 approaches:

Stabilize Stroke checkbox: This checkbox used to be called "smooth stroke" in the stroke menu (as recorded in this course). You can think of it like a rope is tied from your mouse cursor to the brush. This effectively smooths your stroke, eliminating by-hand jitters. The longer the rope the smoother the stroke but also the more dissimilar from your mouse movement.
Curve Stroke Method: Taking your time to define a perfect path for you stroke is worth it in situations like this. See the demonstration of this tool here.

Answer 2 · 2021-08-26T01:44:38Z

replied August 26, 2021 1:44am

Thanks for the advice! Curve Stroke combined with constant detail did just what I needed.