Let me tell you a bit of the why.īlue pencils were used by people in the design industry as well as the animation industry because it was a tone that was visible to our eyes on roughs, but when scanned in with corrections, was not visible by the scanner and so would make copies that didn’t have the ‘editing lines’ on it. It’s like the classic artist move - do an undersketch with blue and the real sketch will look 10x better by default! Whenever someone sees me draw with a blue pencil, they kind of go ‘hmmm ahhhh’ - as if it’s an understood thing that illustrators who are professional all use a blue. Have you ever seen … and then wondered why… people in the animation industry, and illustration industry in general use blue pencils? Simple! I explain it all in the video above, but I think it’s kind of interesting. However, a license must be purchased for continued use (for releases prior to Maya 2023).įor installation instructions see the Online Documentation.Why is everyone drawing with blue lines?! IS IT A PENCIL CRAYON? IS IT A PLANE? Is it magic?! Is that why everything they draws looks so good? If you draw with it then your stuff should look just as good, right? RIGHT?! Bear with me as I unravel the mystery of the blue pencil for you.

**īlue Pencil 2 may be downloaded and evaluated for free (with some limitations). A license is not required for these releases.

** Starting with Maya 2023, Blue Pencil is part of the official Maya installation (replacing the Grease Pencil tools).

Pencil animation drawing