- Like the others said, light pencil is a good way to do it, then erase after the final ink/paint/whatever dries. This is what I usually do for my watercolors.

- Like the others said, light pencil is a good way to do it, then erase after the final ink/paint/whatever dries. This is what I usually do for my watercolors. I'll take about a 60% of the pencil sketch off with a polymer eraser before putting down paint, and clean off the rest when it dries. - Another trick is to use a light blue colored pencil (there are specific non-photo blue pencils for this) for all the structural lines. When you scan or photograph the drawing, use processing software to dump the blue channel when you convert to black and white. - Use a lightbox to trace the finished drawing. This is a nice way to work because you can keep the original draft and experiment with it and iterate on it. - If you're drawing digitally, use a different layer for each step. Similar to the above. - Use carbon paper to transfer the drawing, only going over the lines you want to keep. Just make sure it isn't waxed. I used to use my college newspaper for this.