How Do They Do That?

[PeppeRaskell1]

Okay, I'm watching a few eps of Chobits, and I'm wondering how about how they create the effect of a character that looks like his/her outline has been drawn with a very thick black line. (Wish I had a screengrab to show you, so you can all understand my question a little better, but I also saw the same kind of character look in the Azumanga Daioh! anime.)

Does this little effect have a name? I want to try it when drawing my own characters.

[Duke]

I think they either use a thicker brush or just outline the whole thing in a thick stroke.

[Karl Olson]

The sketch art is almost almost always inked and painted in the computer these days, and likely vectored at that. Thus, they can just pick a different line width in the computer for the outside outline. Additionally, they could use a modified outline/glow effect or any number of tricks. In older series, yeah, they had to actively ink it thicker by hand, but these days it's pretty much all handled in the computer.