#clothes tutorial

You asked and I delivered!

Thank you so much! I’m sorry this took me approximately 10 years to answer, you’ve probably mastered clothing folds by now and dont need advice from a pleb like me but!! here i am anyway! The usual disclaimer: I haven’t done a proper study of folds in a loong time, now that I’ve left art school I mainly have been focusing on my own stylized art so I’m pretty rusty. That being said, observation and practicing from life is the best way to learn! It doesnt even have to be clothes (though fashion studies are the best and i realize now I should have done some for this tutorial and I am a fool) but just placing cloths over random objects and drawing them can help you learn how cloth works with different shapes. And since the body is essentially made up of a bunch of geometric shapes, this will translate over to clothing!But yeah, this tutorial is pretty hypocritical since I dont always pay attention to fleshing out folds in my art hehe 

Let’s start by introducing Blank Slate-chan or Blank-chan for short uwuI’ve given her a Tshirt, and it looks okay but its a little flat. It looks more drawn on then anything.

Right off the bat, before we even begin to cover folds, we can add some details that make the shirt pop off the character. For instance seams on the collar, shoulders and bottom (though I didnt add any on the bottom in the example) and rolled up sleeves/like those fake rolled up cuffs that are sews on to tshirts can already add depth. Furthermore I’ve added some cast shadow from the oversized sleeves onto the arm, and the shirt separated from her skin at the top so its resting on it rather than looking like it’s part of her body.Seams can be especially important when indicating what kind of fabric or style of a piece of clothing your character is wearing. I find them especially helpful in separating jeans from say dress pants, as well as formal clothes. It helps to observe and thing about how a piece of apparel is sewn together to determine where you want to draw the seams. 

Okay this mess of arrows is my fault but bear with me ;v; In this portion I’ve now moved on to folds. Before we get into the details of the image, there are 3 forces that affect folds, and you should keep them in mind when drawing. Those forces are gravity, compression, and stretch. I’ve color coded each of these forces, though stretch is not shown in this image.So first off the purple arrows represent the force of gravity. This is always going to be a force on earth and cause folds from handing fabric like in between the chest or at the looser areas of the shirt.Then the blue is compression. I don’t have a good example of it here since I’m drawing mostly lose fabric, but its where the cloth bunches up because its met with two forces moving towards each other. In this (poor) example, the clothes are slightly compressed because Blank-chan’s arms are down, preventing the fabric from extending all the way down. I drew up arrows but its not so much as a force moving up as it is the fabric being caught. A better example of this would be tighter fabric gathered around a joint like jeans around a knee when its bending. If you can visualize that you’ve pretty much got the idea.Honestly, don’t let all this force stuff confuse you! I know I didn’t explain it amazingly, but you kind of get used to was looks more natural as you draw more fabric.And lastly the red arrows are just to point out that you need more than just suggestions of folds. Like the collar of the shirt sitting on the skin, the shirt will bend if there are folds so make sure you draw it sticking out rather than just being flat.

For the sake of an example let’s give Blank-chan a slightly bigger chest and some tighter clothes. The shirt is a little more formfitting and so it stretches over the chest. Cloth that is stretches usually has folds that are more horizontal or vertical depending on the points of tension. With tighter clothes, more of the anatomy shows through which is why you should always consider what the body is doing underneath. Though this still applies to looser clothing and you should be considering the body, you can get away with anatomical errors more easily which, confession, I do a lot.I prefer wearing and drawing looser clothes, so I’m not an expert on tight shirts and folds. Even this shirt I’ve drawn in this example is pretty loose but you can always change it as you see fit.

Here’s a comparison of the two without the messy arrows and with some additional shading. Shading can really help define even more shapes and bring depth to the folds, but that falls more under a coloring tutorial so I won’t go into that too much.You can of course exaggerate either of the two examples, either making the clothes a lot looser and adding way more folds or making the fabric tighter and adding more compression folds and showing the form through the clothes. Be careful with adding too many folds though, as it will either looks too crowded or like your character is soaked, unless you’re going for that. 

And then last few tips that I wasn’t sure where to put. If you’ve notice, a lot of the fabrics I draw tend to look heavier, like sweaters. In this super messy example you can see that adding tons of compression folds and making the fold rounder makes the fabric look heavier. Like wise using maybe more gravity folds and sharper/thinner edges may make the fabric look lighter!When drawing folds I like to use triangles to represent them. I think those shapes tend to look the most natural. Again, you can round those off or sharpen them depending, its all up to you! 

Anonymous said: Can you do a tutorial on clothes? I love the way you draw your oc's clothes!