wildcardroachie

DRAWOVER/TUTORIAL - my take on fabric

Added 2022-06-17 22:29:33 +0000 UTC

the way i draw fabric is MOSTLY instinctual so the process of making this tutorial helped me understand it. cloth is actually one of my artistic weaknesses and i am rather lazy when it comes to it or its a lot of guesswork and tweaking until it looks right, rather than working with a proper foundation. so it took a while to work the above drawings out. i was sorta working backwards.

i really dont want this to be too wordy so i will let the diagrams do most of the explaining. when you pull fabric, the direction of the creases will be parallel to the two forces. when you push fabric, the direction of the wrinkles will be perpendicular to the two forces. every drawing that has fabric will require you to, whether by method or instinct, work out the areas that are pulling on the frabric and where it is pushing on the fabric. this will give you an idea of the direction in which to sketch the wrinkles. furthermore, when shading the wrinkles, there will always be a light, zig-zag ridge and shaded valleys on either side where the fabric bunches up. think of it sorta like the drainage divide to two watersheds.

the process for me is, playing it by ear, doing a lot of sketch sculpting and erasing until it looks "right", along with awareness of the parts where the mass is pushing upward, where the direction of gravity is, what parts are under tension and what parts are being pushed together, etc.