How to Draw Wrinkles and Folds

1. Introduction Video to this Class: Hello everyone, Welcome to my class how to draw wrinkles and folds. I'll be your instructor Robert Murray Zuo. In this class, it's my goal to help you draw wrinkles and pulls more competently. We're going to first start with some basic examples and talk about pattern recognition. Some of the shapes and patterns that you can see and kinda memorize and allow yourself to draw these more easily from your imagination. Then after those initial practice activities, we're gonna get into a more practical example. Draw a Hadoop from the back view. We'll use everything that we've learned thus far to explain the wrinkles and the folds that you're used to seeing. Keep in mind a big part of this as giving things to look and feel soft and organic. So that's really what we'll be focusing upon. Him for our next example, be drawing and rendering a piece of drapery. We'll be using to pinch points and talking about the effect of gravity has on the material and the other shapes and forms to look for as re-explain and draw this. So I hope these particular examples are informative for you. I'd love to see the art that you come up with and thank you very much for considering my class. Good luck with the art and talk to you soon. 2. Practice Activity for Folds in Clothing: Hey, welcome back lawn rob here from Ram Studio Comics. So now we're going to talk about drawing clothing for your characters. And what I want to start with first is just some basic exercises. So one thing that I like to do, I'll start over here is when I'm practicing clothing. Homeless always need a warm off with those, but sometimes I guess I can jump in and pull it off. But more often than not, I will do something like this to warm up. So any kind of cylinder shape is a good one to start with. Mainly because what I tend to think about with clothing is that when you get these folds, they need to raise a wave from this underlying surface and then kind of pinch and swirl. Okay, so something like this, but it needs to look like it's wrapping around. So we're going to do a lot of different variations of this right here where it's basically pulling tighter. And what I like to think about as almost like a roller coaster. And then as it goes around the side of the mountain or a road going around the side of a mountain. Basically, you want to see that top plane a little bit as it wraps Rahm. Because if not, if you do something like this where you've got the line and you stop it too abruptly. It just kills it. It looks flat. In fact, it doesn't even look like a folder anymore. But as soon as you wrap that around the larger form, this case a cylinder, then it starts to have a greater sense of depth. So just be aware of that. And so now let's bring it down here. Now, I'm going to start very stiff at first. I'm going to draw a straight line there. And I'm gonna do this again. So I'm gonna bring that line, pass that fold intersecting or past this edge. And I want to bring this around and I'm going to widen that out again. And then something tricky that happens here is that I almost think like they, these folds, these wrinkles or whatever, they fight for dominance and like it's all energy, right? So if it comes to here and it hits here, basically one kind of overtakes the other. Sometimes they'll blend together. We'll do some of those examples as well. But a lot of times you'll see one that looks a little more dominant and it kind of flows into the other one. So you get a little bit of a shift to the shape right there. And so remember I said right here that this was really stiff and straight. And that's not generally what you're gonna do a fault. So you've got to combine what I'm showing you here and we're going to soften things up if her right now, trying to get you to really focus on this, this rolling effect in this tapering. And you're going to combine other things as well. You're going to start to put shadows under here and you're going to widen the shadows where you want the material to look taller and away from, again, that underlying form of the cylinder. So you're gonna play or all through shadows and do different things like that. I would say really, you just don't want the shadow to be consistently the same size. I like to make it thicker and thinner. I think that looks more interesting. But generally it's just, you know, this is a taller area, then you're going to have a bigger drop shadow, cast shadow. So let's, let's pull from the other side now. And let's try to do a version where it's a little bit softer. So let me show you what I mean. They're racists back a bit. And so what do I mean by soft or is it even the edges of it kind of have a bit of a bend. So we get that lip or that edge, wrap it around like this. And then right here instead of another straight line, I'm going to purposely just bend it. And I think that's what you're going to move that around left, you know, kind of back and forth as you go around your your character's arms or legs, stuff like that. But you know, you want that little bit of a bend there. And over here it looks too rigid. It looks like this is very stiff or this has almost a little bit more of a softer feeling. And then also you're going to even couple that with some breaks like this. Just here and there were no, the other thing is this, you also want these to be different sizes. You don't want to get in the habit of making these all the same width, okay, From starting point, some have to be pretty wide. Some have to blend into the surface differently like this. We'll say, well that's a different look. It's almost like like here I'm trying to explain the form is lifting up more abruptly, but now it's blending less dramatically. See that But if I do this over here, what does it say? It says it's lifting up abruptly and coming down abruptly, almost like the peak of it would be right here. See that? And hopefully you can see these little marks I made there. But yes, so remember these, the shadows and the rendering, explain the forms differently. And another thing, that's another thing you're really going to want when doing clothing, because it's so sporadic. There are consistencies in the way these forms react, but there's a organic nature to it. It's good to pay attention to that. I might even do something like this. We're journal, you don't shut on both sides like that, but I think it helps explain the form a little bit more. It just tells us that this area right here is the highest spot, highest point on receiving the most light. And then also you're going to practice rendering like this for clothing. Okay, so there's a few ways that I'll run to the clothing. I'll bring lines up into the fold like this. But a lot of times I take this line here, kind of blend that off. I think it looks a lot more natural for clothing to do stuff like that. I don't want there to be a sharp line that just stops. So we'll get into that some more as well. So I don't want to overwhelm me here, are really just want you to practice this a factory here where you think about these basic ideas. Okay, so now let's do another example here. For this one, I want this to look a little bit more like almost like you're looking at a leg but just the bottom portion of the leg, maybe the knee is bent. So here's the mean. Here's a kind of some baggy pants are relatively baggie and you get a couple bunched up folds down here at the bottom. So I'm just going to zigzag these lines back and forth and kind of create a bit of a hill right there. And then I'm going to picture that you've got the knee right here and you're giving some folds that are kind of pulling against. So we have to always think about the way the material is point against the form underneath and then how the gravity or energy is working through the material. So that's all this says, right? It's just gravity and push and pull and cause and effect. And we're gonna cause and effect. So that's the right term, but hopefully you get my meaning there. Everything is just a reaction. But really the stress point would be up here. So if you get the nice, something like this, you can have the lines kind of pointing in there. And sometimes you can get really descriptive and you can have the stress points, I'll call them becoming radiating right from that hinge basically, in a sense. But all of the energy is coming or pinching along the sides here. Something like this and you get this bunching. Now the tricky part about this that I found is that it's, it's kinda easy to run through this and for it not to look like overlapping folds down at the base here. So now at these folds on the bottom, I want them to look like they're overlapping. So bunching up, right? So you've got this higher point of the fold. Alright, I'm going to start with this like little half moon, crescent moon like shape. Okay? But I know already that that's not going to work. Okay. By itself, it's not going to work. It's just looks too again to stuff doesn't make me think of a fold. But I know that as soon as I cut into that a little bit and or probably and put another little bend this way, it starts to look more like material, softer material. And that's really the concept that you have to think about. All throw it. It's easy enough to start the shapes like this. And I've definitely seen styles that do that and that's about it and they get away with that. But to me it just doesn't feel fluent enough for soft enough for anything. It's so what we have to try to do is make these lines a little more organic in a little bit more randomized and overlapping these crisscrossing. I'm doing a couple of little inventive things there. We can make it look more organic. So I've been doing these lines back a little bit, like an outward ban and then back bend. The other thing is, is we got to think about the highs and lows as we do this. Because again, if not, we're just creating lines, we're just here. You can see that this one looks a lot more dimensional. And this one is because we haven't really established the highs and lows of this. We've just established directional kind of line making your weighted lines. But it doesn't explain the highs and lows. So what we can do there, as for instance, if I was to take even this and just render. This way a little bit. You see it almost immediately conveys a little bit more depth. I don't know if that's a correct look to that area, but it's better than leaving it flat. And so again, I want there to be some definition here to explain that this is like the bony landmark of the knee that's under that material that we see. And Dan, I want to take the ball highs and lows of material here. I'm just going to keep rendering and see if I can get some of that. Read a little bit better. So even like right here, I want this to be more dimensional. And then right here I think I want to bring us most rendering up a little bit so that it reads like a shadow, won't like this and then getting a little higher. And the reason I do that is because I want there to be variation. I want there to be highs and lows. I don't want it to be too, even though I'm purposely trying to make lines that are uneven and the hopes that I can make this look more dimensional. Now if I was just taking like a charcoal pencil or marker at walnut marker, I guess but something was some value even this, I could just kinda scribble and go with lighter scribbles. I could blend it with my finger and I could really get this to start looking more and more dimensional. But I have to try to figure out a way to do this with lines, at least for comics. Few different styles anyways, but when we're talking about how we do this for comics, and I could fill this in as a particular shadow there and there could wander up this way a little bit more. And then off to the side. And there we go. So lots of different ways you could try to run through this and pull this off, but that's that's basically one of my arm off, one of my ways of approaching something like this. So this will probably start to make more and more sense as we do more variation to this. But essentially just tried to get a feeling of areas that are a little bit more rigid and kind of tight, the materials tight. And then areas where it's softer. But yeah, as we do more, I think you'll you'll start to figure this out better and better. So let's stop here. Let's head over to our next lesson and continue on. So with that, let's move forward. 3. Practice Activity for Folds in Clothing Next Example: Okay, so for this next one, I'm going to give us some structure first that makes a little bit more sense. I think the first two are a little bit tough to read. So we'll do something that you can definitely tell what it is going in. And that means a lot with clothing on their characters. Now, I've seen people that just go through and start drawing the clothing and they don't have any underlying structure and somehow they pull it off. That's not me. I need more structure. So what I'm doing here is just blocking out a basic arm, manikin arm basically. And we'll just work from this and we'll add some clothing to it. So for me, this this is the very least amount of structure that I would I would recommend are the that I would use for my own work. So that's what I'm going to recommend to you because that's what I would do. So for something like this, again, I'm still going to want to soft erase it so it's not too obstructive to what we're trying to draw. Something like that so you can still see it. And so the first thing I generally do here is I'll kind of go pass the shapes a little bit. I'll be a little bit boxy with it because I can always soften this up. I will soften it up. But I wanted to go passed the underlying forms. And let's try a rolled-up sleeve right here. So block that in. Again, very blocky like that. And then next what I tend to do is think about the pinch points. So you're going to get some pinching, those right about here. You're gonna get some pinching. It was right about here. Okay. And again, I've seen styles where people don't take it much further than this and that's fine. If you've got a simplistic style, you could probably get away with this, no problem. But if you want it to look a little bit more organic and ways, I would just keep softening up these forms so it start with this. Again. You need to erase this one more time. You need to think about the highs and lows. So as I bring this folder right here around, put a shadow here and a little bit of a line weight here, and then blend that off. I'm also going to curve that around the form. I'm going to do that again here, shadow here, curve it around the form of a weighted line on the other side of it. And there's basically two folds side-by-side. So again, I'm thinking about the highs and lows. This if I had to like draw this like a hill recess and then a hill. Okay. And that's how I'm thinking about it as I render this, as I've drawn these little bits of shadow. So very important that you try to focus on the dimension of these forms as you're doing this part right here is you're throwing these shadows. And so again, let's see. One here. I don't want to be too are done to me that that's the other thing is I want to make sure that I mix this up a bit. So let's say that these blend off through here, soften up to kind of blend into the larger forms. And then let's bring another one up here. Let's say that these ones are wrapping up and around. And a lot of times they think it's helpful to draw these guides. Just like this. Really put those in there. You gotta remember you can always soft erase and redraw them. It's just, these are just reference points or searching lines, whatever you want to call them. But it's very helpful to do that. We're just jumping in and almost like winging it. Like I'm just gonna go for it. But if you don't have a clear idea of what it is you're putting in. And when you lack confidence in that area, it's going to show. So you want to get in there and give yourself some mold guides to bring this out. And I'll see I don't even like that because I feel like it's too consistent too. It's like a W shape, it's too repetitive. So let's try that again. Let's start with this one. So this is the shadow under the fold, under that wrinkle or pinch point. And then here's the next one. Line on top of it. Let's bring this other one right about here. We come down here on the shoulder. I'm going to bring another one this way. Remember, these are the ones that I showed in those previous illustrations were just kinda wraps around the edge and be very small. I mean, these can be large or small, but right now I'm trying to make sure that. Don't compete with one another as they meet in the center of the sleeve here. So here, same thing pulled down at the bottom. Some of the elbow and their other fold rapidly around here. Like that. Now, these ones over here, or they are contradicting the other side. So what I'm gonna do is fix that. Let's do the same thing. We'll bring this down here on the chart, bring these up and over this way. Thing one over here. I'm going to bring it towards these over here, even though I don't want them to connect, their liquids are connecting now, but I just want the flow to make sense. Okay, So even this one, it's a little bit off, but it's still kind of connects to this in a way. And then you can take that further. If this is a loose material, you could do some of these zigzags, but I want to save that for the next example. So I'm going to say at this a little bit tighter material. So you get a little bit more of this pinching. Now the other thing that I really got to suggest here is be careful to not define the anatomy too much unless it's a very tight fitting clothing because it, it'll look kinda silly. And again, it will detract away from it looking and feeling like clothing. So unless again, you're going for a very tight suited suit material, you gotta be very careful. You don't want to just define the anatomy out of force of habit. And that's what I have found myself doing from time to time. So that's 11 to make sure to share that with you. So again, fold here. And another little one here. And I will admit sometimes it's just a good idea to sit here and just overdo it a bit and then pull back just so you know where your limits are. And especially if you don't do this all the time, if you're someone that does a lot, then you probably don't need to test yourself like that. It was much, you're just gonna go for it because you get better and better at spotting when things look a bit silly. Even though myself, I don't know. I think I still struggle with clothing to this day, but I'm a lot better than I was. I can tell you that much. That was pretty bad. And the BMI we might put my clothes did not look like close. That's for sure. But again, I need to keep thinking about the high and low points of these materials. So as I render this, that's what I really want to come through, is that it's not just me putting in random lines, random shadows, that I'm actually perceiving the height of the material and trying to, trying to bring that out as I, as I render this, as I keep drawing it. This isn't really about drawing a hand, so I'll just quickly put this input will be more gestural than anything. So just like that, we've got some clothing for this arm here. And you can really keep taking this further and further with your rendering. So you could put some lines that explained the forms going the distance of the folds. That always seems to read pretty well. So I think there's two or maybe three main things that I do to render this. And that is, like I mentioned before about breaking up the edges so it softens up that transition. I have tinier little lines that I use to explain the direction of the height of the material. And then directional lines that go with the direction of the fold wrapping around. So hopefully that makes sense, but those are the main ways that I would render it. And then sometimes I will just actually draw lines right throughout to kind of I don't know To me, it softens up the overall form like if everything's too precise and all of these different spots, it feels a bit too rigid for clothing. Sometimes I'll just kind of draws winds right through it to soften it up. Okay. So we're going to stop right here. We'll head over to the next lesson and continue on. So with that, let's move forward. 4. Practice Activity - Another Pattern to Look For: Okay, So I want to show you another pattern that I think is important to memorize. And so you see, they're kind of see if I can find here. There's, this one's a little bit of a V like shapes WHO that, and see where it here. If this was to keep going in this fold intersects with this one, you get the zigzag. Now it's not really evident here, but I'm going to show you an example here because it's, it's something you see a lot. And also it's one of those things where people will really kind of take this and over, accentuate it for style, stylistic purposes. And it can be fun. It's, it's, you know, there's really no wrong way to do this. But what you try to do is pick apart patterns that you see that are consistent, that you can put into your work that make it appear like, you know, a little bit more about what you're drawn, right? And so there's patterns that almost everything, and one of them is a zigzag effect. And so I think I got a little too even here where it looks a little more like an X, but let's try it another way. I'm going to show you a better representation than that. Let's go with, before I, I was trying to draw the forums there. Okay, so let's just draw the pattern first. We're gonna go back and forth like this. And this is a zigzag pattern I'm talking about a journalist can see. And so these are just lines, right? But if we were to think about the forms, they would come up, they would have a peak and it would go down. And you really have to play with that in different ways so that you get a nice variety because very easy to say, okay, I've got the zigzag pattern. I'm going to shadow each one of these the same way. I'm going to show the highlight the same. And Mixamo, you get something that's very repetitive and loses the effect that you could get for something that looks like clothing. So the other thing is some of these areas in the middle can even look like ovals. So if I was to bring this over and get a different look, if this hits the edge of the clothing, the shirt, whatever the says, pant leg, whatever. I get a different effect if that hits the edge because then it has to react to the edge and kinda wrap around. But if it's, the fold is kind of occurring through here in the middle of the form. Then you can sometimes get this bit of an oval and you see this would really be an oval if I kept going with it. And even really is probably an oval or sort of like an oval as it wraps around the cylindrical form that we got here. But we end up with this edge of the fold, as we talked about in this previous lesson of how it wraps around the curvature, the cylindrical underlying form. Basically, that's kind of what you get right here. So you see it's kinda almost like it would be an oval, but that ovals wrapping around the other side. So again, the zigzagging effect that you get, it's pretty common. You'll see it in like suits. You know the nice sue, where it's a little bit rigid, quite rigid but it's, you know, it's got some starchy kinda fabric are starchy. And this to the fabric I guess. And so it gets like these tighter folds. But then it retains more of the shape of that cylindrical arm or leg. And then Odyssey creases, that's another thing, but okay, so let's, let's shade this. So put a shadow here. Let's bring this one here. I'm going to make it larger here and have it done now. And then maybe a little bit wider to the edge. And then here I'm gonna make this maybe a little bit heavier. By comparison. Just want to play around with, It's not that this is bright or I'm going to leave it that way. But what I'm trying to do is at least be aware of, you know, making too many of the same shapes. Because again, if something is too repetitive, then it's not going to read as something organic, that's going to read as something more mechanical and structured, I guess. But yeah, so I wanna, I wanna really play around with these ideas and I got to think about which one of these folds are taller or shorter, you know, things like that. And sometimes to write here instead of this line carrying through as defined, because that's another thing that looks too repetitive at this point. It looks like I'm, I'm repeating this shape to its two solid. Okay, so I can break some of this up here in their sale that immediately looks a little bit better. Still doesn't read as as walls I would like for the folds, but it reads better than having this connected lines, especially where the light source would be anyways, so bringing this down. Remember you can blend some of these off. That's an effect I like to do quite a bit. And they don't have to look like they connect straight across. You'll see some of these where it looks like it's going pretty distinct in one direction, then it fades off. Well, let's try it here of pulling that off, soften up these edges. Here. It's pretty strong. And sometimes it's not as distinct as one like this almost looks like a big curved blob, right? Sometimes it can break off and another small wrinkle before it fades off this way. A little bit that way. Same thing up here, like you could have one that's going up here. And it could break off a little bit like this. And you can blend it off like that. So just different ways to soften up these forms so they don't look too overly stiff and rigid. And again, I think it's better to get rid of these lines that are on the light source side. And then I can replace those with little bit of rendering. And then down here I'm going to add a lot more shadow just because I feel like, again, it's to consistent throughout. So if I can bring in some heavier shadows down here, maybe that will help. Even as far as the shadow, one of these, one of these folds completely in shadow on here. I can also blend this off this way. Soften up that little bit of transition right there. A little bit of cross hatching in there. And remember what I said too about adding some curves right in these areas. So let me redraw that right through here. This is going to look like a softer material. If I do something like this versus a straight line. And then just render away, try to mix it up a bit and throw your lines a couple different ways to see what you get. And this is a drop shadow here. So I'm not going to run to this side, but I could render up this way. So keep the rendering down on this side, not this drop shadow here or here. But usually I'll just put these little lines going up like this because I'm trying to again, I'm trying to make it feel like this form is curving around. So right here and bring some of these up. If I make them taller than that, it says a little bit more about the forums height. And I might cross hatch it or whatever. But yet, but again, the zigzagging pattern is another one that's good to practice. So pay attention to all these little shapes. Here I went with a little bit more of a flat approach. And there's not as much height around the folds, but they're there here. This would be almost like what I would perceive this for anyways, is a little bit more of like what you would see on a leather boat. The leg of the leather boat or something like that or rather cold the arm. You're going to get these heavier folds. And what you've got to think about is what the materials like. So if it's a thinner material, you're going to see a little bit more smaller folds and maybe more volume or amount of folds, not more volume. But then an a thicker material, leather, heavier weighted material of some kind. You're going to get these bigger, bulkier and more volume to the folds. So really think about that, silk versus leather, things like that. So let's go ahead and stop here had overturned next lesson and continue on. 5. Drawing a Hoodie Lines and Forms: Okay, so for this next example, we're going to draw the back of a hoodie. And so this is obviously really popular, right? Everybody wants to draw hoodies or colon or characters. And they're very neat and descriptive. Clothing's like it's just there. I don't know, somehow he is very cool. So let's draw that big hockey fan. So let's just draw a little bit of a center line. Just because I'm going to draw this relatively straight down anyways. So I'll just lie on some basic form. So I'm gonna get like the hood. And then for the harm of molecules. Now, even better yet let me do this. Let me draw in a basic skeleton. Okay, So circle line. The back is kind of like a V like shape. Cylinder for the lower part of the ways. Actually let's bring the arm closer to the body so I can get some nicer folds there plus it'll look more natural. You don't want to have an unnatural poles. And therefore, we won't work with natural. Okay? So just something like this, just for a quick representation, okay? And so if you need more, you can do cylinders. Make sure to taper ohm here on there. I think that always helps versus just big blocky cylinders. But whatever feels right, two circles for the shoulders. Paper the form inward on and on so you can take as much time as you need to for the stuff. But generally more structure just helps you to picture where all this stuff is going. I do recommend it because it seems like every time I do Just go for it and draw a sure pair pants, hoodie without the character. I just give some rural distortions going on there. So this is helps with that. So just remember if you've got more distortions in your work, more guides, the better, okay, So guides don't always have to be straight up and down and horizontal. That's definitely a good, good way to do things. You can also use be like guides, boxes. But all of them kind of hinging upon the other guides. These are a big one for me. I use a lot of V and triangular like shapes to pinpoint things. So now at the Huddie, I'm going to bring this, bringing the shoulders because this character looks like they're early massive. But as I bring this material down, I want to introduce some bends to the perimeter shape of the material. I also want to experiment with a bit of variety in the way that the bends occur. This generally will help to convey a softer look to the clothing or fabric to your drawing. And also keep in mind, the more fabric he got there, the more of these waves are just going to be really inconsistent. I think the thing you have to fight for me is like Hadoop still do this and I did this a lot. Is like, I want to put a bump right here. Alright. Well, that's where I do have to be careful because what's that read as it reads as a tricep. So in really it's force a habit. I'm so used to draw on an arm where I put the tricep in, something like that. And so then I started doing this. Okay. And all sudden it detracts away from it being a shirt or a hoodie or whatever. And it looks like I'm trying to draw muscles. So I would actually avoid those areas to put your curves. You still put curves and bends there, but they need to read differently and independently of any sort of anatomy's. So just be careful of that. So if I put a bomb pair like this wave and needs to be softer, doesn't need to be as shortened, condensed as I did for a tricep over there. And then also, let's see, I need to think about where let's do this. I'll do the back portion first. I need to think about where this fold might be. And so you get these longer sweeping folds. Let's bring this right down to here. So these longer sweeping ones can kinda go like this. Yeah. And those can really be all throughout. Not a lot. You don't want too many of them are going to look like the material is very thin and generally holidays are a little bit thicker, quite a bit thicker. And then also even the bottom here, you will get like little bumps. So just kinda put a little bit of wave and that line, you could start off kind of bumpy. It doesn't matter because this is just a rough sketch. It's kinda getting these ideas and these concepts into place. So same thing over here. Let's bring this in, slope the shoulder now more. And again, I can put this wave in here, but let's go right to it. Look and feel like a triceps. I got to be careful that and then this fold here, and this can actually kind of Do a couple of folds are in there. So usually gotta seem right in here somewhere. We'll get that in. But then also what you get a little bit of pinching and folding right here. And again, we got to think about the thickness of this material. So if I do these tight little pinches and folds all in here, it doesn't read as this type of material and it has to be consistent. So if I have these bigger folds, like you can see right here, this looks like a big area, big volume of that material. So if it's like that there, then I've can't put these tight little Penzias here. It's going to almost contradict a little bit. So and remember, we talked about those zigzags. We're going to probably see those in here a bit, so I'll get some of that go on. I'm just going to throw these n randomly. But as light little sketches just to kind of start thinking about that. You may have some up here. I don't really draw those in to specifically. Like I don't jump in and say, There's got to be one of those right here and it needs to go just like this. Maybe you do, maybe that's the way your brain works and you see it better that way I kinda just randomly throw these in and then pick and choose as I render and clean it up. So also this fold might come in like this. I'm trying to make these look like they have some volume. And then generally you get a bit more folds by the cough. Especially if the shirt is big and her character. But again, I got to be careful not to make these too tight and small or it's not going to read as, you know, the same material. I'll put the wristband and what that's called the cough, I guess. And some lines in there, you'll see a lot of times you'll see these little lines in there. And I guess we could put that here as well. I'm just going to throw those in kind of curriculum doesn't matter. And so over to here, I need to think about the width of the material from here to here. It doesn't have to be exact obviously, but please try to make it somewhat in the same same distance, I guess. Well, let's bring that over here. Again. Some of these little folds down here. It's kind of zigzag those lines back and forth and you get this one a little higher. And so another tricky thing is, you see I've established this zigzag pattern here, right? And this can blend off. Remember these can blend off like that previous example I showed you. Some can go to the edge, some can blend off. But here if I bring these wrinkles and folds up this way, kinda have to think about how they would react and intersect. And they're a little bit, we'll talk about that more as we get that area again. But I just want you to be aware of that, that these are, I look at all of these lines and these folds is energy. Energy has to kind of relate to other parts of it. I think that's what makes us stuff so hard to draw it versus because we just throw them in wherever and then contradicts other areas of the artwork and then we wonder why it doesn't read. Well, let's go back up here to the UI portion. Let's bring this down to a point of times it'll point down here. And then this can come up over the shoulder. So that's gonna make it look more dimensional. And we'll get that bunching up of the material, actual hood right here. And then we can bring some folds this way like that. So you're a little bit of a Paltz there. And also this another good opportunity to use the same. So seams are great too, because, you know, Celia got this center line. I've used that center line to draw this, right? We'll all seams are kinda like that same thing. They give you a center line. They really help direct the overall look of the clothing, like drawing pants is so much easier when you put the same on the side and the senior among the pockets and all that good stuff like it, just very descriptive. And it immediately makes an otherwise flat drawing read a lot more clearly. So really utilize seems to your advantage. It's funny too, because I remember when I would first start to study this stuff and draw, I would avoid them because I wasn't good at drawing them. Not realizing that they're actually make it easier to draw the clothing. Sometimes avoiding the things that we are afraid of are really our biggest mistake or in life and fun and art. So let's see like this. So that gives us our, you know, our primary shapes and forms. So now what we wanna do is soft erase it and clean it up. So let's go ahead and stop here. We'll head over to our next lesson and continue on. So with that, let's move forward. 6. Drawing a Hoodie Rendering Stage: Okay, so now we're going to softer races and this is going to be a time-lapse obviously. But it's really the same process that we've got all the line work in front of us. I'm going to jump in and add some line weight, bounce the line back and forth, thick that then I like to do that to explain the perimeter shapes and forms. And what I'll do is work from the outside n and minimum. We want to think about some consistency of the folds. So even though I'm going to drop in thick to thin lines and some little pockets of shadow. I need there to be just kind of a consistency and a flow to the fabric. So if I choose to do a thicker cotton, then these folds right here need to be consistent in the way that they are width wise or the way that they can form over the underlying structure. And so as I shadow these, that's what I'm thinking about. I want to drop in some, some shadows and then explain the forums a bit more clearly. So as I mentioned before, I really throw on some of these lines and then make decisions per area. And then I also need those decisions to relate well to the side, the perimeter shape. So as I create the folds on the interior, I need to think about the reaction that they have to the outside. Shapes are outside perimeter shape of the sleeve. And so that's where faults can be tricky because again, you're having to work into the interior forms and then make them relate to the outside perimeter shapes. But I'll just do it like I'm doing here. Be open to adjusting your lines, trying different things, slowly, testing what you're working on is I think I've already mentioned it's not like I know exactly what I want and it's not like I have this clear, distinct vision all the time. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to see that. And other times I'm searching and trying to develop. I think that's really important to focus on so that you don't think that every artist you, you pay attention to is just gifted and they can just see every aspect of it. To me, it's more of a series of techniques that allows us to develop these things as we go and forgive the hand gestures. I was actually trying to narrate this as I went and then I just realized it was a lot better to move this along. So some of this will be just too redundant where all I'm doing again is developing these forms, thinking about the overall, the overall thickness of the material. Now if this was a lot thinner material, and here I'm just kind of showing that the, how I tend to think about the forms as I'm shading. But if this was a lot thinner material like so we'll say like a silk or a really thin polyester. All these same rules apply except the folds become a lot thinner, a lot more overlaps, and a lot more, a lot more of them basically, because the material is so much thinner. Other NADH, it's the same game plan, at least for me when I draw it, I really don't think any differently about it. But you have, if it's a thick material, then the way the material reacts to even the same, right? They're standing to draw that little that little bump there and those those thicker seems. But I'm not going to use those thicker seems if I'm drawing a very thin fluid material again, I always like to think of as so can polyester, but I'm sure there's just tons of different materials you can think about. But that's probably the trickiest part. Now, again, with the seams, I really stress that seems are a great tool and thing to incorporate into your drawings. I know I avoided when I first started drawing clothing and it's such a silly thing because they really help. Like, I think more seems the better now because they convey a sense of depth and dimension to the clothing that you just kind of don't get if you don't add them in there. And not to mention the realistic right there, there seems and everything. So they had that level of interests. So really don't avoid those. You know, think about it like this when you're drawing something, you almost always want to use a, a center line. Helps a lot with anatomy and helps a lot with theater drawn all the stuff. Center lines are a great tool and technique. And seams are kinda like that. So yeah, don't avoid them, just go go form. If you're like me and that you struggle with them and they were tough for you at first. That's fine. That's part of the journey. But just kind of understand that and then go form and realize that a lot of times those things we avoid will yield the greatest results in our work if we just go head on and attack them instead of avoid them. And now working on the back of the arm here, I'm really trying to get the zigzag pattern going. And notice that I'm, I'm slowly pushing the shadows, so I'm adding a little bit more shadow here, maybe some rendering, then moving over to another part. That's generally another sign in my work that you can spot where I'm I'm still searching, I'm still trying to figure things out. I find that to be easier to bounce around a little bit and slowly kind of see it come together and test areas, salt test an area. And then I'll give my mind a break and I'll work on another area and then I'll come back to it a lot of times that helps me spot when somethings maybe over rendered or overshadowed in here. I'm just kind of glancing over the shadows and making visual notes or mental melts. But I'm showing you visually of where I need to receive the shadow, where I need to expand upon a certain area. But again, that's kind of my process. When I'm unsure about things, I'm just slowly trying to figure out. Okay. How much more do I, do I need to add here? Do I need to erase back some lines and show where the light sources hitting. Two, I need to curve the edges more. So a big part of fabric for me in drawing the stuff is getting it to look and feel soft and the illustration. And so generally more curves is going to make that happen. Now, there's a lot of styles where even in my own work where I will use more rigid lines. But really based upon the same techniques. The zigzag, the pinching, compression and expanding of the forms, all the stuff. But I just might mix in more angles. But in this one I wanted there to be a softer feeling to the material. So that's where I'm, I'm purposely trying to use more curves, but that doesn't always mean that every, every curve will be curved. Okay, so there's, there's variation in that where it can be a curved organic line. But then I try to bend it a little bit at the very end. So it looks like it's wrapping around the forums. So just keep that in mind. It's never sold. I don't know, black and white like there's there's lots of shades of gray and the stuff, right? And you just have to mix it up. You have to try different things. Like even the material here for the I don't know, the stretchy part of the waist band area. Like It's basically I'm messing it up. I was going back and forth and doing some lines thick and thin, some broken that that variety that you put in there, I think does a lot for that area. But if I tried to make every one of those lines straight and smooth and too concise and to even it would just that the life out of it, it wouldn't be as interesting, especially for something like clothing. There's gotta be those little imperfections. And I think that's, that's a big part of getting it right. So you see going right back over other areas that have already visited and just kind of fine tuning it. Shifting some of the shadows, shifting some of the lines a little more. Again, constantly exploring ways to kind of push and pull the shapes that I'm seeing and try to get the best out of them. I'm also a racing back areas where the light sources hitting. I think that's a better way to explain the illustration. It seems to make it look more confident. Like when you do that, like it's you don't want lines on both sides of the forms everywhere. It just kind of made it flattens it out a little bit. All right, so that'll finish up this lesson and let's move on to our next example and continue exploring the ideas of drawing wrinkles and folds. So with that, let's move forward. 7. Drawing Folds from 2 Pinch Points: Okay, so for this next exercise, I want to talk a little bit about a couple pinch points so you can have different things that are sort of fighting over dominance in the way that they're pulling away from a certain area. So let's do one low, one high. And so what's going to happen here is we gotta think about gravity. And we have to also think about these points and which the material is being affected. And then we obviously have to think about, you know, how thick the materialist stuff like that. But what we can do here is draw some lines radiating from this point. I can just kinda go down because again, we're thinking of gravity. And then if you were to draw from here to here, taper it upwards or angled upwards but with a bold line. That would explain it from the start. But then as you work down into the wrinkles, you can't connect these lines anymore. It just doesn't read as well like you could shadow under here, okay. You could do a shape of shadow here, shape of shadow here. But if you did that all the way down, it would start to not work. You can definitely do that in the beginning because you'll get these kind of sags and MIT, I think they might be referred to as diaper folds or something like that. But it's it's not so much about that. It's the fact that if you blend them into one another like this sort of zigzag pattern, you start to get something a little nicer. And so what we can do here is we can bring this down and then we can kinda wave these around. Okay? You can be pretty random about that, just sort of back and forth. But if you were to be a bit more aware of what you did down here, you would think of the higher point here. And that's going to generally give you a higher fold. In our outer been there. You're recess or back bend in there. So again, it's those highs and lows. But really you can kind of start here and zigzag back and forth and connect them this way. And shadow up there just has to be some continuity and consistency from what you do here to here. So if a tie, you know, an outward bend here, it needs to be a high point here. So when you shadow, you're going to shadow the end side. Like that. Same thing over here. We can kind of go back and forth. I do like to just kinda throw those lines and it tends to be more organic and more interesting if I do that, if I go too slow, It's almost like a loose some of that energy. So I'd like to just kinda throw those back and forth with a squiggly line. Now, I just made a mistake here and, you know, maybe you see it, maybe you don't. But I'll point it out. Since this is a low point and this is a high point, these bottom areas have to reflect that. So realistically, this needs to be way up here. Okay. So just kind of made that mistake without being too aware of what I was doing. So let's bring that all the way up to that again. And I'll just kinda zigzag back and forth connectome. And then now as I bring this down, I can really think about how this fold is blending into this other series of shapes, forms, more like that. Okay, so let me zoom up a little bit so I can clean this up and explain it a bit better. So if we take this now and we soft erase it back and clean this up a bit more. So I remember, even from this point, this is going to be more raised. Put a shadow here and basically a pocket, and then this area will be raised shadow here. So by doing that, I'm saying my light sources somewhere to the left of the object or wall from our view to the right of abject to fewer the objects, I guess. But something like this, it even here. I really want to play around with introducing some bends this way. So because what can happen if you make these all straight lines or even curved lines, but they're all one consistent line. Then it's a little more rigid, right? So it feel it automatically fills more rigid. But if I take this and I do something like this, and then I render these lines automatically. I kind of soften up this these forms and I'm making them look like they're waving a bit more even as they go up this way. Likewise right here, if I put a nice solid oval there, It's not bad. You can definitely get away with that. But I can also introduce this a little bit of been there. You know, I have to think about again, what kinda materialism and how software we really want it to look and feel. So you're going to introduce more of these little folds and bends periodically through there. But I think this could be relatively smooth on the edge here. Now I'll be honest, when I draw this for like comic work or something like that, I go with a very stylized, more rigid field to the fabric. Mainly because I just think it still looks good enough and it still looks cool, then I'm okay with that. But I just want you to be aware of the ways that you would combat that. So because sometimes we can take that too far or we can be getting that effect, but not wanting that effect. And I don't want to just show you the way I do it because maybe you're not looking for the same process I am. So to soften this stuff up, you're just going to put more waves intentionally and of these lines. And you should really experiment with that anyways, I should experiment with more rigid lines and more waves and then see what you get and see what you like. Because not everything you draw is going to be the same. You know, you might want for a certain projects, you might want a lot more of an organic feeling to the work. Or client might tell you, Hey, I like everything but the cost material doesn't look soft and that's when you're going to introduce more waves are more folds that this often up and even like this, like when I bring this line down, if I bring that into line breaks, that's going to have a softer feeling than one solid line. And I can play out that I can make it heavier here then have it kinda fade off. But if I wanted more, a deeper recessed area, then I'm going to really push that shadow. Something like this. I can say, well, this folder right here is significantly higher than the next neighboring recessed area. Alright, so I'm going to really push that shadow to make sure that that's very apparent in the illustration. And so right here, this other folds back here somewhere. And you get another little pocket of shadow right there. And if I bring this line back this way, then it's definitely behind this fold here. I can push that back even further with a little more shadow. And we'll just kinda keep playing around with these, these forms and these overlaps. Nice heavy shadow right there to show that this one is, you know, it's pretty, a pretty big fold anyways. And again, I really like soften up those edges with a few line breaks. I feel like that's just a lot more of an effective way to illustrate folds. So here we can get in some shapes of shadow, so I'll draw those in as a parameter or a big solid shape, something like that. And here I liked the zigzagging effect here. Think that works well for something like this. I can shadow these folds back here. And again, a bit of a cache shadow from each one of these bigger folds because they're coming up towards our view, right? So they're going to give a shadow on that neighboring area. So we can drop that in and helps the illustration, I think helps it to look and feel more dimensional. Same thing here. I can bring this shadow right here. And you see a lot of these techniques are repetitive at this point right there. Just find something that I think works and that helps the illustration and then I implement it through all kind of double-check the work. Sometimes I'll miss areas, I'll put an effect in there and then totally skip over an area. So try not to do that. Because part all this is that there's a consistency that the viewer can rely on. They can see it identify with an effect, with a style of drawing, series of techniques. And then they can, and there I can flow through it and kind of rely upon it. And that's also why, you know, something that's out of place can really throw the viewer. I can take them right out of that, that concept, that, that illustration. So the one area that feels really strange to me as right here. So I'm gonna try to try to fix that. I feel like it needs to just connect. Like more like this. Let me erase that back. Not really liking that. One of those distractions I was just talking about. So let's bring this back like those. And then it's kind of wave down to this point. Let's try something like that. I think that I like that a little better. And then I can still even this little bump right there, I can kind of shadow to the side of it just a little bit. Some very light rendering. I don't think it needs to be much. Okay, so, yeah, so that's basically it. Now what I would do from here is I would add in more of my rendering lines. So let's do this. We'll stop right here, head over to the next lesson. I had a little bit more rendering to those just so you can say I would try to bring it out for the next step. And with that, let's move on. 8. Drawing Folds from 2 Pinch Points Rendering Stage: Okay, So essentially it's all here and I can definitely take the shadows a lot further, just as I'm trying to look at it in a critical way. I can definitely push and pull the shadows. And really I would say experiment with different shapes the shadows. I know there's a certain amount that I want to be pretty crisp and pretty defined of these forms that I'm seeing. But then you can really push and pull this a lot more than I'm doing some kind of planted on the safe side. And just look at different fabrics, look at different artists you admire that, that do this type of stuff really well. And see we're going to take it. But once you have the shadows and to place the way that you want and you feel good about that. The next stage would be rendering it out. And I would just add in some bits of cross hatching that further enhance the illustration. That just add another level of depth and dimension to it. And they can be as simple as lines that go with the forums like that, with the shadows. And then some that go against. So for instance, let's say right, and this could go either way just so you know. Again, this is another area where you're going to experiment with your work. But I would say for here I would bring them up like this more. But again, not necessarily. I've seen styles where they go any number of ways. Summer, summer, just stippling in the stippling is broke off in a way that conveys the gradient. And these are, to me, rendering is just gradient. It's just, you're just trying to break up the shadows into a little bit more of a value. And so yeah, as long as you can do that and then you can use any style of rendering you like. And that's really the fun of it. And then let's see, let's bring these ones this way. So I feel like I'm kind of fight in the form by doing it like this. But hopefully I'll be able to illustrate my point that it should still read as Yeah, I think it's still reads mainly because you gotta think like if I was to rotate this and I was going to put in some crosshatching, which I'll a lot of times du then still works, right? So and you can even bring this shadowing this way. Bring some up here, kinda connected that way. And so you can just start to make that look and feel more dimensional. And again, like I mentioned before, I like breaking up these pointed lines as much as possible. Put some rendering right here as well. So when doing this, you just really want to think about rounding over the forms. Just try to say, Okay, if this was something sitting right in front of me, how would these forms look if there was a shadow on them, how they look and easier said than done. Obviously, it's not as simple as just saying it to yourself, but you do have to try to visualize as much as possible as you're doing the work because it's very easy to get caught up in just the act of doing, but not really thinking about what are the right decisions. And I'd like to stress that it's not that you need to make all these correct decisions all through the illustration. I don't want to weigh you down with that notion, but at the same time, try to be aware of what you're doing and, you know, if the decisions are carrying you to a better end result. But also don't let that stop you from creating if you don't know the right decision, action is better than the no action at all. So yeah, you know, because you're going to learn by doing, but just make sure that you're not just over rendering for the sake of rendering, try to have a bit of a concept going there. And some of us are just good at putting it down and then recognizing the flaws after. I tend to think that I, you know, I can be that way. But then again, there's times I come back to a piece of art and I see nothing but mistakes that I didn't see while I was creating it. So there's, there's that as well. So yeah, I could just keep rendering on those, but that's essentially how I would keep going into it and I could cross hatch and more directions and keep bringing out more and more to the there is that I got. I could also throw in just like little rendering lines here and there that are attached to a previous shadow. But as long as they kind of flow with the, you know, the direction and the forms that I'm hurting establishing. And I think they work out. And also render against the edges like this to kind of texturize it in other ways. So you can really play around and lots of variation here. So that'll bring this particular class to a close. I would love to know what you think. I can't wait to see your examples. And just keep in mind that all of these practice activities, all of his examples that we've ran through. You just have to try them day in and day out and really log those studies. Really fill up your sketch book. And you'll see yourself grow leaps and bounds. But remember practice from looking at life and from drawing from your imagination so that you're not always needing to see that exact version of what you're looking for. So again, I hope you've enjoyed this series of lessons. Let me know what you think and more content on the way very soon. Good luck with the art and bye for now.