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*Sigh* Another day, another headache. I’ve come to the realization that I am my workplace’s little slave girl. I called off work yesterday due to ice and the fact that I just badly needed a day off. Alex and I went to breakfast and we didn’t really have anything planned (although I wished we did ), but I just love being with him and sometimes, I just need time alone and away from everything to clear my head. During the time I was with Alex (mind you, I CALLED OFF), my workplace called FOUR TIMES asking if I could come to work. FOUR TIMES AFTER I called off! I ended up going to work, killing any feelings or good karma the two of us had. Alex had work to do anyway, he posted a blog yesterday. The whole thing made me cry. When I get to work, they slam me with paperwork (”This isn’t for punishment, I promise”) and difficult students (spread the love around) because someone wanted to take off early, therefore, I was left with the mess. Furthermore, I was suppose to get off at 5:00– as I do EVERY THURSDAY– and I finished my 4:15 session and left. *RING RING* There’s my cellphone; “you have a 5:00 appointment, you need to come back!” WHAT!? I’m OFF AT FIVE! Well, without consulting me, they scheduled me until 6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Nice, huh? Better yet, the idiots are running the asylum, and I’m just a slave. To top it all off, they want me to miss class next week in order to hold a workshop. Say what? Um… no.

Now to shift gears.

How many of you have had trouble drawing clothes? I’ll be honest, clothes aren’t easy for me. For me, textures and folds are an issue and it’s something that I’m working on, however, I do know how to create a basic form for creating outfits. Today, I’m going to show you an extremely simple tutorial on creating basic clothes, which is better than having a naked figure. Artistic nudes are nice, but you can’t always have naked people in all your drawings. Moreover, there are simple ways to create texture in drawn clothes.

First, draw your figure. Create a pose and an interesting body shape.

Charles Gesmar piece

Usually, I draw figures that are slightly chunkier because I’m a big girl myself. To me, heavier girls are very under-represented in art today mainly because we’re not considered to be as beautiful as thinner, model perfect women. The reason I used a thinner model for this tutorial was because I wanted to somewhat mimic the French models featured in vintage-style art posters by Charles Gesmar. I think Gesmar models are rather stylish and are great for showing off the latest fashions. In this tutorial, we’re going to try and mimic a Gesmar-esque fashion. Of course, my model happened to look anime-ish. C’est la vie. Notice, also, how I cannot draw feet.

Now we’re going to imagine an outfit for our figure. What shall she wear? For me, this girl has sass, yet, she looks classy, so I’m thinking about giving her a suit. In order to create a basic outline for our figure, we’re going to create an outfit shape along the outside. I usually start from the shoulders and create a shirt outline. In my case, I created a vest. The straps of the vest cover her whole shoulder area, but not her arms. The outside-line portion of the “sleeves” is drawn down to her full bust; the vest accentuates her bust and her bust line because I used a deep-plunge. Finally, I carried the vest down to slightly above her hips. Now, with your outline, you can create designs or keep the lines basic. For me, I used I a basic design. Down the center of the vest, I created a zipper-line because I think it breaks up the blandness of the outfit. I also added an open wedge to the bottom of the vest in order to create the illusion of movement or openness.

Next, I did the outline for the skirt. All I did was trace over the curves of the model’s hops and drew the hemline above the knees. My hemline is kind of swoopy because of the position of the model’s hips.

Finally, I added plume-like sleeves to the vest (I think they’re called bell sleeves). The sleeves come slightly above the elbows. So far, I like this outfit, and it looks like something I would wear.

Now to add texture to the clothes. I made my skirt and vest denim. To create a denim effect, you will use a crosshatching shading effect. What is crosshatching, you may ask? Crosshatching is created by overlapping diagonal lines. I did this throughout the outfit in very small crosshatches. Where I felt there needed to be shadows, I overlapped the hatches to create darker tones.

For the hosiery, I used a wider-spaced cross hatch to create a netted appearance. I thought that was haute couture… or however that’s spelled. And since feet and shoes are a weak spot for me, I just did a simple black closed-toe shoe.

As you can see, I have slight wrinkles in the clothes. I just added random lines all-over the place to indicate folds, but it looks unrealistic and cartoonish. I don’t like how the folds look. I’m going to practice folds and come back with the ability to draw folds and wrinkles in my next tutorial! I may also do a tutorial on facial expressions, so keep your eyes peeled!

Love always,

Marisol

Tags: anime drawing, Art Tutorial, clothes drawing tutorial, Clothing Tutorial, creating creases in clothes, Digital Art Tutorial, drawing folds, drawing tutorial, French Art, Haute Couture, how to crosshatch, how to draw clothes, Jobs Woes, Photoshop, shading clothes, Traditional Art Tutorial, Work