Chapter 20: Painting the Fabric of a Character s Costume

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Overview

Unless you intend to paint your characters nude, there is good reason to learn to paint fabric. It's possible to write an entire book about painting different types of fabric and costume, so this chapter will just describe a basic method for painting fabric.

The two most important things to remember when drawing and painting fabric are:

Draw and paint the fabric with straight lines. The thinner the fabric, the straighter and crisper the lines will be. Though fabric often forms beautiful curving lines when draped, if you draw the fabric that way, the drawing will become soft as you work the image, and the fabric will lose much of its form.

Draw and paint only the major folds that help to describe the form underneath. There is a distinct difference between folds and wrinkles . Folds originate from points of tension on the figure and help to generally describe the form underneath. Wrinkles are just creases in the fabric.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the material a fold is made of determines the fold's visual weight. For instance, gauze will fall into folds that are very different from leather.

Several different types of folds each have a distinctive look, including these:

• Folds caused by the action of gravity, which causes the fabric to fall on itself

• Folds that originate from objects that are under the fabric

• Folds caused by the wind

This chapter won't be covering kinds of folds. If you want to learn more about them, consult one of the good books out there that describe how folds work.