Clothing Woes..ugh

Hi All:

I'm still working on clothing..what frustrates me, is that i see other people's creations, with great patterns and such, and im just not sure how to exactly design something that LOOKS like more than just a patternless color.

I know how to use textures, in general, but I've been wondering how people go about actually creating designs that LOOK like clothes, and not some newbie stuff.

I roleplay, and am wanting to make something for the group I belong to. I have the color, but need more detail.

I use Chip Midnight's templates and all, so essentially I'm wondering if i just have to use a variety of different textures on the article of clothing I am creating to bring the detail I'm wanting.

What is the most frustrating..is that I just about have it..lol..but not quite getting the hang of clothing creation. I use PSP X.

Any help is much appreciated.

The general answer is to get a picture of a similar article of clothing and really look at it closely. Making clothes look real means getting little details right. Adding shading and/or stitching to a hem can make a big difference.

You might get better advice if you post pics of your clothes and tell us specifically what you want to be different.

You might not like this answer, but it's really not about software or computers or textures. It's about artistry. It starts with learning how to look critically, how to define the things that make an image look "real", and then goes only much later to the specifics of using whatever tools you happen to choose, whether they be digital or physical. If you forget all about the computer for a moment, and think just about the image, let's say you had to draw an article of clothing on paper or paint it on a canvas, and you had to make it look sufficiently realistic. How would you go about it? If you can't answer that question, I'd suggest taking a good art class.

I once attended a great half art/half science lecture on critical visual skills. The speaker said, "how many people here have ever looked at a rainbow?" Everyone raised a hand. Then he said, "No, I didn't ask how many have ever SEEN a rainbow. I asked how many have ever LOOKED at a rainbow. Tell me; which color is always on the inside? Which one is always on the outside? How about the area inside the bow; is it different than the rest of the sky or the same? How about the sun? Where will a rainbow always be in relation to the sun?" Everybody put their hands down. It became immediately clear that while we'd all seen hundreds of rainbows in our lifetimes, none of us had every really looked at one.

I had always known the order of the colors, but I'd never previously noticed that the area inside the bow is always much lighter than the rest of the sky (that's where the pure white light is), or that the rainbow will always be opposite the sun from your point of view (since the color is a reflection, it can't be in between you and the sun). The point hit home very hard, even though as a lifelong artist, I'd always considered myself pretty good at seeing. Looking and seeing are entirely different things.

How I'd relate that to your clothing situation is along the lines of what Sylvia said. If you want to mimic a particular fabric or garment, take a good look at the real thing. How does light fall over it and reflect off of it? Where are the highlights? Where are the shadows? How do light and shadow interact on it? How does the material drape over the body? How does it wrap? How does it fold? What parts stretch? Which parts hang freely? Which parts bend? Etc., etc., etc.

If you're already a competent artist, so you know all this, and your question is more on the technical side for how to get PSP to do specific results you're already envisioning in your mind's eye, then I'd suggest asking more pointed questions. Ask a specific how-to question, like "how do I make a swatch of denim" or "what's are some good tools & techniques for adding wrinkles", and you'll get lots of specific answers. Ask "how do I just make it look good" kinds of questions though, and the best answers you'll get will be just generalized art tips.

Thanks for your posts. I did ask a bit generally, because it's hard for me to explain..lol.
I know what you're talking about, Chosen. I have a vision for clothing, it is just that i need to figure out the shading and such..the shadows and details, to make them more defined. Thanks for helping me clarify exactly what i needed to ask.

Practice is the other thing. You can read all the tips from the masters of their craft (Chosen, Chip, Robin et al) but at the end of the day they are just words. The words themselves will not make your clothes better.

However if you try the techniques they have written about and practice and tweak and adjust and cry and drink way too much tea and try again, you will improve.

Even if you a slow learner like myself you will improve.

I keep trying different things, working to improve my technique. I make no great claims for my design skills. I am still very hard on myself. But I do see improvements in my clothes designs over the 10 months I have been trying.

Keep at it and I hope to be visiting your clothing store some day and marveling at your wonderful designs.

There are similar questions posted on other forums in regard to painting, or digital art etc.. You are not alone.

Like the others said take a look at the clothing items you want to create. Notice the shadows, wrinkles and fold. Highlights and shading go a long way when you want to impart a realistic feel to things. It is very similar to how you would "shade" a circle to look like a ball. You create the folds and textures on clothing by using a "trompe l'oeil" effect - lots of shading and lots of highlights. Think how the old masters would do drawing studies of cloth and how it would fold on an object - that is exactly what a lot of people do here, but obviously in a digital format. I know it looks like a long road ahead of you but I imagine that if you sketch and draw enough within a few months you will be able to create some really great stuff.

Best thing to do is practice, practice, practice.

Here are a few websites that I think you might be able to get some mileage out of. Also if you have a specific question (like how do I make a hem, or how do I make satin.._) you can IM me in-world.

http://www.dueysdrawings.com/drawing_tutorials.html
http://www.huntfor.com/design/tutorials/drawing.htm
http://www.jdhillberry.com/how_to_draw_pg2.htm
http://crysa.deviantart.com/art/Drawing-Clothes-And-Folds-21994317
http://www.imaginefx.com/
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/

I am very creative person and self taught artist....but there still lot I don't know and struggle with but I persist and eventually with little guidance and lots of practice I do figure things out.
And I believe anyone can too.
I really loved some of ideas and suggestions here. Thanks for sharing.
Biggest issue I have is some things I do well, but the important things that happen with templates often I can't reproduce the same tones and colors that exist in Adobe or my head, in SL.
Which is incredibly frustrating.

I have been building in SL for over a year and have made several skins, aggg, impossable, and clothing. What I realized is this. Photo real does not look real in SL. You can experiment with photo sourcing in Photoshop, and making tonnes of layers for shadows and shading. Also you can import and force the texture to preview as a t-shirt, pants, even a skin, in the preview window and save a tonne of cash by not actually unloading them. But I find that in Photo shop start with a 512x512 or even 1024x1024 template and up the resolution from 72 to 300-500 dpi. Just be sure to save a copy and bump it back down to 72pdi before you upload into SL. But always work at super high relolutions whenever you use any detail or cut an alpha channel.

PS: burning and dodging in Photoshop is a great tool for creating natural shadows and even try duplicating your layers and add blending effects for more realistic variations

I make my own Bump maps some times you can do it with color but I use a lot of black and white then do a color overlay to give it color and you can use a texture and make it a bumpmap and then put an overlay over it of a fabric or what ever gives a cool effect just some thoughts.

Hey Paul what exactly does it take to make a bump map is it just the areas that are raised up and outline?
lIs it like in a black white image like with my grumpy hearts in my signature? I tried to do colorized version of them in tga alpha and all the color went bye bye and it made me think about something I had seen about bump maps but because I am so new to all this I am not sure and feeling a bit clueless.