Question on Creating Materials in Photo Shop CS

Hi everyone,
I searched a few pages in the forums an did not see anything that really answered my question. I'm , at best, a novice user with photo shop. Right now im using the trial version of CS2 althought i own PS 7.0. My question is in reguards to making colors used to fill templates look like material an not just , well , paint. I know alot of people just take an image of a pair of jeans an stretch an fit it to make the clothing. I have done this in the past. it works i guess but it doesnt really allow me to put my signiture on stuff, make it my own that is. Im not an artist either. I hope i dont need the talent to create it on a PC. I know the look i want, but cant seem to get the program to create a Twill, denime, cotton, looking texture. Do you experienced clothiers use a filter or brush i might be over looking. Im sure its a combo of multiple things. Im not asking for trade secrets an deffinately not looking to bite someones style. Just need a hand in finding my own. Im more than familiar with the alpha layers an the basics if you will. Ive familiarized myself with the Dodge tool on CS2 but cant find the Burn tool. anyhow, any help would be appriciated here or in game.
Onelio

Hi Onelio. Let me offer some assistance.


Careful calling yourself "not an artist". Clearly you have ambitions to create, which by definition makes you an artist. I'm a firm believer in the power of suggestion, particularly as it pertains to how we describe ourselves. Psychologists call it self-fulfilling prophesy. Keep telling yourself you have no artistic talent, and you never will. Tell yourself you have the capacity to learn to make the things you want to make, just like every other human being on this planet, and you WILL learn to do it.

Anyway, the point here is it DOES take talent to make convincing clothing, but that shouldn't be anything you should let stop you. Anyone, literally anyone, can learn artistic skill. It's something every child is born with. For reasons unknown, some of us continue to persue and hone the skillset, while others do not, but it's there in each of us. Just because you might not have accessed it before doesn't mean you can't now.


Denim is really easy to make. You'll find a simple tutorial for it in this thread. The tutorial in no way teaches you how to make jeans, but it will show you how to make a convincing swatch of denim fabric in about 5 seconds.

Making your own jeans the first time will be a relatively complex process. You'll need to learn how to make convincing seams, wrinkles, belt loops, pockets, etc. It's not exactly hard, but it does require a bit of artistic know-how. Normally, I would suggest taking a good critical look at how real jeans look in pictures, but typically when someone describes themselves as "not an artist" that means they haven't yet learned how to look critically in the way I'm talking about. You can certainly learn to do it, no question, but it's a little beyond what can be taught in a forum like this. For best results, I'd recommend art classes, but if that's not an option for you, there are many good books that can get you on your way. "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards is one of the best. You'll be suprised at how quickly you can tap into your latent abilities that you never knew were there. (As I said, everyone has them.)

If this SL clothing thing is just a minimal part time hobby for you, I realize this might all sound like a bit much, but trust me, the book's worth a read. Even if you forget all about SL one day, learning to tap into the artistic part of your brain is something that you'll have forever, and it's part of your birthright as a human being.

Anyway, regardless of how far you want to go (or not) to expand yourself as an artist, you might want to experiment with altering existing jeans to look the way you want. It's a good exercise if nothing else, but more than that, you'll find it's often the fastest way to acheive the results you're going for. I would suggest starting with the jeans sample that comes with the lower body template. Experiment with things like moving the pockets around, adding new seams by copyng or clone stamping the existing ones, adding wrinkles, rips, and tears, etc. With practice, you'll naturally discover how to morph the existing jeans into the ones you had in mind.


Don't take offense, but you just hit on my number one forum petpeave. There's no such thing as an alpha layer. It's an alpha channel. Layers and channels are two completely seperate things. This forum is the only place in the known universe(s) where people insist on using the two words synonymously, and it drives me nuts because it really confuses people. Whenever I see it, I do my best to squash it (like now). For more on the differences between layers and channels, see this thread.


You're either gonna laugh or cry when I tell you where the burn tool is. It's in the same place as the dodge tool. Almost all the buttons on the toolbox are stacked, meaning they have other buttons underneath them (to save space on the screen). To see what's in a stack, either right click on a button or just left click and hold for a second. Then just select the button you want to be "on top" by left clicking on it. It will stay on top until the next time you change the order.

I would suggest you take a look at all the stacks, by the way. There are tons of useful tools you haven't seen yet if you haven't looked.


Good luck and have fun with it. If you've got any more questions, shoot.

Very encouraging, Chosen!

I would only add the caveat that a person shouldn't look at what someone else has done and decide that what that does is "art" and what they do is not, and that they have to create like the other person does in order to be a "real" artist.

I think that we are all creative, but we each express it differently based on our personalities and what we have been exposed to in the past. In other words, personality determines how we express ourselves, and experience gives us access to particular skill sets that help us express ourselves.

As far as drawing goes, for example, anyone can learn how to draw, but in terms of art, a very concrete "realistic" person is often very good at rendering [something exactly in how it looks, replicating it], while a more abstract person might be terrible at the very tedious (and boring, to them) work of rendering and is much better at big broad strokes that are suggestive rather than literal. They might be more evocative or surreal in how they draw. And if one tries to be the other, they usually fail horribly.

An artist is most creative when she tries to be the person she is and creates accordingly -- in other words, finding her "voice."

So don't feel bad if you end up not creating things that look like Chip's or Chosen, just find what you are good at creating and go with it.

thanks for the tip on the denim i tried it an it came out pretty good even though i got lost on your instructions of using the stamp. I hope i didnt loose you all when i suggested i am no artist. What was meant was i couldnt draw a stick figure let alone a believable pair of pants with creases an pleats an pockets to save my life. The main point was a question on filtering a flat color to look like material. I can take an image reference an draw the belt loops as best as i can an same as pockets an so forth. Those are minor details compared to a pair of pants that look like body paint an not really a material. Thanks for the words of incouragement though. I know alot of times you cant really get a state of mind across in your text, but rest assured im not a defeatist, Ill try an continue to do so till i figure it out. In fact I had a resource really close to home that i had never even thought of asking. My Girlfriend is a art student in SF @ the academy of art. she is willing to help me out even though she already thinks i spend too much time on SL , Let alone tryin to make clothes for it now. =)..

Thanks again ,
Oneilo