Wrinkles, Shading, Shadows & Highlight Textures

Hello,
I am designing a pair of snakeskin pants for men. I am having the hardest time placeing any sort of Shading for wrinkles folds ect on the pants.

Im not exactly sure where to place these lines for one thing and secondly Has anyone ever had any sucess making it look good on snake skin pants?

Im wondering if there is baked texture out there we can place as an overlay when creating clothes?

I saw a great Tutorial here:http://arikinui.com/Clothing%20Tutorial.html

Its a really great tutorial for wrinkles shading ect except they totally lost me on the duplicate layer fill with 50% grey and select multiply??? Its like WHY?? What is it for?

It also doesnt say what order to place the shadowing on. Does it go right on top of all layers? or should I place it behind the fabric layer and play with the transparancy sliders?

I use Gimp not photo shop. I basically dont know where I should place these wrinkles on fabric to make it more realistic looking.
Does anyone have any other tutorials or A baked texture?

It is always wise to create shadows/wrinkles/folds on separate layers instead of making permanent changes to fabric layers in your design. That way, you can always turn the wrinkles off or modify them without messing up you basic design.

When you are designing with layers, the birthday cake rule always applies: Upper layers always cover the lower ones. If you want something that you draw on a layer to be visible, it has to be above anything else, so that you can see it when you look down from the top of the stack of layers. So, a shadow/wrinkle/fold layer has to be above whatever the shadows/wrinkles/folds are meant to modify.

There are many templates and special tools for making folds, wrinkles, and shading, but I find that most of them look fake when you apply them to your own work. It's better to learn how to draw them yourself, so that they match the specific contours you are trying to simulate. This is potentially very hard stuff to learn. Artists often spend many years with a sketch pad, watching the way light interacts with different materials and learning to make realistic effects on paper. It's no different with a graphics tablet and pen. Still, there are technical methods that should be in your personal toolbox -- sort of like learning how to hold a pencil when you are in an art class.

One basic technique for drawing folds in fabric is to create a new layer above your fabric layer and fill it with 50% gray. Why 50% gray? Because if you set the layer's mode to Multiply or Overlay, the layer will totally disappear, but you will be able to "draw" on it with your Dodge and Burn tools. That action simply adds or subtracts darkness to whatever is visible in layers below. Use a soft brush, a very low flow rate, and be gentle. It's wiser to make folds by "painting" successive overlapping strokes with Dodge or Burn than to try doing everything at once. Practice a lot.

If you check out the Photoshop Tricks and Tips sticky thread and the Tutorial thread at the top of this forum, you will find more detailed discussions of how to make specific folds and wrinkles, but my short note here should give you a start. Don't be put off by the fact that many tutorials are written for Photoshop users. They will apply to any program that uses layers, including GIMP.

Good luck and welcome to clothing design.

thank you for the tip I will open gimp and see how to fill something with 50% grey. I am not if the program has ever asked me to do that or where I go to fill it maybe the bucket tool?

I will try the dodge and burn tools. I have never known what they were for and was always curious.

It does seem easier to make folds and shading on a plain painted surface than it does on a paterned one.
Your tip about placeing it on top was really helpful. At least I know i dont have to fool around with making this more transparent and fliping the order of layers around.
I have made many outfits I have never done shading before.

Look up Ling ling designs if you want to see what I have for giggles sake.

thanks again

Now that I've taken an extra minute to look myself, I see that Robin Woods' (Robin Sojourner's) very nice discussion of the Dodge and Burn method I described is the first post in the Photoshop Tips & Tricks sticky thread at the top of this forum. Take a look. She does a much more complete job of it than I just did.

Filling a layer is a simple matter. You can certainly use the Paint Bucket tool. In Photoshop, you can also select the entire layer, then use Edit >> Fill and choose among the menu choices (50% gray is one of them). I don't use GIMP, but I would be surprised if there weren't a comparable tool there as well.

It sounds to me as if you need to get hold of a comprehensive GIMP manual and learn more of the basic tools. Visit your favorite nearby HUGE bookstore and spend time wading through the selections. There are several. I have been using Photoshop for a long time, but I often find myself flipping back through the manual when I need to use a method that I haven't played with for a while. PS, GIMP, and PaintShop Pro are so complicated that nobody can keep all the stuff in her head.

I totally agree with Rolig ..just one thing might be helpful since you noticed that the overlay mode works better on plain fabrics.

Try using the other blending modes. Create different layers for shading and highlights.

multiply/color burn/linear burn are great for shading

overlay/soft light/color dodge/linear dodge are great for highlights

combining the different blending modes also creates some very interesting effects you might like.