Drawing technique question

I have a drawing question. I have been drawing the folds and wrinkles for my clothes. If I change the color of an article, I have to redraw the folds and wrinkles. I have tried using the image adjustment feature in Photoshop to change the hue of the folds. However, I have not had perfect success in doing this.

I have also tried using Robin’s technique of using a 50% grey overlay and the dodge & burn tools. I can not do this as well as drawing. I find it hard to get the subtle tonal changes and my wrinkles come out unnatural looking.

Is there a way to draw on an overlay so the color wouldn’t matter? The underlying garment’s color would provide the color and the overlay level the tonal changes. Or is there a simpler way of doing this?

Jen

Look in /109/b3/60167/1.html particularly post #13 in that thread; that technique is teh roxx0rz.

Hi Jennifer! For my money, the easiest way to do this, if you want to use the same wrinkles on many colors and you'd rather just paint them in and don't like the Overlay effect, is plain old Multiply and Screen.

Paint the shadows in black, and then set the Layer Blending Mode of that layer to Multiply, adjusting the opacity to suit the texture of the fabric.

Paint the highlights in white, and set that layer to Screen, also adjusting the opacity to suit.

That should do it!

If you want the wrinkles to show more of the color of the fabric, which is sometimes desirable, you can change the color of that layer to a darker version of the color (set the color to be the foreground color, select the layer, hold down the Shift key to constrain the color change to non-transparent pixels, and tap Option/alt + Delete.)

Or you can use two layers, with one set to the fabric color, and one to black, and balance the opacity of the two to suit. (Both should have Multiply as their Layer Blending Mode, of course.)

If you're working with a printed fabric, and you want to use all the print colors, make a copy of the color layer, (Command/ctrl + J) select the opacity of the shadow layer (Command/ctrl click on the layer thumbnail,) and then, with the copy still selected, click the Layer Mask icon to make the shadow into a mask. Then set the Blending mode to Multiply, of course.

Combine the regular Shadow layer and the colors to get the shadow you want. (Multiply won't affect light colors, so if your pattern is on a white background, you'll still need some shadow, although you might want to make that layer dark slate blue to keep them from being just plain gray.)

When you switch to a different color, just change the colors in the shadow layer (if you used them,) or make a new copy using the same mask for the pattern layer (if you used that.)

Personally, I prefer painting the wrinkles too; but I'm very comfortable with painting. A lot of the other techniques I mention here are for people who aren't, so they won't have to. But if you prefer to paint, then by all means, do so! I agree that you can get a lot more control (read; exactly what you want, with total control,) when you just paint it!

As has been mentioned before, there are dozens of ways to do almost everything in PS!

If anyone would like to see a different technique to do the same thing, just ask!

Ummm.. or you could just draw on the Overlay layer with white and black; but I find it better to split them out, so I can control the opacity separately, or use the color techniques.

Hope this helps!

Edited to add the bit about drawing on the Overlay layer.

Thanks Introvert for reminding me of that thread. I have followed every thread on this for the past six months, as I try to get back into drawing. That is a good one.

I was one of those people who could draw well enough to impress people, who couldn’t draw but, my finished drawing never matched the image in my mind. So, I moved on to other things. SL has re-inspired my interest in drawing.

Jen

Thank you so much Robin. This looks to be exactly what I am looking for. I will print this out and add it to my growing pile of RSW print-outs. If you ever want to write a book on drawing in SL, contact me and I will bind them and just send you a copy of your already written book.

Jen

Robin, if you -ever- write your own Photoshop Tricks and Tips guide for SL book I would support you by buying it.