Another Tell Me How...Because i Suck!

Ok, SO i spent all night trying to make decent wrinkles, I understand how the 50% grey layer works and why you should have multiple layers for shading, highlight, and such...


i am really trying to get my shirt to look like this and it turn out looking like the wrinkles were to large,(by the smudge tool) and also after i did my own fabcric overlay- when i uploaded the lower jacket in sl it looked different from the top even though its the same one ,same color. ...

how do you get it to look like this - be the same matching color, and also get the fabric to over lay and how do you cut it out from the bottom of the shirt?! help!@

http://tinypic.com/r/3eb76/3 --- What i want it to look like ---
http://tinypic.com/r/2m766xi/3--- What mine looks like --- HELP!

The second image -- the one you don't like -- looks pretty good, as far as I can see. You did a nice job with the folds and wrinkles. (It's a bit hard to see the whole thing because you have a cartoon character in front of it. ) I can only imagine what the texture for the lower half of the jacket looks like because you didn't post that image, but if it's comparable, you shouldn't have any trouble.

Did you draw the lower half on a lower body template or a skirt template? You could do it either way. If you are using Chip Midnight/Robin Sojourner's templates, you should be able to use the match lines at the bottom of the upper body image and the top of the lower body image to align the two halves. If you used the same fabric (color, pattern, etc.), the two halves should match well. Then it's just a matter of working with the SLCP previewer to carefully blend your folds and wrinkles between the two parts.

If that's basically what you are doing already and you're still having problems, come back and we'll try again.

From what I can see, you've got your technique down, as far as creating light and shadow goes. The parts that are sticking out look like they're sticking out, and the parts that are recessing inward look like they're recessing inward. The trouble is you've done it with little or no regard for the real-world physical structure of a T-shirt. The wrinkles you added are simply thrown on top as extrusions FROM the material, rather than embedded as folds OF the material.

First, think about how a real wrinkle in a real piece of fabric is created. No wrinkle in the world simply sticks out from an otherwise flat base. It sticks out only because the material all around it sloped toward its peak. The wrinkle doesn't exist in isolation. The entire piece of fabric plays a part in shaping it. The wrinkle only exists at all because the fabric is bent in such a way as to create that particular shape.

Second, consider why the wrinkles on T-shirt fall where they do. It's because the shirt is not perfectly shaped to wrap around the body of the person wearing it. Notice on the first image you linked, the artist made sure the wrinkles were plausibly placed. The shoulders and the tops of the breasts are smooth, because gravity is pulling the shirt downward, stretching the fabric across those areas. The area around the arm pits, and underneath the breasts are wrinkly, because the fabric has to bend severely in those areas, in order to maintain the basic body shape. The wrinkles across the belt area are created by the waistline of the pants beneath the shirt, and they emanate from the tops of the hips, where again, gravity is pulling the shirt downward onto this somewhat horizontal structure. The wrinkles across the belly are larger and more relaxed than the rest, because that's the one area where the fabric is loose, and allowed to flow as it will.

Finally, put all that together, and approach the whole thing as a simple problem of light and shadow. Think to yourself, with all of the above in mind, how do light and shadow play across the surface? If a wrinkle doesn't just stick out, but is created by the sloping of the entire fabric, then how does that affect my assessment of how the light behaves above the wrinkle, and how the shadow behaves beneath it? If the fabric's shape is dictated by things like gravity, body shape, interaction with other garments present, etc., how does that affect my judgment about where the wrinkles should emanate from, and how they should be shaped?


I said it before and I'll say it again: drapery studies, drapery studies, drapery studies. That's the ONLY way you'll ever get good at this. 500+ years of classical art technique can't be wrong. Don't try to reinvent the wheel; if you're serious about this, then learn the same way every other serious artist has learned since the Renaissance.