[MarshallX]

Does anyone have any tuts or tips on how to airbrush clothing so it looks like cloth and not the same as....plastic or anything else...if you know what i mean..

[Steven Stahlberg]

Loose masking is IMO the only way to go to create wrinkles. Can't do nice wrinkles freehand, or with hard edges.

[Sukhoi]

Loose masking = Lasso masking????

Hehe, if it is not, then I don't know Photoshop....

Sukhoi

[[Shizo]]

Probably with select/feather option.

[LoTekK]

by loose masking, i believe he means use some feather in your selections... (the "hard edges" bit led me to that conclusion)... correct me if i'm wrong, mr stahlberg...

[Derek]

Can't do nice wrinkles freehand...? What?
Why not?
You have to remember that folds originate from a single point, a point of tension on the surface, usually the point where the knee or elbow, or such, is in direct contact with the inside of the tube of cloth, or under the flat drape of it.
Also, you have to pay attention to the shine or lack of such of the material. Other than that... there really isn't a whole lot to them. They shouldn't be difficult if you look for a few basics, such as above. Pay attention to a. the lines of stress and b. the crushed material, which will be folds of material, usually rolls of it, together.
Study patterns of highlights, basic local color, and areas that are turned away from light, are undercut, or are reflecting light from opposite surfaces.
Also, a bit about shadows:
Cast shadows have hard edges, so if an edge or fold or what have you is casting a shadow, the contours or edges of that shadow will be hard. Form shadows: if the form is material rolling away from you, unless it has a hard corner (if it's ironed or something) its shadow will be a soft transition from light to shade. It may happen very fast and in a small space, but will still go through a few values rather than abruptly change from one to the next. These are incredibly important visual cues as to the properties of a surface, and will trigger responses in our systems that may not be consistent with what we expect, i.e. your plastic instead of leather or such look, if not dealt with properly. You've spent a lifetime assimilating data for this purpose of fast recognition and organization. Slow down a bit, observe, and clothing will be easy.
As for airbrushing... I'm not sure why you'd exclusively want to use the airbrush; I'd drop the airbrush mostly, only use it to smooth out areas that are really giving you trouble. If you can explain why the airbrush itself, I may have an idea or two on how to get better results with it. If it has to deal with a style or such you like, well, okay... but I'd look into other means of creating clothing. Still, as mentioned in other posts, cuts and hard edge masks will always give you terrible looks, so feather your edges where you need to, edge control is a key here.

[ December 28, 2001: Message edited by: Derek Smith ]

[Steven Stahlberg]

Sorry, I misunderstood. I confused Brain's real airbrush post with this one, thinking he meant a real airbrush. So what I meant was the real-life technique of cutting out intricate masks in paper or vellum, holding them raised or even moving them around while airbrushing.
Freehand airbrush is one of my big pet peeves in art. It just can't EVER look really good, not without some other technique (like motor-driven erasing or pencils or masking or whatever). Now back to our scheduled programming.

[Derek]

Whew,
Glad to hear you say that... cuz I wasn't too sure either, so I put up as generic a reply as I could that'd work for both. I'm not a fan of airbrush in any media except modelbuilding, and even then... well, anyway. It's a tool, but should be very limited in its use.
Again though, I can put in a few more thoughts here if there are specific results wanted and reasons why airbrush specifically.

[MarshallX]

I understand how the folds and creases work, ive got them undercontrol, i just need help on making it look more like cloth than plastic

[Derek]

Well... without seeing any images I'd say reduce the amount of contrast, eliminate really bright or pure hue, increase your texture and color variation and avoid local color where possible; reflect surface color and environment, and also reflect clothing color onto your character. It happens in real life and puts the character in the clothing, instead of just having the cloth in the image. Pay attention to the rules of edges and the stroke direction, strength, shape, atmosphere. If you have folds and compression down, then play with lost edges above all else.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Things look plastic when the highlight is pure white and fairly focused, and the rest of the material is lighter and brighter in the shadow regions than average (making it look translucent).

So without having seen an example, a few things you could try - don't make the highlight too strong and narrow, maybe play with other hues than just lighter versions of the base color, and maybe lower the saturation and value of the darker parts.

(edit: some of that's already been said I just noticed.)

[ December 28, 2001: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[MarshallX]

So say i have a black trenchcoat on a character, what colours should the highlights be?

[roundeye]

pink.

[Derek]

Depends... what's the trenchcoat made out of? Is it daytime? Night? Raining? How many lights? Out in the forest? Under the stars? Is Rome burning? Is the character light or dark skinned? So many questions play a role in this... but you have to ask them. Sucks huh?
And... black material can be incredibly reflective, so you can have a lot of color in it. Dark greens, blues, violets, etc... will really make the color sing and people look at it and wonder how the hell you did it.
I did an illustration of a famous Bounty Hunter from a galaxy far, far away once, and the group responsible for all things money-making that saw it couldn't stop staring at one small spot because it was 'black' with two highlights... but wouldn't stop 'shimmering'...
Was worth the hell I went through to get them to shut up about my concept. Anyway, point is... what's going on in the world around the trenchcoat? You'll find some of your answers there...
Also... sheesh... what kind of a black is it? Warm? Cool? Red? Blue? Brown?
Black has a range of inherent properties to it, not always your basic carbon or bone color. Not trying to frustrate you, but there's no right answer to your question.

[MarshallX]

Alright, its a guy jumping backwards shooting like ont he Max Payne game, he has a trenchcoat on that is liek the one on Neo From the Matrix (sorry about the comparasins), im thinking of making it in a street, there are street lamps down the side of the road...Light Skinned character, there is no burning in the background, the coat is supposed to look sleek and stunning if you know what I mean by that, now that I've told you that im even more lost because I don't know what to do on this coat, I mean, what kind of reflections am i going to get on black from a white coat, what colours should i use to get the right look, can you help me out more if i send you a picture of what I have so far?
BY THE WAY WHOEVER RATED ME THANKS ALOT!!

[ December 29, 2001: Message edited by: MarshallX ]

[Derek]

Yeah, will give you a hand...
Haven't seen Matrix for a while...
do you mean the one he wore toward the end of the film? On the attempted rescue mission? If I recall, Neo's was a heavy coat that was wool it seemed. Yes?
Anyway, [email protected]...
Feel free...

Clothing can be a pain to light properly at times, but that is only because so many factors can come into play. The fall off of light, shadows and refletions within folds etc... but we'll get you set up. You've probably done most of the work already, made some decisions and now just need to get some assurance on proceeding with it.

[ December 30, 2001: Message edited by: Derek Smith ]