Tips on folds in cartoon clothes.

[Skaven252]

Nice post, great rules of thumb there!

..... aaaaand if you want to get technical and complex about it, there's a whole book on the subject: Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery by Burne Hogarth.

[MarkMyWords]

LOL!

Yes, I have the very same book myself, but for most of my work it is a bit too 'over the top'. Burne hogarth is a very technical illustrator and can be hard going. Unless you are determined to create all your folds from your imagination i would suggest the easier route of simply finding photos of folds that are similar to what you need.

Same for anatomy, though Hogarth draws amazing anatomy, his methods can be tortuous. If we are going to recommend books I would suggest these; for general cartoon figures the best book I can recommend for beginners is Jack Hamms "Cartooning the head and figure" http://www.amazon.com/Cartooning-Hea.../dp/0399508031 It is an old one and looks dated, but the principles are all sound.

and for comic-strip style the best for beginners is "drawing comics the Marvel way" http://www.amazon.com/Cartooning-Hea.../dp/0399508031. This has started more pro-comics creators off than any other book.

Both books are packed with absolute gold, For humour toons Hamms can't be beaten, he even has a chart of all the expressions he can think of - cross referenced LOL! This book will get even the least confident person tooning in no time.

If you have problems with realistic anatomy or draw a lot of figures try this http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/studio/-/? it's a free 3D figure modeling program and it's very good, second only to Poser and for composing figures (just for reference-no need to go into the depths of adding clothing, textures or even lighting for 3D rendering) its fast and easy to use. If you do use this, one tip, don't get bogged down in posing every finger and toe remember its just reference you are not going to fully render it LOL! Load a figure (also free) click the pose and animate tab and then play with the 'power pose' controls, when you have the pose and angle of view you want, simply do a quick render (10-20 seconds) then save that as a jpeg for reference.