Tutorials - Skirt (Folds)
Now for something I'm sure you were eager to learn: Folds! Here we'll learn making dress folds by creating a ankle-length skirt.
Here are the palettes I will be using for this tutorial:
First, draw the sides of the skirt. You can use the line tool or curve tool to help you if you want. I chose to do an ankle-length skirt because it enables me to show the basics of folds while still having the feet showing to put shoes on them later.
What not to do:
Do not draw the bottom of your skirt straight across. A curve is not better because clothes are rarely stiff enough that they will stay without folding. Do not either draw your folds as an even wavy line.
The best way to draw folds is to draw unequal waves. The folds near the sides are smaller and higher up than the ones in the center because of perspective. Here you can see that I've drawn a curve in another color as a guide.
Clean up the bottom outline: Erase the pink guideline, then make sure the actual outline of the folds is one pixel thick at all points, by erasing all extra pixels.
Flood-fill the skirt with the second lightest colour
Start shading the left and right edges of the skirt. Then draw some diagonal lines at every point where the bottom outline curves up. This is where the folds will be
Add some more pixels to the lines previously drawn, to make the folds triangular. You can also add some smaller creases near the top of the skirt.
Continue shading with the next lightest colour. Extend the folds upwards (or downwards for the small folds at the top) in a triangular fashion
What not to do:
When shading with the second color, do not simply trace around where you've put the initial shading. Make sure you extend your folds triangularly, and apply more shading to the areas where you see fit.
Now apply the highlights. These would go in between the areas where you put shading, in other words, in the places where the folds stick "out" instead of in.
To make this skirt a little more interesting, I added some trimming at the bottom. Notice that the outline of the trimming follows the same outline as that of the bottom of the skirt, and that the shading also matches
Final Result:
Here's the final pixel doll. The rest of the tutorials in the "For Newbies" series will show how to do the rest of her clothing and hair.