Understanding Fabric.

The silent, understated and, most importantly, understudied element of making comics. Comprehending how different types of clothing are constructed and how they fit the human body are the unseen 4th dimension of comics and, in my opinion, can make the difference between eye-poppingly believable art (no matter how cartoony) and yawn inducing art more reminiscent of fingerpainting than comics. I'm not making a case against simple styles, its certainly just as easy to convey your understanding of how fabric works with 5 lines instead of 500.

I will admit, this is one area of my own artwork that I will obsess over. If the folds of a jacket or shirt don't look right to me, I'm in for a long night. I find myself staring at curtains sometimes, figuring out how I would ink that just as I saw it. Sometimes I actually do ink it (on paper, not the curtains).

Fortunately, it does come fairly easy to me most times, but that wasn't always the case.

This wasn't a particularly informative blog post, but if it makes someone think twice about that fold of jeans in the back of their main characters leg, or makes you stare at a curtain just a little longer, count me satisfied.