40 Days of Art: Building Under Clothing

[tealin]

When you are drawing your character, be it from your imagination, off an existing image, or from life, try building up the figure 'naked' (for lack of a better term) to begin with, then adding clothes on top of that. This forces you not only to think about the construction and anatomy of your subject (rather than handwaving it away under drapery) but also to consider how the body affects the clothes it is interacting with, and how the creases and contours of the fabric indicate what is going on underneath. And, of course, your drawing will be that much more believable if it has a solid foundation.

Obviously it's best to figure out how this is done by starting with some drawing from life. Try to deconstruct what you're seeing, using the clues that are apparent to the eye; then when you build it up again from your own mind you can use those same clues to convey the information in your original underlying drawing.