You ever wonder how character designers keep characters on model when going through outfit changes? Heck even everyday fashion designers do something similar. I refer to it as the Doll Method and it’s a technique that’s aided me for years when designing clothes for my characters.

Initial Character Design

First, draw out your character. The pose can be very simplistic or very complex, it depends on your style and comfort. For tutorial sake, I chose a very simple pose so it would be easier to lay down clothing later. At this stage, you can also establish key colors.

Layer Duplication and Mirroring

After your character has been drawn and inked out, hide the sketch layer(s) and duplicate the ink layer by using the Move Tool while holding the Option key (for Mac)/Alt key (Windows). This will automatically create a new, separate layer.

On the new layer, select the character copy with the Lasso tool and go into the Transform mode. This can be achieved by going to Edit>Transform>Scale/Rotate menu or going the the tool bar below the selection and tap the Transform Icon. Make sure the Move Tool is still selected, as this will come into play in a bit.

Once you have the Transform Box around the character, go the Move Tool setting/menu and select the flip horizontally icon. Make sure the “Keep Original Image” box is unchecked. You should get the following result of a perfect (or near perfect) mirrored image.

Creating the Backside

Now we get to the part where we create the backside view of the character. When creating a fashion design, you want more than one view of the outfit so you and others can see how it works and appears.

 

Create a new layer and on the duplicated layer, use the Wand Tool and create a selection around the mirrored character. Then, go to Edit>Outline Selction.

After selecting Outline Selection, a menu will pop up. Keep it set to “Draw on Border” and set line width to 1 ( you don’t want a super thick line surrounding your character).

After the outline has been created, hide the layer of the mirrored character and you should get an image/outline like the one below. The silhouette will vary by the design of you character.

Using the outline as a guide, draw out your character’s back side view. This will require some knowledge of anatomy, so don’t be shy to look up references to see how the legs and back look from this view. Also utilize any character references you have of your Original Character to better match the model.

 

Now you have a front and back view of your character. Here, you can add color to the back view if you want.

 

Clothing

Create a new layer and draw any chosen outfit on your character on the front and back view models. For this example, I put my charcter, Jules, in a sailor-like outfit.

Now it’s looking a bit jumbled and dirty with all those details lumped together. You would think just simply erasing parts of the Character layer will solve it, right? Well, your technically right but that would destroy the reference point/mannequin you had set up for this purpose...PERMANENTLY! Instead, a less destructive way is the use of Layer Mask.

 

Mask are very useful in that they allow you to hid things safely within an image. When using a Mask, remember to make sure your are editing in the box next to the layer image. Last thing you want is to mess up all your hard work. Also, in the Clip Studio Paint Program, using the Eraser Tool (preferably the rough eraser) with the color black selected erases the parts you want gone. If you want details to reappear, use the Pen or Pencil Tool with the color white. To disable Mask, you can double tap the mask box in the layer or tap the Mask Icon and select the enable mask box.

Using the Masks, hide the parts of the ink and color layers that are interfering with the clothes of your character. This can change time to time depending on how the outfit hangs on you character.

Then on a new layer, add your choice of colors to the clothes. Your coloring process can be as simple or as complex as you want.

And there you have it, creating your own Mannequin makes the process of creating fashion on your character time saving and easy.

 

If you want to make more attire for your character, you can save a separate file of just the nude mannequins/dolls. If you want multiple outfits on one sheet, just duplicate the inked and colored layers of your character with the Masks deactivated or adjusted for various clothing items and size them to fit the size of your file.