I want to dress characters in clothes with lots of frills and lace, but I can't draw them well.

I tried frill materials, but something feels off. I want to efficiently increase the visual information in character illustrations.

For those who feel this way, we'll show you how to draw cute dresses, focusing on how to utilize Clip Studio assets. Even beginners can do it easily, so please read to the end and create illustrations that go viral!

This Tip is Recommended for:

・People who want to draw clothes and skirts with frills

・People who want to complete illustrations in less time

・People who want to know tips for applying frill materials

Workflow

I've prepared an illustration of a girl wearing a simple, unadorned dress. Let's decorate it using Clip Studio assets.

The production flow is:

1. Draw the dress design

2. Decide on the skirt wrinkles (frill guidelines)

3. Choose appropriate materials

4. Apply materials using tools like the Liquify tool

Step 1. Draw the Dress Design

First, let's start with the dress design.

Create another layer above the body base layer. Set this layer as a draft layer and change its layer color to light blue for better visibility later.

Tips

Draft Layer: Not affected by raster layers, can be set whether to output during export. Used for drafts.

Draft layers do not affect raster layers.

Therefore, when inking (finishing) on a raster layer, it's efficient as it prevents overfills and missed areas.

Since it's difficult to design a dress from scratch, use Google search and Pinterest to find reference materials and draw while looking at them. Especially when you're not used to drawing dresses, having plenty of reference materials is a shortcut to drawing cute dresses.

This time, I drew the design referencing my favorite Lolita fashion. The rough design doesn't need to be meticulously drawn; it's fine as long as the design is clear.

Step 2. Decide on the Skirt Wrinkles (Frill Guidelines)

Next, draw the skirt wrinkles.

 

Create a new vector layer above the draft layer.

Draw the line art for the wrinkles. Since the flow of frills and lace follows the skirt's wrinkles, decide on the wrinkles first. These will serve as guidelines for frills and lace. Draw them carefully while referring to your reference materials.

Tips

A vector layer is a layer where the quality of drawn lines does not degrade even when zoomed in or out, and their shape and thickness can be freely changed. While it cannot be filled, it is suitable for line art.

Step 3. Choose Appropriate Materials

Now that the guidelines are set, it's time for frill materials.

If you haven't prepared frill and lace materials yet, head to Clip Studio Paint Assets.

If you search for 'frill', many related materials will be displayed.

It's recommended to search by popularity.

Download materials that match the image you want to draw and your art style.

Even free materials are sufficient. Of course, if you have favorites, there are many useful paid materials as well. This time, I will demonstrate with free materials.

Tips for Choosing Materials

There are two key points when choosing materials.

 

One is to narrow down the types you use.

There are many cute materials, but don't be greedy; narrow down the types you use. Especially for beginners, it's recommended to limit yourself to three or four types or fewer.

If you have too many types of materials, it's highly likely that the overall look won't be cohesive. Moreover, frequently changing materials takes more time, which is not efficient.

The other is to pay attention to the amount of information in the material and the density of lines, and choose something that matches your art style.

Delicately drawn frill and lace materials are beautiful, but if you use them, you'll need to increase the detail in other parts of your illustration to match.

If only the decorative parts have a high line density, it will look unnatural. The same applies in reverse.

Therefore, when searching for materials, keep not only the design but also the line density in mind. Download everything from intricate frills to simple ones, try them on your illustration, and choose materials with similar line information to achieve a natural and beautiful finish.

These are the materials I'll be using this time. Since I also found a suitable ribbon material, I'll show you how to use that later.

Before applying frills, I'll introduce two convenient time-saving settings.

1. Depending on the material, you can change the line art color and frill color using the main color and sub color.

If you're drawing a color illustration, setting the desired colors at the beginning will allow you to complete the base coloring in one go! For this demonstration, I'll keep it black and white, but please try setting your favorite colors.

2. When you want to layer frills and lace, stacking them from the bottom up can make it difficult to balance. However, creating a new layer for each frill can also be quite tedious.

Therefore, let's customize the sub tool detail settings for the material. Select the material you want to use, click the wrench icon, and choose Ink > Blending mode > Background.

This way, frills drawn later will appear to tuck underneath previous ones. If you want to draw layered designs, please give it a try.

Step 4. Apply Materials Using Tools Like the Liquify Tool

Now, let's apply the frill material along the guidelines.

Apply them slowly, keeping the three-dimensional form of the clothing in mind. Correct unnatural parts with the Liquify tool.

However, using the Liquify tool too much can blur the lines, so use it in moderation.

Also, the Liquify tool cannot be used on vector layers. When drawing on a vector layer, use the Transform tool instead.

Fine details, such as the edges of the lace, will be adjusted later.

When drawing two-tiered frills, changing the brush size creates a nice contrast and a beautiful finish.

When drawing lace on top of the skirt, also be mindful of the skirt's volume. Using the wrinkles as guidelines, it looks more realistic if it's slightly uneven rather than a perfectly straight line.

Next, add ribbon materials.

Since the ribbon I'm using this time is an image material, drag and drop the ribbon from the downloaded materials folder onto the canvas.

This ribbon material layer is a raster layer.

It's fine as is, but if you want to separate the line art and coloring layers when creating a color illustration, you can easily convert it to a vector material using the layer conversion function. Especially if you want to color trace the line art, I recommend converting it to a vector layer.

Duplicate the ribbon and paste it.

When using the same material, adding a slight variation using the Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal, Flip Vertical functions will improve its appearance.

After applying the materials, adjust them slightly while checking the overall balance of the illustration.

Mesh Transformation is useful for adjusting the overall shape of materials. Try using it in conjunction with the Liquify tool.

Drawing crinkled wrinkles on top of the frill lines makes the material look more natural and enhances the overall completeness.

After that, erase the line art overlapping the materials, check the overall balance, and either add or remove wrinkles.

 

Finally, adjust the line thickness as needed. If it's a vector layer, you can easily modify line thickness using Sub Tool [Correct line] > Correct line width.

Line thickness depends on your art style and preference, so feel free to draw as you like. However, generally, drawing thicker lines for outlines related to the silhouette and thinner lines for details and decorations will result in a well-balanced and dynamic illustration. If you're unsure, try this as a reference.

 

Done!

What do you think?

Today, I introduced how to draw cute clothes full of frills in less time, utilizing Clip Studio Paint assets.

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See you in the next Tips!