Introduction

Hello! My name is Jessica Morrow (she/her) and I will be showing you how to design clothing for original characters! Designing an OC and its clothes can seem difficult, but with the right steps, it should be simple and a lot of fun!!

 

 

This tutorial will show you how to make clothing for your original character like the one we below that we will be making today!

For this tutorial, I will be using Ari Thi Ahn, an original character of mine from my webtoons series, ‘200E’.

Ari is a 17 year old Vietnamese American who is missing a right hand due to an accident as a child. She has a very closed off and introverted personality and due to bullying and her body type, dresses in androgynous and more masculine clothing. She also really loves older rock music such as Linkin’ Park and Nirvana but also loves anime and dressing up. She has a quiet but inner bubbly personality that everyone loves. But she also has an intimidating personality, especially once she gets a dimensional power that gives her a purple flaming power of destruction. A monster within a cute girl.

When designing an OC, there are steps that you need to consider:

1. Anatomy

2. Personality

3. Color Pallet

4. Lighting

Anatomy

The most important first thing when sketching an OC is the anatomy. No matter the art style, human anatomy is key to portraying an effective character model! Making sure your anatomy is proportioned well is key to creating a successful model.

 

 

While this is not the only method, the best method I use is to sketch out a naked form of your OC in order to get proportions right. Then from there, the clothes can effectively wrap around your OC in the manner you want!

My original character, Ari Thi Ahn, is a 5’7” (170 cm) teen woman with a much larger body type overall. This means that there is going to be much more clothing folding near the chest and joint areas in the upper body. This will also affect the type of clothes that Ari chooses to wear for herself given her body type!

Personality

When designing an OC, it is important to show off what your character’s personality is. Are they an introverted person? Are they really into clothing or anime? Are they out going and bubbly? Those are questions you should ask yourself! They greatly affect the clothing and posing and expressions of your character

Personality greatly affects the clothing wear of your character! Ari, for example, is a girl who is much more androgynous in her looks but prefers more masculine clothing due to her insecurities on her body type. She is largely into music such as Nirvana and Linkin’ Park. She is a much more closed off personality due to her insecurities and bullying, which reflects in her clothing choices. However, she still tries her best to wear what she wants and to look cool while in it. This draws her heavily to have a more introverted but caring and intimidating personality!

Color Pallet

Color pallet is an important and creative choice when designing. Color is entirely up to you and what you want your character to look like! You might want a greyscale or highly colorful art style for piece! Key step is to figure out the majority of the color pallets you want to use depending on the art style, personality and setting of your OC. All elements should be thought out but are incredibly up to you!

For example, my ‘200E’ comic is made in greyscale but still has a panel or two with full color. And all official artwork is made in color! For example, Ari is a half Vietnamese and half German woman, so she has a much more lighter skin type. She has dark black/grey hair with red undertones in her skin. Her eyes are a distinct dark purple. Her clothing is much more grey and black toned with an occasional purple or blue to add nice elements. Overall, my art style is more of a cell art based but colorful and thick art style!

Lighting

The last element before we start our tutorial is lighting. This is the biggest key to an art style, as good lighting and bad lighting on a piece is very noticeable. Take into account the light sources and direction that it hits on a character. This will help you out in coloring of your clothes and to help make your OC look as best as possible!

Tutorial

Starting Your Document

First, lets open up a new document in Clip Studio. For this tutorial, I am using a 2100 x 2970 pixel document. I will be sketching using the “Real Pencil” option in the Pencil Tool. For linework, I will be using a mix of “Real G-pen” and “G-pen” in the Pen tool. Coloring I will be using the Gouache paint tool and the Pen tool with a mix of the Blender tool.

Of course, use any tool you wish! The freedom is up to you and does not have to replicate me at all!

Step 1: Body Sketching

Now that we have our elements established, lets get into this! The first step we want to do is to start sketching out a pose for our OC. This may take a lot of layers but do as many as needed. While I will not go over the process of drawing this body sketch, make sure it is still anatomically correct. As we established, Ari is a much larger body figure woman. Using the pencil tool, I will sketch out until we have the pose I want established of her naked body. I decided to do a standing pose where she will be facing semi to the right while both of her arms are on her hips!

For this, I will be using multiple layers using the “Real Pencil” tool. This again, is up to you but I feel is the best for sketching layers. When you are ready to move to a next layer, toggle on visibility of the below layers.

You may notice that there is some missing detail in certain areas. That is okay, while the sketch does not look g

100% like a final product, it gives us a chance to see the overall body type of Ari prior to drawing on clothing. Make sure to save all of your body sketch layer into a sketch layer folder, that way you can just turn off the visibility when you are done with coloring! The next step we will be doing is to make sure we have all of our body colors

Step 2: Color Reference

Create a folder named “Reference”, this will be used for any reference on color and lighting. Create a layer for “body colors” along with one for “clothing colors” Lay them all out and have them next to each other. That way, we can make adjustments now to make life easier for us! Have details like hair, eyes, skin, clothing, etc. When you are done, lets start a new folder called “Sketch for Clothing”.

Step 3: Clothes Sketching

Next we will be sketching out the clothing. Because we made a body sketch of Ari, we have an actual reference for how to draw the clothing of Ari. Based on Ari’s much more black and androgynous attire along with her much larger body type, we will be drawing:

1. A sleeveless turtleneck

2. A grey/black leather jacket

3. Dark baggy pants

4. Purple socks

5. Black Shoes

Now, important thing is to make sure your sketches wrap around the body parts. Some areas like the boobs and joints will have the most folds in the clothing. Wrapping around but also giving space around the original body part makes us sure that the clothing is not just the skin itself but rather its own thing attached onto the body. Do as many layers as you need until you are done!.

When you are at a good point, make a final sketch layer and draw all elements, both clothing and body along with any necessary details you need to keep in mind.

Step 4: Start Linework and Coloring

Next step is to start our “Color” folder, which will be the product you show off! First, lets open up a Vector layer. Most layers you will use or have are raster ones, which are for coloring and sketching. Vector layers are for linework and are in the Layers option in the top part of the app. We will open it up and name it “Linework”. Now, using the pen tool, we will outline the entirely of the linework we established in Ari’s body. The only exception will be hair, as it is an art style of mine. We will get into that later

Underneath your linework layer, establish layers of clothing and body. For example “Pants 1” or “Body 1”. You can name it however you want but name it to the correct type of coloring you want to do in the layer. This helps us stay organized. The hair layer will be above the linework as I like to do my hair with a more minimal cell shading.

Next, we will be using the pen and the gouache paint tool (whichever you want) to color in the base colors. Do this prior to any shading so that you can make adjustments as needed! Refer to your color references!

Step 5: Lighting Reference

Next, lets establish our lighting point. This is where the light will bounce off of Ari’s body. The setting I have is a nighttime setting, but there is still going to be light from the Moon and other city lights bouncing off of her left side. Draw this out as a layer underneath all of the color. Refer to this when you do lighting

Now, Ari does also have her own light source which is her fire hand. This means that the chest area will have an unusual light source reflected onto it. Now, following the lighting, the light will bounce mostly off of the top left side and the folds of the left jacket. It will also bounce a lot off of the folds and left side of the turtleneck, the pants and even parts of the folds on the right side of her body.

Remember: Just because lighting is on one side of her body does not mean that the other side is totally dark. It will have lighting on folds of the clothes and any more outward parts to her clothes. The only way that the other would be true is if the light was a light directly lined on her side, but since it is above, we need to consider this

Note: Try using other tools such as the spray tool or the gradient tool in order to get any shading you want. Also experiment with the display type on layer. Underneath the fire hand, for example, I have an “Add Glow” layer which helps the fire hand of Ari stand out

Step 6: Shading and Lighting

When we start doing lighting and color, we need to make sure we make each of them as different elements. Such as Pants 2 or P2. This way we can erase any errors without comprising the base color. Create as many layers as needed for each color change per clothing or body element. Experiment with the layer type as needed. And make sure to follow the line established of lighting. Play around with the linework to create depth you might need

Step 7: Fixing Errors

After we have finished coloring, you can see how her jacket is still very dark but has the necessary folds and lighting on her left side in order to convey it on her body!. The turtleneck is shown to be tight on her body, which is much more bigger especially for her chest area. When you are finished with coloring, I recommend that you have a color layer below all of the color (but above the references) in a different color. Lets use pink, this layer will be there simply to make sure we got all of the linework and didn’t leave off any unnecessary marks.

Go in and fix any mistake that we could not prior. When you are done, make sure to turn off the visibility of this layer, the sketch layers and the reference layers

Step 8: Erase Sketch and Reference Layers/ Finish Product

Once we have finished coloring and lighting of Ari, you are essentially done with the clothing! Choose any background color you want and take the visibility to 0% on all layers we do not need. Make sure that you merge all layers together (I recommend copying the color layer and then doing this in case of any errors) and export it!

We have a finished piece!

You have now made a successful drawing of your OC and their clothing! Now, this next step is optional but I highly recommend. Making an established background with elements such as lighting and setting can help elevate the piece. Lets do that next!

(Optional) Step 9: Background Coloring and Finishing a Piece

Using the same lighting reference layer we used prior, we will use that when we create lighting for the background. Make sure to sketch out layers for the background underneath your OC. Make sure that the buildings or any other element are proportioned correctly. Since we have her facing a rightward pose with feet pointed to the bottom right, the buildings will be shaded and bordered facing that same direction. The setting is outside of a building at night time with a full moon, so the colors will be much more darker with a glow coming from top right.

When you are done sketching, follow a similar process as we stated but with the setting. I recommend going to references or other tutorials on this portion. When you are finished coloring and fixing, we have our new and final established piece!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I am still new to these so please let me know any tips on doing a better job! I hope this was helpful to you and good luck on your art journey <3

Socials

Instagram: @firan025

Clip Studio: @firan025

 

Jessica Morrow <3