help with pattern in folds of cloth

[TAB Studio]

Help
I have a model I want to freehand a pattern on a very folded piece of loin cloth. (Forge world keeper of secrets front loincloth)
I am going to look in real life all I can
but is there a trick or a formula you all use...I have seen some very believable stuff and could really use advise
I have learning disabilities on this stuff and need all the help I can muster up

 

[green stuff]

Ansquer and I had the same problem for our britonnian sorceresses\' capes. He came up with a neat trick :

*) cut a piece of paper the same shape as the cloth;
*) draw the motif;
*) fold the paper like the cloth;
*) paint what you see .

If the cloth stays more or less in the same plane it works rather well, otherwise you\'ll have problems folding the paper right (he had difficulties on the shoulders).

Another trick is to look up classic art books and try to find representations of cloth folded the same way and motifs that look like what you want to paint. That\'s more or less what I did on mine.

 

[TAB Studio]

Thank you very much Cedric
I have not heard of this but it makes perfect sense

 

[Ritual]

I don\'t find this too much of a problem, really. There\'s basically two cases here.

1. The fold is \'open\'. With that I mean that the fold is deep, but you can see the whole thing, there\'s no parts that are folded over other parts. In this case you can to a certain extent turn the mini a bit and see a deeper section of the fold and be able to paint the pattern more or less correctly there. There will be deep parts of the fold where it\'s tricky to get the perspective right and also to get enough room for moving the brush in order to paint the pattern. These parts, however, will also be deeply shaded and, thus, I use the shadow to obscure the pattern to an extent where irregularities will not be noticed. You can see that there is a pattern there, but you can\'t see exactly how it looks. Maybe this is cheating, but it works and no one notice anything that\'s wrong. :innocent:

2. The cloth folds over itself and obscures parts of it. This case is much easier since no one knows how much cloth is obscured and, thus, it doesn\'t matter how you paint the pattern on the visible parts. The only thing you need to be concerned about is getting the angle of the pattern right.

This is my experience in the matter and I don\'t know if it\'s of any use in this particular matter. The FW Keeper of Secrets is much larger than anything I usually paint so maybe my techniques aren\'t applicable here, but the size also should make the painting of the pattern easier, right?