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Build a Solid Foundation
Lighting drapery might feel like a lot of extra work with all those unique textures and folds. The secret is that you are just lighting basic shapes. If you go off on a tangent and only light the ruffle on a sleeve, your drawing will suffer. It feels disconnected. Always start with a solid mannequin or understructure. You can modify your mannequin to include the immediate push or bulge of a costume. This gives you a clear sense of direction before you worry about the details.
The Three Basic Forms
I do not light drapery any differently than I light a portrait. I mostly just think about lighting three basic geometries. If you lose contact with these three shapes, rendering becomes much harder.
- Spheres show a gradual change in surface.
- Cylinders are firm and sit somewhere in the middle.
- Boxes have hard edge transitions.
Timing and Edges
Lighting is just an expression of timing. We are looking at the timing of a surface transition. If there is no plane change, there is no light and shadow. Every time a value changes, it expresses a transition. Is it slow, fast, or hard?
I rely on four main edge types to tell this story.
- Soft edges move the eye slowly across a sphere.
- Firm edges move you between the effects of light more quickly on a cylinder.
- Hard edges are abrupt transitions found on boxes or cast shadows.
- Lost edges blur into the background. These are compositional and help direct the viewer's eye.
Map the Big Shapes First
Always try to paint the biggest forms before you get lost in the frills. The first step is to get your large dark and light relationships mapped out. Find the core shadow, aim it across the form, and separate the light from the dark.
Do not just copy every value you see in a photograph. Choose to key your scale. I like to keep my main three values simple. The core shadow is a ten, the shadow fill is a five, and the page is a one. This gives you a strong graphic read. Once you have your big pass, decide where you want to spend your time. Develop the lights or follow through with the darks. Doing both equally splits the viewer's attention.
The Illusion of Texture
Texture is a very abstract language. Do not copy every little shape in a piece of lace or every strand of hair. Instead, identify the key shapes that give the essence of that material. Create a shorthand.
The best place to show off texture is in the halftone areas. Make your texture the most defined and darkest right at that halftone break. As you move away from the halftone, let those thematic shapes progressively get lighter and less prominent. From a distance, you get the perfect illusion of lace, metal, or denim without needing a magnifying glass.
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