Making good-looking folds in trousers 1

[parmstyle]

Hi,

I'm actually making a drawing of myself in Illustrator...
Therefore, I let someone make a sketch of me and then I made a scan of the picture. That way, I could open this picture in Illustrator, and make a new layer on top of it, to easily draw the picture.

Now, I'm almost done, but here's the problem

In the originally sketched picture, there are some folds in my trousers... But it's quite hard for me to do the same in Illustrator...

Please click the images to see what I mean.
My drawing in illustrator

The original sketch

Then again, I thought, maybe I could open the file in Photoshop, and use a shadow, or a glow to do the trick...
But that didn't work out quite as I thought. (plus, when I open the file in photoshop, all my layers are merged into one )

Can anyone give me some tips on how to do this?
Thanks in advance!

 

[apepp]

...you can feather objects and strokes in illustrator, effects > stylize > feather, and play with the values, opening the appearance palette (widow > appearance) shows you effects applied to selected objects...

...so you could basically draw curved triangles in areas you need the shading and feather them slightly...

...another option is to apply gradients to areas you need shading and with CS4 you have the ability to apply transparent stops to gradients...

...you may also find the multiply or darken transparency modes useful on shaded black objects so the color beneath is taken into account...

...if this is destined for print, be aware of the "document raster effects settings" found under the effects menu...

...ensure this is set to at least high 300dpi, transparency on and also anti-alias turned on...

...great image you have coming along, don't forget the red blood shot eyes and the munchies mountain of food!!

andrew

 

[apepp]

...also to add, to get into photoshop you have to export from illustrator to preserve layers using the PSD format (file > export)...

...groups within layers are preserved as layers...

...problems can occur with text elements however, sometimes they don't quite translate the same in exporting to PSD, most of the time i have this problem i find i have to make the text smaller in photoshop slightly to get the similar appearance i had in illustrator...

...something to do with the different text rendering between the programs...

andrew

 

[apepp]

...one other area is organic strokes, you can get more organic stroked by applying a tapered brushes, a hole load can be found here:

http://www.bittbox.com/illustrator/28-free-illustrator-brushes-for-making-swooshes-and-swirls/

and much more info on brushes here:

http://vector.tutsplus.com/tools-ti...illustrators-paintbrush-tool-and-brush-panel/

andrew

 

[apepp]

...forgot to mention...

...don't forget the use of opacity settings in the transparency palette to soften shadows to different strengths...

andrew

 

[apepp]

...one last thing to add...

...you may find that simple organic tapered lines combined with shaded areas look better if you want to keep things sharp...

...here is an example:

http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/illustration/how-to-illustrate-a-cute-emo-kid/

andrew

 

[parmstyle]

nice you're very helpful!
thank you