Draw Tracksuits and Gym Clothes

This time, we are going to learn how to draw “gym clothes”, which are an essential part of school life, used for club activities or sports days. Since shirts and shorts have different fabric textures, we’ll see the characteristics of both pieces of clothing and the points for drawing them!

Let’s draw shirts

Let’s start by drawing the shirts of the tracksuits. This time we will draw the whole image of the shirt to make the process easy to understand, but if you want to draw characters wearing tracksuits on shirts, you can only draw the visible parts of the shirts.

Gym shirts come in a variety of shapes. For now, we want to choose the one that looks more like a gym shirt, so let’s draw the ③, which has the color and ribs for the hems of the sleeves and neck.

Line drawing

Start the line drawing, keeping the three points in mind, as follows.

① Draw sleeves with the image of a cylinder.

When drawing, bear in mind that depending on the position or the direction of the sleeves, the way in which the object appears can be changed.

② Draw the creases mainly where the fabric hangs down at the sleeves and hem.

Draw creases with emphasis on the sleeves and lower part of the torso. With the image of a curtain in mind, think of the direction from which the fabric is pulled and this will make it easier to draw.

③ Draw the flex of the fabric since the sleeves are slightly tightened with elastic.

These are the gym shirts with the tight elastic sleeves, so you need to be aware of the looseness of the fabric, unlike T-shirts with straight down sleeves.

Paint the sleeves and neck

After the line drawing, paint the sleeves and neck. You can use the bucket tool to paint them roughly.

Add shadows

Let’s depict shadows. Paint the shadows of the white part first, that covers most of the T-shirt. If you are thinking of painting a shadow in a white shirt, you might want to use a gray color. However, to make the picture brighter, we will paint it in blue, the color with a fresh feel. The shadow itself can change the mood of the whole image, so try adjusting the shadow colors if you have problems making your work look brighter or more gorgeous.

※The shadow colors can be changed later, so you don’t have to make a strict decision at this stage. If you are stressed by obsessing over the color decision, it is often difficult to just start painting, so you would do well to choose the random color and start painting.

Using the color you’ve chosen, paint shadows in the order shown below.

① Paint the shadow of the middle depth

② Paint the shadow of the lightest color

③ Paint the darkest shadow

※ ①〜③ shadows have individual layers for easy adjustment later.

It depends on people’s preferences where to start: from the lightest shadow or the darkest. Try out different ways to find the one that works best for you.

When you have finished painting the shadows, blend the color of the line drawing into the whole image. Add a new layer on the line drawing, and add a color to the lines using the clipping feature. Extracting the shadow color with the eyedropper tool and adjusting the color will make it easier to create colors.

The tracksuit top is now complete.

Let’s draw shorts

Move on to shorts drawing next. Shorts are thicker than shirts. The ideal length is for the hems to be halfway between the hips and the knees, or just above the knees.

Line drawing

When drawing the hems of shorts, be aware of the thickness of the fabric and draw it. Thicker fabrics allow more space, but shorts are not so big that they can be called big sized, so there are not so many wrinkles on shorts. I didn’t do it this time, but you can also add line patterns to the sides.

Painting

Start painting colors when you have finished the line drawing. Add a base color, and add shadows as we did before. The brushes used here are mainly airbrush and some acrylic.

① Paint the shadow of the middle depth

② Paint the shadow of the lightest color

③ Paint the darkest shadow

※ ①〜③ shadows have individual layers for easy adjustment later.

Just as we did earlier, blend the line color and complete the gym shorts.

Let’s draw tracksuits

Finally, let’s make our character wear the tracksuits on the shirts.

Line drawing

The fabric of the tracksuit is thick and its size is larger than the body of the person wearing it. That’s why you need to draw fewer and gentler wrinkles. Just as when you drew the shirts, think of a curtain drape and where it is pulled from to draw the tracksuit.

The hems and sleeve edges have different fabrics, so make sure you add vertical lines. For the sleeves, add the three-dimensional feel by drawing them with an image of a circle. Adding fabric thickness creates more depth.

Painting

Then, add the colors in the same way as before.

① Paint the base color

② Paint the patterns (this time with the acrylic brush)

③ Paint the darker shadows (using mainly the airbrush, and the acrylic brush for the hems and collar)

④ Paint the lightest areas (mainly with the airbrush)

Adding colors to the line drawing

After painting the colors, add a new layer on the line drawing, and add the colors to the lines using the clipping function. The process is now finished.

Conclusion

Traditional Japanese schools tend to hold their sports festivals in October, but there seems to be an increasing number of schools that hold their sports festivals in May. I hope you will try to draw illustrations of sports festivals with lots of characters in tracksuits for May and October.

(Text・Illustrations / Amane)