What are the best ways to render fabric folds for denim vs silk?

[Sophia.R]

I’ve been trying to get better at drawing realistic fabric folds in my character illustrations, but I keep overworking the shadows and it ends up looking stiff and muddy. How do you all approach rendering different materials like denim versus silk without losing that sense of flow and soft light?

[Ronald.R]

I’ve found that overworking shadows really kills the sense of flow. For denim I keep the deepest shadows in the major folds but let the midtones do the heavy lifting instead of packing all the darkness there. I use a soft brush to settle the cloth surface and reserve hard edges for seams and stitching. For silk I pull the light forward with gentle glazing and a few crisp specular highlights, otherwise the surface reads muddy. It’s more about rhythm than grind.

[Luke67]

Sometimes I overdo the shadow when I’m trying to show weight, and the whole thing turns gummy. I tried painting silk with a glaze layer but it got too glossy or plasticky. I guess I’m chasing a smooth surface but losing the natural fall of the cloth.

[GregoryNM]

I once started a piece with a loose gesture to capture how a sleeve drapes when the arm moves. Then I zoomed in on the texture and the folds stiffened, like the pose was fighting the cloth. Maybe the flow comes from the line of the body and how the fabric hangs, not from the texture alone.

[Edward36]

Do you think the issue is the lighting or the pose more than the material technique?