Always good to explore others styles and approaches...

"Learn from others - time is too precious to try and continuously reinvent the wheel"

After a figure modeler tries to bring life to a figures face, the next challenge is clothing.

True, a sculptor may have done a great job of a heavy canvas jacket with thick folds, and a silk scarf with very fine folds and wrinkles.....

A limited paint job won't add to the figure....

Here's where I'm coming from...

Marta Slusarka of Twisted Brushes blog did a really nice write up of adding texture (here) which got me thinking (or a bit more aware) of fabric and it's behaviour...

An example of Matras work....

Her bust figure "Grinder" with the red fabric textured by paint

Marta's efforts of just adding some thin lines of highlighted colour over the highlighted parts adds hints of weave..... subtle, and effective....

Other examples (exaggerated to illustrate)

A painting of J. C. Leyendecker, ca 1917.

Working from bottom to top, the folds in the pants are sharper, more rolled. The Jacket has folds, however less rolls with a heavier looking fold. The scarf is somewhere between the two.

Texture - the highlights and shades on the pants are matt, and have a quite a range from black to near white. Jacket goes into dark browns (almost no black shadows) and has white highlights, showing this material does not fold too well, and has a natural sheen.

The scarf has some lines on it, where the knit casts a shadow.....

The artist really knows their textures with light effects here....

Now compare to a resin head & shoulders bust to populate the cockpit of a remote control plane (World War 1)

Mass produced!! Doesn't need fancy finishing..... well, the next fellow did something to his pilot....

Still a remote control pilot, this pilot will add more life than the above image....

So that's a learning for me....