Making a suit

For me, making a suit is quite a long business. I start by making the material and this is usually six or more layers in photoshop. I try and give the material a micro-texture with slightly different colours thoughout. When lit in SL, the various colours are picked out and give my suits a soft look with different colours in the shadows and highlights.In contrast most SL suits are made in a single flat colour or with noise added and look dull or flat.

Once I have the material I cut the suit using Fireworks, a vector painting program. I check the cut using the Avatar preview program and go back and forth making sure all the seams line up. Using a vector based program allows me to make pixel fine adjustments to the positions of each part of the suit.

Once the cut is correct, I fill the cut with material and add a layer of shading (not shadows). The shading is generally dark around the waist and bottom of the legs, getting lighter on the shoulders, bottom and knees. I texture the shading to give a richer look to the material underneath.

I add pockets and trim, then the shadows and highlights. After I add the buttons and buttonholes.

A detail of one of my suits showing the completed texture.