Drawing clothes is hard. It’s actually one of the biggest hurdles for anyone moving from basic anatomy to full character design. You spend weeks learning how to draw a perfect torso, only to hide it under a lumpy, stiff-looking rectangle that you’re calling a t-shirt. It sucks. Honestly, most beginner drawings look like the shirt is made of cardboard or sheet metal rather than cotton or polyester.
The secret isn’t just about "drawing lines." It's about understanding tension. If you want to know how to draw shirts that actually look like they belong on a human body, you have to stop thinking about the shirt and start thinking about the landmarks underneath it.
Why Your Shirts Look Like Stiff Cardboard
Most people draw a shirt by outlining the body and then adding some random "zig-zags" near the armpits. This looks fake. Why? Because fabric is lazy. Fabric wants to fall straight down toward the ground unless something stops it. That "something" is a tension point.
Think about a t-shirt hanging on a person. The primary tension points are the shoulders and the chest. If it's a tight shirt, the bust or the lats might pull the fabric taut. If it's a baggy streetwear tee, the fabric might just hang from the collarbones and drape straight down, ignoring the waist entirely.
When you're figuring out how to draw shirts, you have to identify where the fabric is "hooked." Imagine a nail in a wall with a towel hanging off it. The wrinkles all radiate from that nail. On a human, your shoulders are those nails.
The Seven Types of Folds You Actually Need to Know
Burn the "how-to" books that list forty different types of folds with Latin names. You don't need them. In reality, most shirts are defined by just a few mechanical movements of the fabric.
First, you have pipe folds. These happen when the fabric is compressed at one end but hangs free at the other. Think of the bottom of a loose shirt or a skirt. They look like cylinders or pipes. Then you have zigzag folds. These are the ones that drive people crazy. They happen when a tube of fabric—like a sleeve—is compressed. The fabric has nowhere to go, so it folds in on itself in an alternating pattern.
✨ Don't miss: How Many Days Is 1 Million Hours: The Mind-Bending Math of a Massive Milestone
But the most important one for shirts is the tension fold. This is a straight or slightly curved line that connects two high points. If you pull your arms back, you’ll see tension lines forming across your chest. If you raise one arm, you’ll see lines radiating from the armpit toward the opposite hip.
Material Matters More Than You Think
A heavy wool flannel doesn't behave like a silk blouse. It just doesn't.
If you are drawing a heavy hoodie, the folds should be thick, rounded, and fewer in number. Heavy fabric resists bending. It takes a lot of force to make a thick denim jacket wrinkle. Conversely, if you’re drawing a thin, sweat-wicking gym shirt, the folds will be numerous, sharp, and very thin.
Professional concept artists like J.S. Rossbach or the legendary Burne Hogarth (though his style is hyper-dramatic) often emphasize that the "weight" of the line conveys the "weight" of the cloth. Use thick lines for heavy folds and light, tapering lines for thin fabrics.
Let’s Talk About the Armpit "Vortex"
The armpit is where shirt drawings go to die. It is the most complex intersection on the garment.
When the arm is down, the fabric bunches up in a mess of overlapping shapes. When the arm is up, the fabric stretches thin. The mistake is drawing the sleeve as a separate piece from the torso. In reality, a standard t-shirt is a series of interconnected panels. The seam where the sleeve meets the shoulder (the armscye) is a crucial visual anchor.
If you're learning how to draw shirts, try this: draw the armscye seam first. It usually curves slightly over the top of the shoulder and tucks into the armpit. Once you have that seam, you can draw the folds pulling away from it.
Avoid the "Symmetry Trap"
Humans aren't symmetrical. Even if someone is standing still, one shoulder is usually slightly higher, or the torso is slightly turned. If you draw three folds on the left sleeve and three identical folds on the right sleeve, the character will look like a 3D model that hasn't been rendered properly.
Gravity is your best friend here. Always ask: "Where is the lowest point?" Fabric pools at the bottom. If a sleeve is pushed up the forearm, the "mass" of the fabric gathers at the elbow.
The Step-by-Step Logic of a Real Shirt
- The Ghost Body. Draw the person first. Don't even think about the shirt yet. If you don't know where the elbows and ribcage are, the shirt will look like a floating ghost.
- Anchor Points. Mark the shoulders and any part of the body pushing against the cloth (like the chest or stomach).
- The Drape. Draw the silhouette of the shirt. Remember, shirts have thickness. The collar should sit around the neck, not on it. There should be a small gap between the skin and the fabric.
- The Major Folds. Connect the tension points. If the arm is bent, draw the folds at the elbow.
- The Details. Add the seams, the hemline, and the buttons. Buttons are rarely in a perfectly straight vertical line because the body underneath is curved.
Common Mistakes to Kill Right Now
Stop drawing "flying" shirts. Unless there's a 40mph wind, the shirt should feel heavy. Beginners often draw the bottom of the shirt as a perfectly flat line. It’s not. It’s a circle seen at an angle—an ellipse. And because of the way shirts drape over the hips, that line usually curves up or down depending on your perspective.
Also, watch your collars. A t-shirt collar is a ribbed tube of fabric. It has a specific thickness. If you just draw a single line for the neck, the shirt looks like it's made of paper. Give it that double-line thickness.
Practice This Every Day
The best way to get better at how to draw shirts isn't by looking at drawing tutorials. It’s by looking at your laundry. Seriously.
Throw a shirt on the floor. See how it bunches. Drape it over a chair. Take a photo of yourself in a mirror moving your arms and trace the tension lines. You’ll start to see patterns. You’ll see that folds almost always form "Y" or "X" shapes where they meet.
✨ Don't miss: Pic of John Hancock: What Most People Get Wrong
Actionable Next Steps for Better Fabric
To move beyond the "beginner" phase, stop using "chicken scratch" lines for folds. A fold is a form, not a scribble.
- Study the "Wrap." Practice drawing cylinders and then wrapping "rubber bands" around them. This is exactly how a sleeve wraps around an arm.
- Vary Line Weight. Use a bold stroke for the silhouette and a very fine, light stroke for the interior folds. This creates a sense of depth and prevents the drawing from looking cluttered.
- Limit Your Folds. One perfectly placed fold is better than twenty random ones. Look at the work of Disney animators from the 90s; they simplified clothing into just two or three key folds that defined the entire movement.
- Identify the Fabric Type. Before you put pen to paper, decide if it’s cotton, silk, or leather. This choice dictates every single line you draw next.
Mastering the way fabric interacts with the human form takes time, but once you understand that it's all just a game of "pull and hang," you'll never look at a t-shirt the same way again. Start by simplifying the body into basic 3D shapes and "draping" your lines over them, following the path of gravity.