I have traditionally disliked the color purple, but in a recent dream, my mother (dream-mother, I guess) gave the protagonist a plum-colored dress which evoked a soothing calm. Plum, a slightly red wine-tinted shade off from true purple, gives up some of the regal aura. The dream’s dress was a very simple unwaisted, sleeveless knee-length dress, like what a younger kid might wear. The pattern was based on intricate stamp-like diamonds in blue, green, yellow, and white.
Here, I decided to adapt the color to a different sort of design which is still loose but a bit more elegant. I did away with a whole-dress pattern, reducing the basic concepts to the bosom and trim.
Technique-wise, I tried out an idea put forth in a Deviant Art tutorial I read through recently, which was to decouple shading from the actual colors. By making the shading a grayscale layer multiplied against a solid template, it is possible to generate complex patterns without having to individually shade each color, which has always had ugly results for me in the past. In addition, it becomes effortless to change the color of the dress on a whim. I have included here the final drawing as well as a version which removes the solid color layer to reveal the shading. It actually looks quite nice (or nicer) as a white dress.
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