How to Draw Anime School Clothes

Whilst these ideas are not unique or special to anime and can be used in other styles, the focus of this article will be the anime style. Clothing is a diverse topic that has a lot of shared principals that can be used.
Materials
The fibres that are used to make up a fabric sample are diverse and can be used to make a number of different fabric types. Using a simple search for a type of fabric yields hundreds of images that give you an idea on how it bends and folds and flows.
Take for example these sample top materials:

Mix of polyester and cotton, leather, silk, cotton, polyester-cotton, polyester spray jacket.
They all have different fold patterns and interact with the light source differently. The leather, silk and spray jacket are quite shiny on their ridges.
The hoodie and t-shirt have less rigid folds, whilst the cotton shirt has sharp angles.

Now take a look at some sample bottom materials:

Two types of jeans, first straight cotton, second has some elastane in it, board short, satin skirt, ski pants (mix) and a light weight mixed fabric skirt.
The jeans behave similarly to the cotton shirt but has variance in the colour. The jeans with elastane cling to the body more, but still fold in a similar way to the baggier pair of jeans. The board shorts are stiffer than a pair of cotton shorts in the same style. The satin skirt retains the ruffles easily. Ski pants are a mix of materials and almost like the spray jacket in consistency, but not shine. The mixed materials skirt is several layers of soft material.

Get samples of the material type you are after to give you an idea of how the folds and lighting responds to that material.
Density and Rigidity
Take cotton for example, you can have thin almost see-through cotton through to dense thick rigid cotton shirts and pants. Wool is also a fabric type that can vary in density, such as a knitted jumper to a woollen jacket.

The more dense the fabric, the heavier it is, so its flow and shape will respond differently to a lighter variant. It will settle on the points it touches your object (be it person or inanimate) and flow from there. So focus on the contact points with a heavier garment.

A lighter garment on the other hand will interact with your object less, it has less weight from gravity to pull the fabric down. It also will interact with the environment more readily, such as wind and rain. A denser garment will retain a lot of its shape when wet, whilst a lighter garment will cling and sit on the object more when wet.

Density also related to how thin your fabric is, can the object underneath the fabric be seen or is the fabric thick enough that it is solid in appearance?

Rigidity is taking say cotton and spraying it with starch, it makes the fabric stiff, which makes it easier to iron and have sharp angles, but folds are more awkward. However, there are styles of clothing, such as an A-line skirt, the grain and cut of the fabric lends it to look more rigid, but it will fold when sitting down (typically in a single thin location).

Colour
Once you know your material and its density, next move onto the colour. However this section isn't about what colours to use (search for 'colour theory' if seeking this information).
Once you have figured out your fabric type and its density and rigidity, it's time to think about the colours you wish the clothing to be. What colours are the shadows of the fabric? What colours are the highlights?
Does the fabric have thick shadow lines or is it more blended? Take the satin skirt above, some folds are nicely blended, but some have a dark shadow and strong highlight.

Prints and Patterns
Prints and patterns must also relate with the material and density of the fabric choice and interact with the folds accordingly.
However there is another consideration, is the pattern or print embedded into the fabric? Or is it a screen print? Or is it embroidery on top? Each of these have their own set of density and rigidity applied.
Embedded into the fabric, the pattern is likely to respond the same way the base fabric does, but a screen print can be thick and stiffen that section of the fabric it has been set onto. An embroidered pattern, if it is a light pattern this barely changes the underlying fabric, but a thick heavily layered embroidered piece will increase the density and rigidity of that section it has been embroidered onto.

Note: In manga, a stylistic choice when applying a screentone, is to cover the entire garment without changing the pattern across the clothing. It aids in consistency across panels.

Here are some of the many tutorials about drawing clothing that can be found around deviantART, go check them out:

Questions for the Reader:

• What is your favourite type of clothing to draw?
• What do you find most challenging about clothes?

Gifs from: Shingeki no Kyojin, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles: Tokyo Revelation

How to Draw Anime School Clothes

Source: https://www.deviantart.com/khallandra/journal/PE-How-to-Draw-Anime-Clothes-501035828