HOW TO MAKE FASHION ILLUSTRATION

AUTHOR: AVIK ROY

Hello friends, many a times, I have encountered students who have asked me questions like “I am not good at painting, can I still be a good fashion illustrator?”, or, “I cannot handle water colors, I think I would not be able to sketch a decent fashion illustration” and so on and so forth.

Fashion Illustration is more of an expression. An expression of your inner self, an expression of how YOU look at Fashion, not how somebody else wants YOU to look at your own creation. And that, my friend, is unique! At times, we feel that since we are not so good at sketching, we might not be able to handle fashion illustration with pro. That’s so not correct! You might be an average artist but you could still be a fantastic fashion illustrator!!

Fashion illustration does not require you to be ‘perfect’ in the proverbial sense. It needs you to have an imagination, or better still, a unique facet to your imagination. What I am trying to emphasize upon out here is that it is important to first recognize yourself. It is important to ask yourself a few questions before you embark upon this wonderful world of Fashion Illustration…..

Ask yourself the following :)

1. What is MY image of fashion?

The answers could be many. Your personal image of Fashion could be any one of the following

a. Free flowing style, loads of fabrics, Avant Garde, style and oodles of it. e.g-Illus-1

b. Crisp lines, no nonsense look, bang on spot. e.g-Illus-2

c. Basic, simple, subdued. e.g-Illus-3

Illus-1

Illus-2

Illus-3

d. .. …… and many more !!!

2.What is/are my strong points when I hold the pencil in hand?

a. Sketching the body and many postures

b. Coloring using mixed media c. Adding textures and depth by filling in colors

d. Drawing faces and various expressions

e. …. And many more !!!

3. What is/are my shortcomings when I sit down to draw?

a. I am not good at drawing figures

b. I am not good at drawing many postures c. I am not good at drawing faces d. I am not good at coloring using mixed media

Believe you me, once you have figured out your strong points and your not so strong points, half the battle has been won because you now know exactly what do enhance and what to camouflage, in a manner that your shortcomings do not stick out like a sore thumb ;)

Let us look at a few examples to make this easy to understand.

Let’s assume you are not so good at drawing faces etc, nor are you good at rendering the body and assigning depth to the skin tone…what do you do then ? Sit back and sulk? No ! The good news is my friend, that you DO have an alternate option…and that is, don’t get into something you are not confident of. Look at the fashion illustrations below. The body and the face has been blackened out and the main focus is on the garment. This is a matchstick figure drawing where the face and the limbs are painted black. What you do need to sketch in your mind is the silhouette of the garment and determine the posture to an extent :)

2. Alternately, you could draw the face the way you like and create a unique style of your own. Remember, a Fashion Illustration shows your unique style and style has no boundaries. Take a look at this super stylish illustration by Tanya Ling. It is perfect in its own way in spite of not conforming to the usual standards of ‘perfection’. This is how the illustrator visualizes Fashion. Free brush strokes, hair slightly unkempt, use of black to highlight the style from far.

3. You could forget drawing the figure and instead concentrate on determining the silhouette of the garment. Once you have done that, use a generous dose of wax crayons to fill in color in the drawing. Use random strokes of crayons or charcoal pencil to give a subtle outline to the garments. Use charcoal pencil strokes and smudge It using a small piece of white paper for adding slight dimension to the face and the exposed body parts. You need not complete the picture. Let the eye complete it!

I would like to take this opportunity to share with you a few of my illustrations as well. Just like you, even I have my limitations when it comes to Fashion Illustration. In the earlier days, I realized that I lag behind when it comes to drawing faces and perfect figures. I struggled a lot in order to perfect that and then slowly tried to focus my attention on the other facets of illustration instead of sit and sulk on those which I am not so good at. I usually try and avoid faces and perfect figures and instead focus my attention and time on color combinations and silhouettes. At times, I also try to bring in the High Fashion look by going a little over board with the hair do. It need not be perfect but the impression of an exaggerated hair do lends that much needed dash of high fashion look to the illustration!