There is often this misconception that every person who is interested in pursuing a career in Fashion Designing has to be really good at sketching. While this isn’t completely false, Fashion Designing courses also have subjects that are particularly added so that you can polish your drawing skills. One such interesting area is Fashion Illustration!
So what is Fashion illustration? It’s an idea of showcasing your designs in the form of sketches with detailing, color combinations and fabric rendering etc. in your unique style. Fashion illustration sketches are usually made to give a glimpse of your collection without actually showing the garments. It’s easier for others to understand your vision and know what your work is all about.
There are different types of fashion illustrations that use different mediums of sketching. Over a period of time and with practice, you will be able to carve an illustration style of your own and also find a medium that you are comfortable working with. Certain tried and tested fashion illustration techniques have been established over the past few years. These are perfect for beginners who are struggling to find a style of their own.
We are going to see some of the most used fashion illustration techniques to help you get started on your journey towards discovering your personal style!
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Single Line Illustrations
This is one of the most commonly used illustration techniques for beginners. Single line or one line illustrations are all about using one line to sketch out your entire Fashion illustration. You begin by starting your line at one point and end the sketch with the same line, navigating it to create the shape of your design. It is a very fascinating technique and you may not ace it right away, but once you get the hang of it, sketching will become the easiest part. You can create both minimal and complex line drawings with this fashion illustration technique.
Also Read: THE ART OF STILL LIFE SKETCHING
Faceless Illustrations
Faceless illustrations have become popular in recent times! A lot of design enthusiasts use this technique to make digital portraits as well. It takes quite some time to draw faces and correctly showcase the features. Faceless illustrations are all about sketching the garment in all its glory, while keeping the facial structure to a bare minimum. The best thing about faceless illustrations is that it will divert the entire focus on the garment! So if you are somebody who doesn’t really like drawing faces, you could opt for faceless illustrations. You could either pick one facial feature to highlight in the illustration like or keep it completely faceless.
3D illustrations
3D illustrations are all about the experience! They begin by sketching out the silhouette of your illustration and then working on the details and fabrics using 3D materials. This allows others to touch and feel the fabric used along with embellishments. You are not limited to only using fabrics for 3D illustrations. One can experiment with various textured elements like pencil shavings, beads, paper cuttings, foam sheets, crayon shavings, satin ribbons or the fabric that will be used in making your final garment! This type of fashion illustration will allow you to try out different kinds of materials and find what works best for your style.
Also Read: 4 SIMPLE SKILLS THAT CAN ENHANCE FASHION ILLUSTRATION
Experimenting with Body Proportions
Fashion illustrations that emphasize the body proportions have been used widely by famous Fashion illustrators and Designers. To make any kind of Fashion illustration, we need to start with a basic body proportion and work on those lines. You can make your fashion illustration unique by experimenting with different body proportions. Some like their Fashion illustrations to have really long legs while some like them to have an impossibly tiny waist. Be it an exaggerated head or a really slender frame, go all out with the body proportions. You could sketch your ideas and try different combinations of body proportions and find the one that looks best.
The fashion illustration techniques you see above will certainly help you to get started on the path towards finding your personal style. You need to start practising with different mediums and styles until it comes to you naturally. Fashion illustrations are really important in the current Fashion industry. You can find a lot of Illustrators showcasing their work on social media platforms and also fashion magazines that print fashion illustrations of designer collections.
To get an idea about different styles of Fashion illustrations, you can check out the work of some well-known Illustrators like British fashion designer and illustrator Hayden Williams, Swedish illustrator Frida Wannerberger, Indian illustrators Srishti Guptaroy and Vikram Pamu to name a few.
These are some of the basic techniques you can use to get you started with stylised fashion illustrations. Professional designing courses will guide you better on the different possibilities in the field of fashion sketching.
Learn more about Fashion Designing Subjects like Fashion illustrations in detail by enrolling for Fashion designing courses at Hamstech.