The beauty of fashion illustration is that it gives fashion illustrators the freedom to do considerably more imaginative digital art and figure drawings. One can start it by just knowing all about different body forms and vital data and make them come to life with skilful pencil strokes if they have a creative mind, a sketch pad, and a pencil.
A creative skill like fashion illustration may lead to a variety of career opportunities. All you need is a love for fashion, some out-of-the-box thinking, and immense creativity. One needs talent for sketching or drawing, especially of human figures, faces, clothes, and accessories, to get started on the path to a profession in fashion illustration.
What is fashion illustration?
The art of conveying fashion concepts via drawing, painting, and illustration is known as fashion illustration. Fashion illustration is all about drawing inspiration from other people’s work and reinterpreting it from your own perspective. In contrast to a fashion sketch, a fashion illustration focuses more on the person wearing the garment and less on a specific piece of attire or accessory. Fashion illustrations can be seen as standalone works of art in magazines, advertising, stores, etc.
Importance of fashion illustration in fashion design:
• Helps to visualize the ideas and create concepts
• It helps the fashion illustrator or fashion designer unleash their creative skills
• It helps propel new customers
• It promotes and propagates new trends
• It is the 1st and the most important phase of fashion designing
• Fashion designing would not be possible without illustrations
How to get started with fashion illustration as a beginner?
Each fashion illustrator has their unique approach. However, there are a few processes that even the most experienced fashion illustrator follows when putting their thoughts on paper. By combining these below-mentioned techniques, a fashion illustrator can create an illustration that is “almost flawless” and adheres to a client’s instructions:
- Understand the body proportions:
You need to have a basic grasp of the anatomy of the human body, especially body proportions, to create realistic illustrations that transfer into wearable fashion products. Otherwise, your sketches won’t appear quite correct. Understanding the proportions of the body enables you to easily draw a posture without having to copy one from a photograph or a model, and it also enables the clothing to flow smoothly along the lines of the body.
For creating human body illustrations, the body structure is divided into certain proportions like an infant is 4 heads high while an average adult male is 7 ½ heads high. This can be used as a rough guide and illustrations can be easily created.
- Start with a rough sketch:
You can make a lot of progress in both your sketching techniques and your concepts by starting simply with a basic rough sketch. You can quickly develop a variety of designs when you have preliminary fashion sketches. Then you can evaluate them all and decide which of the appealing styles will be used for moving ahead.
- Try different poses:
Drawing your models in several poses gives the outfits you are designing vitality and a feeling of movement that makes them appear much more realistically made. To create and pose body elements, use a variety of geometric shapes and curves; then, choose a combination that best matches your design.
- Choose your color palettes:
Color schemes have a significant impact on how the clothing will look to the person wearing it. You should choose the colors that match the fabric and reflects the feeling of the clothing piece. Once you have decided on your colors, you can start adding finishing touches like patterns and textures.
- Start drawing the clothing:
When drawing the garments, there are several considerations that you need to make like the intended style, the fabric you will be using, how that cloth falls, the design’s folds, etc. The pattern and fabric type you select will both have a significant impact on how you create your design. Now it’s time to be creative and bring your imagination of clothes into your illustrations.
- Practice and practice:
Each fashion illustration will be based on a different concept and only practicing will improve your skills and techniques. Take each illustration as a learning curve and keep trying distinct styles, techniques, mediums, and tools.
Epilogue:
A fashion illustrator who is a rookie in the field has a long way to go before becoming an expert in the field as fashion illustration is a creative outlet.
Being an illustrator or designer’s assistant to a well-known designer in the fashion industry may be a learning experience. What’s vital is to keep practicing illustration in various ways while keeping a close eye on the latest fashion trends, styles, and methods. It calls for perseverance, practice, and a lot of effort. But if you master it, you can create stunning pieces of art that use their designs to convey narratives.
