Fashion Drawing Tutorial Tips
This section is for those nervous of fashion drawing.
The hints and tips appear as more detailed
information in my ebook, the first Fashion Drawing Figure Templates ebook on
the web. You may
have to do some fashion drawing as part of a course or you may simply want to
sketch out an idea you have for a special evening dress, ball dress, wedding
dress or bridesmaid's dresses. With a little technique most people who insist
they cannot draw can achieve a satisfactory fashion drawing. To aid results use
some of the following items - you will find the list helpful if you do not have
a clue where to start.
Layout paper is a fine semi opaque paper that allows you to
faintly see an image beneath it. This enables you to use a
fashion or body template under the top sheet. It has a good quality for a
semi opaque paper and is suitable for remounting onto firmer background papers
and cards for presentation purposes.
The easiest way to draw fashion when you have limited skill is
to use a template. Here are
templates of a model pose in 3 sizes suitable for historical costume work or
simple fashion designs. In the next 2
pages there are 2 modern stance fashion pose silhouette templates
in strident pose and 2 elegant poses
for free download.
If these are not suitable
why not purchase my new ebook on
Fashion Drawing Figure Templates ebook
in a range of over 40 different poses with 5 sizes to each pose.
There are many different poses in my ebook, including elegant, confident, sexy
and strident poses as well as back and side view poses and a runner.
You should take care to note that anyone in
period costume would stand more gracefully, sedately and modestly than a woman
after 1960 might pose. So make any costume history drawings you do on very
elegantly posed templates. Think about how the person you are trying to represent would
look posture wise. If you can get the hair right you will also capture the
spirit of an era.
The second factor for
success is to keep to a theme when sketching a sheet of ideas. For example
concentrate on interesting waist variations or necklines. The theme will give flow to your designs.
A chapter in my Fashion Drawing Figure Templates ebook is
devoted to examples of fashion illustration storyboards and illustrates this
flow concept.
~
Here are some FREE basic body outline silhouette templates
for you to download. They are very suitable for use sketching historical
costumes before 1960, but could be used for a simple unfussy sketch outline to
take to a dressmaker for example.
Basic Figure Templates
Download the images by clicking on the thumbnails to enlarge them and
either save them to your chosen file such as My Pictures or print off immediately.
Copyright Fashion-era.com 2002-2007
|
|
The
files show silhouettes in various sizes giving you a small range of templates for most situations.
You can obtain more of these images in more sizes from my
ebook Fashion Drawing
Figure Templates by Pauline Weston Thomas.
BELOW - Front and back views of VERY basic model - Ideal for
costume use as she stands daintily. |
 |
 |
Click now on the thumbnails to enlarge and then print.
For alternative models Go to Modern Strident Fashion
Templates OR Go to Elegant Fashion
Template Silhouettes
You may reproduce the images shown on this page for
personal, school or college use for fashion drawing and collage work. They
should not be reproduced for profit
or sale purposes as part of a CD, DVD, ebook, book, or similar item. Nor
should they be used for reproduction on T-shirts, accessories or other
clothing.
Copyright Fashion-era.com 2002-2007+
|
Beginner's Instructions to Open an Image File in Microsoft Word
First download and save your image file. Open Microsoft Word
and click on File (menu), New, Blank, O.K.
In your new document in Word go to Insert (Menu),
Picture --> from File - Browse to wherever you saved the file
-->possibly you saved it in My Documents --> My Pictures.
Click on your selected file and it will open on the Word blank
document. Print preview will show it fitting on A4 paper.
|
Use spray glues or
light glue sticks for paper to affix the layout paper to a heavier white paper.
Then when the layers are quite dry trim it to size and mount it onto fresh card
or mounting board. Try to avoid PVA type glues which are inclined to wet the
paper.
Cow Gum used sparingly will work, but can be messy. In a very well
ventilated room I use petroleum based Cow Gum for sticking card to card.
For sticking fabric and braids I have found general PVA glue, Copydex and Evostick
wood glue all very good. Don't apply too much of any of the glues and do allow
time for the glue to get tacky and thicker before applying the fabric, so that
the fabric does not absorb glue through to the top surface.
In addition to layout paper, cartridge paper is ideal for fashion drawing and
is thick enough for light painting with gouache or watercolours. If you use a
heavy bold black felt pen template beneath the cartridge paper you can see just
enough of the template outline to get the line of the silhouette and the correct
body proportions.
A putty rubber can be bought from an art supplies shop. It's very useful
because unlike an ordinary eraser it does not rub away the background paper.
Pencils for fashion
drawing should be soft B pencils. You will need a B or 2B for general sketching and a
4B for highlight and emphasis. Keep the 2B quite sharp and use the
4B to make the emphasis mark you like best.
When you make the light trace of the template beneath your layout paper, be
sure to ensure the trace is just that - light.
I like Caran d'Ache coloured water soluble pencils.
These high quality Swiss made water soluble colour pencils come in 2 types - the
Caran d'Ache Prismalo 3mm lead range and the Caran d'Ache Supracolor 3.7mm artist's
range. These colours are
great when you blend them in strokes or follow curvature and then use a damp
paintbrush to create water colour paint effects and highlights with minimum
effort.
Go easy and don't over wet or over draw. Be patient as you can slowly build
more colour layers once its dry.
Felt pens by Pantone
can be used to great effect. The flesh tones can be used for skin areas like
arms and legs and faces. They give good non blotching colour on layout paper. Some people like to colour the sketches they make using felt pens always.
That's fine if that's your style, but do use quality felts as some cheaper
versions run and blotch
over outlines.
Today a huge range of
wonderful fine pens exist at about a fifth of the price of lesser models of
twenty years ago. They can be used over a coloured sketch to sharpen it up
instead of using a B pencil. They are very useful if you're trying to show
intricate detail such as embroidery on a design.
Work may need to be presented for all sorts of reasons. It
might be that you have a college interview or a job to apply for or you may just
want to make your work look better for display purposes. So you'll have to learn
to mount your work.
You can buy mounting board from good art shops for presentation work. Related
or toning colours can be best. For final background boards try fairly neutral,
but expensive dusty looking colours such as cream, taupe, olive, sand, grey
blue, wine and black. A set of story boards all in one colour can look very
attractive and thought out from a presentation point of view. Avoid crude
background colours for boards. Aim to make your work have an look expensive
look.
You can of course instead use CAD software such as Colour
Matters.
You will need a sharp Stanley type knife or surgical craft knife and
replacement blades to trim card and paper. Don't try to use anything but a knife
of this type to trim a hole out of the centre of a piece of mounting board.
Never use a scissors as it will produce a very amateur result.
A metal safety ruler will give you better cutting edges than a wooden ruler
that eventually develops little irregularities.
To cut and trim your work, you can use an old wooden art board, a piece of
hardboard or a special self healing plastic mat especially designed for the
purpose and available from art shops.
If you have a sample of fabric you may need to cut out a window in your mounting board and then place
the sample behind. Masking tape can be useful for repositioning the sample.
If you need to make a wide range of fabric samples inexpensively use some cake colouring food dyes in
cups of hot water and dip in pieces of white or cream fabrics and yarns, lace,
braids and ribbons to develop colour scraps to enhance those you may already
have. This works really well on pure silk or other natural fabrics or yarns.
Be prepared to knit small squares of fabric from interesting yarns,
torn fabric strips, or even
weave your own small ribbon fabric sample. Make samples of pin tucked, twin needled, quilted
or embroidered pieces that give you a sample fabric as a design source for your fashion
drawings.
A chapter in my ebook Fashion Drawing
Figure Templates is devoted to workboards
of textured fashion fabric samples. It clearly shows ways of approaching this.
Book References
Books that may help you include my own ebook Fashion Drawing
Figure Templates by
Pauline Weston Thomas, and other books that you can buy via the
libraries - "Fashion Drawing - The Basic Principles" by
Anne Allen and Julian Seaman. Also look at "Foundation In Fashion Design
Illustration", "Fashion Illustration" or Professional Fashion Design" by Julian
Seaman. My favourites include "Fashion Design Illustration: Women" by
Patrick John Ireland.
TO TOP OF PAGE
I have been on several of Patrick's courses. I highly
recommend his books. He moves with the times and captures the current
body silhouette. I found the tuition I gained on Patrick's courses
enlightening and it has enabled me to produce templates that work for
the school or student beginner situation.
Click here for my ebook Fashion Drawing
Figure Templates by Pauline Weston Thomas.
What is an ebook? Click to find out more.
My ebook, the first fashion template ebook on the web, has
over 40 original body silhouette outline templates, as well as a chapter on mounted fashion
storyboards, a chapter on workboards showing manipulated fabric samples and a
chapter on typical fashion design briefs. Click here
to go to sales info.
For more information on ladies and teens fashion trends go to:-
Archived Sections
About Us
Home
TO TOP OF PAGE To Next Page
|
