Fashion illustration is the first step in bringing any fashion design to life. It is an important element of fashion design. Just as the paint is to an artist, recipe is to a chef, and equations are to a mathematician. That’s because it serves as a template for expressing your vision and imagination.  There’s a lot that goes into creating a good fashion illustration, from flat sketches to three-dimensional images. In this article – Basic fashion illustration for beginners, we will show what it takes to boost your sense of design and improve your illustrative work. 

1. Understand Basic Anatomy

Do you know that drawing a perfect fashion design starts with understanding the anatomy of the body?

It may not be obvious when you’re looking at a stylized corquis or fashion figure. But at the root of that beautiful design is a fashion designer who understands the correct anatomical proportions and shapes of body parts. 

You have to know what an ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph male body type looks like. You also need to know the features of a pear/triangle, inverted triangle, rectangle, hourglass, and oval/apple female body type before drawing the clothes and other accessories. An understanding of all these will help you to create a realistic figure. 

2. Stylize to Optimize

After learning the basic anatomy, the next thing is to style your figure to optimise the elements of the design. Remember, your job is to make that outfit look stunning on your fashion figure. The body features should be detailed in order to accentuate the design. 

The legs of your fashion figure should be long enough to reveal the length of the dress, folds, and fabric texture. If you want to highlight the curves in a dress, give your figure a tiny waist or large hips. Few facial features help to keep the focus on the clothes or body itself. If the focus is on accessories or hair, make the hair big or understate the clothing. 

3. Make Your Figure Flexible 

Every fashion artist starts by drawing static fashion images. However, if you want to move from amateur to pro, you must learn how to draw flexible fashion figures. Imagine drawing a figure that can walk, dance, or swirl within your picture plane; just like a model walking down the runway. Fascinating, right?

Such motions won’t just dazzle the viewer, it will also help them see all angles of the outfit. It gives them a detailed picture of how the clothing, body, and fabric align. They can tell if the fabric is flowy, heavy, or stiff and if it will be a good fit for their body type.

You will learn how to do all these and more when you enroll for ours.

READ: The Importance of Digital Fashion Illustrations in Fashion Design

4. Use Your Composition/Background

Use the background or composite of your illustration to reveal more details about your design. That is where fashion illustration meets editorial illustration.

Your design background/composite could be telling the story of a boss walking through a busy city, a model on the red carpet, or a nerd walking to class. Such imagery helps your viewers understand the context of where or when a design is worn.

Put on your thinking cap and get creative! But remember to keep it simple. If the background is too busy, it will distract your viewers. You don’t want to take away the attention from the main design.

5. Differentiate Between Fabrics With Texture

One of the tricks to becoming a pro at fashion design is learning how to show the weight and texture of fabric within your illustration. Some viewers love to revel in all sorts of details as it helps them under the design a little better. So, the more details your design, the more appealing it will be to them.

Sure, we know it’s a red dress, but is it silk, chiffon, or cotton material? The way it’s drawn, the way it drapes around your fashion figure, and even the way it’s colored should give the viewer an idea of the sort of textile being depicted. At the very least, let them understand what a garment may feel like when worn. They should be able to figure out if the fabric will be soft, stiff, warm, cool, itchy, light, heavy, or breezy. 

6. Magnify Patterns 

In addition to making the fabric texture obvious, must also ensure that the patterns on the outfit are visible. It could be simple understated prints like polka dots and stripes or loud, bright florals or paisley designs. Textile patterns can also help coordinate various pieces when you match up a color or two from a print within other garments or accessories in a design. 

7. Get Your Hair Done

We know your focus is on the clothing. However, your design isn’t complete without hair. Yes, you read that right. Hair is another piece of the illustration puzzle. The movement and details are just as important as the fabric. Hairstyle, color, texture, and accessories add to the overall quality of the design.

People wear different types of hairstyles for different reasons. It sometimes points to culture and ethnic heritage. The hairstyle of your fashion figure tells the story of your ideal clients. It tells who the outfit is meant for, where they are from, and what they do. 

You can start by learning how to illustrate braided, straight, curly, knotted, cropped, and other hairstyles to widen your fashion illustration skill set.

READ: Essentials for a Fashion Sketching Toolkit

8. Focus on Accessories

Accessories have a way of taking an outfit from zero to 100 in split seconds. Sometimes, all you need for that outfit to pop is the touch of an accessory. You can pair the outfit with a handbag, clutch purse, heels, sneakers, jewelry, scarf, glasses, cap, crown, scepter, etc. 

Your choice of accessory says a lot about the design. Do you want to portray simple or extravagance, regal or causal? Also pay attention to the texture, pattern, composition, and stylizations of the accessory.

9. Understand Perspective

As a fashion designer, you must understand how perspective plays a role in fashion illustration. You need to understand how objects exist within a space and illustrate them accurately. In addition to stylization, learn the rules of representing images aesthetically.

For example, instead of drawing a handbag or shoes as an accessory to the fashion figure, you can draw it as a standalone object. Sometimes, people are just interested in one piece of item in the overall look. Drawing the accessory as a standalone object makes it look tangible and gives the viewer a better understanding of its size, shape, color, and pattern.

You can also add perspective by showing how two separate objects interact to make the design complete. You can display them on the same plane, overlapping, or use similar lighting and design style.

10. Render Non-Textile Surfaces Differently

Some outfits and customs are not made with textile materials. As you use texture to differentiate fabrics, also ensure that non-textile materials/surfaces are rendered in a way that clearly depicts their components. 

For example; if your fashion figure is wearing a metallic dress, your illustration should showcase the reflective properties of the material. If you’re drawing a glass shoe, it should be transparent and reflective so the viewer understands it’s made of glass or something similar. The same applies when illustrating a leather shoe, chain purse, crystal ring, silk trousers, etc.

Conclusively,

This may seem like a lot for a beginner, but you can improve your skills by enrolling in our fashion illustration course. It is a comprehensive and practical course that will help you move from amateur to Pro in a short time. It may seem tricky in the beginning, but with constant practice, you’ll definitely get a hang of it. Click here to enroll now!