about fashion > Faces, Hands and Legs
Faces, Hands and Legs
Faces:
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Start working on your own fashion template for your garment designs, most fashion illustrators use them - either one they’ve acquired, or one they’ve made for themself. Its unnecessary to recreate a new one each time.
When designing a garment you have to have a primary focus - the clothing. You shouldn’t get too wrapped up in detail of the face, but it does form an important part of the illustration. A pretty, inviting face can draw the viewer into the picture. This does play a big part in projecting the correct image. If you are not able to draw well, then try to draw understated lines, don’t allow it to overpower the sketch. As usual, practice makes perfect!
-Cybele Illustrations
Try to look at as many other fashion illustrators work as possible, keep seeking inspiration - notice the line work, shading and different stylistic approaches that artists take on drawing faces. I know that the face is probably the most intimidating part of the entire fashion illustration! Similarly to the nine heads principle, I can help you with an excercise to help you practice drawing faces accurately.
Face Grid:
Split the face up in half, then draw a line in the very middle, Split the face into the grid, as seen above 
.
Head: Draw an oval head, draw in the guidelines for the centre line, eyes and mouth line.
Eyes: Using the eye guidline, draw almond shaped eyes, the space in the centre of the eyes (bridge of the nose) can be the width of one eye, and half an eye on either side of the left and right eye.
Eyelids: A curved line above each eye, following the shape of the eye.
Eyeball: Draw a ball inside the almond, but it should look like the ball is hidden behind the almond, dont’ draw the entire ball. Like this ( ). This will look like the face is mean!
Eyelashes & Eyebrows: Draw the top lash line slightly thicker, try not to draw too many separate eyelashes, this just looks messy. For the brows, draw a thicker line at the right place above the eyes.
The eye is not a perfect sphere. The cornea bulges out in front of the iris (the coloured part), so that the while the iris looks flat, reflections from the front of the eye show a curved surface.
The drawing above illustrates this.
• Note that when viewed from an angle, the pupil sits in the plane of the iris, and being in perspective is oval rather than circular
• The iris is not a solid tone, but has streaks of colour, dark around the edge.
• At this angle, the rim of the lower eyelid is visible. Use the lightest hint of tone here, except where shadowed.
• The ‘whites’ aren’t really white. They have slight colour and often visible blood vessels, and are frequently shadowed. Reserve pure white for highlights. The shape of the lids changes as the eye moves. We tend to think of the eyes as being mirror images of each other, but when gazing to one side, they can look very different. Expressions can drastically alter the shape of the eye. Pay attention to the lines and wrinkles around the eye, not just the lids themselves, otherwise the eyes will just look misshapen. Pay careful attention to placement of the eyes. If drawing without any aids, refer to the key ‘landmarks’ of the face, checking the angle and distance of the inner and outer points of the eyes in relation to the ears and nose.
To begin with, use construction lines to indicate the planes of the face, then place the pupils and draw in main lines of the lids and brows. Including wrinkles and lines at this point can help provide reference points. Don’t get too detailed at first, but work up the whole face, adding further reference points and ensuring that everything fits together. Some people prefer to focus on a single area at a time.
Careful observation is the key. Observing the tiny details of light and shade in the eyes will bring the subject to life.
Tips: Sometimes a little artist’s licence is needed if light is poor or when working from a photo. Adding a little curved highlight cutting across the pupil and iris, a shadow under the lid, or detail to the iris, can brighten flat eyes. Don’t automatically outline the lower lid - often the lower rim is highlighted and needs to be lightly indicated. Observe the subtle changes in tone which indicate the eye socket, and the planes of the nose and brows, which help to sit the eyes into the face
Lips: Above the mouth guidline draw in a stretched out “M”. Below the line, draw a curved line. For the centre lip line draw an even more drawn-out “M” line.
The Nose: Draw two curved shapes on either side of the centre front line.
Ears & Hairline: Ears can be drawn from the eye guidline to just above the mouth line. Hair is sometimes drawn as a soft outline or shape, rather than a formal detailed hairstyle. It is your choice, but if you find you are not particularly good at drawing either of the features demonstrated here - rather draw as simplistically as possible.
For detailed hair: One of the most common mistakes is to attempt to draw every hair as a pencil-stroke. A single pencil line cannot represent the many changes of tone along the shaft of hair, so this approach is invariably disastrous. Another problem is lack of care - you should spend at least as much time on the hair as on the face.
Drawing long hair is in many ways easier than short hair, as the ’surface’ tends to be a little smoother, with broader sections of highlight, less dispersed than in short hair. Curly or frizzy hair can be more of a problem, but if you take your time and observe carefully, it is quite achievable. You might need to ask your model to tame their hair a little with conditioner prior to sitting.
First, look carefully at the model or reference photo and identify the major sections of hair. Curls will often be rather flat, like ribbons curling back on themselves. Try to ignore odd strands at first, concentrating on the main bulk of the hair, and lightly outline the main shapes and sections.
Next draw in the darks with a soft pencil, being careful to leave the highlights well alone. At this point, you might wish to lightly sketch in prominent lighter hairs that need to be left, bringing the darks up close beside them, to avoid problems with erasing them. Where strands of hair cross, small marks may be necessary to separate them. Make sure you follow the direction of the curl. Now that you’ve got the basic structure of the hair and put in the darks, you’ve won half the battle. Drawing lifelike hair is in part a test of observation, and in part a test of patience. This approach will certainly work for quick sketches when applied judiciously, but for really lifelike hair, you will need to take your time and pay attention to detail.
Now draw the mid-tones, with pencil-strokes following the direction of hair. Draw the darker lines separating sections of hair, and patiently draw the dark areas showing behind lighter hairs. At this point I use a harder pencil over the darks, filling in the paper-grain and blending the tone out along the hair. For super-smooth and shiny hair you can use a blending stump along the hair.
To finish off, I’ve added a few stray marks to loosen up the drawing around the edges. Some sections of hair are smoothed with a stump and highlights picked out with an eraser. The original drawing is a little sharper than shown by the scan - after blending tone and erasing, I use a hard pencil to lightly re-define nearby areas and keep them crisp.
-drawsketch.about.com
-Images courtesy of Cosmoworlds Trends
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NEW CONTENT!!! I have opened the site for guests to post their personal tutorials on drawing faces. I think this is a good way to gain more perspectives on alternative drawing techniques. Click the artist’s name to learn more about them or see their sites. Click the thumbnail to see an enlarged tutorial:
Brandon McKinney - Elaborate grid technique to draw the face, drawing eyes from different angles. Includes nose, mouth and ears.
Zirconia- Clever shading and highlighting techniques for drawing eyes, can be used for pc or hand drawing techniques.
Mueymue - Not a tutorial, but just depictions of eyes with good shading and reflections.
Tentopet - Use this eye template for all your drawings, it covers all angles the eyes can be drawn in.
Nelesia - Brilliant colouring-in tutorial done in Corel Painter. Can be applied in hand illustration too.
Crucifyofmine - Absolutely amazing colouring-in tutorial for lips.
There are more visitor tutorials on this page related to general anatomy that cover the aspects of the face as well. The thumbnail tutorials belong to the artists, please do not attempt to redistribute or copy these. Please contact the artists for permission to use them on sites.
