about fashion > Tools Used for Fashion Illustration
Tools Used for Fashion Illustration
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A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.
—Lionel Trilling>
I have always used colour markers in my work, which is a choice, there are plenty of options when fashion illustrating:
- Colour markers – Copic, Pantone or Triart are my favourite
- Watercolours
- Colour pencils – Prismacolor – I find them superior!
- Graphite pencils
- Chalk
- Gouache
- Charcoal
- PC for digital illustration
- Black ink fineliner - 0.1pin through to 0.5pin
- Rollerball ink pens
- Colour pastels
The tools you’ll need when drawing and doing technical drawings:
- Ruler – 15 and 30cm (if you can get Aluminium)
- Set square – small and large
- Set of French curves
- Flexible curve – also great for patternmaking (as seen below)
Using the PC for fashion Illustration
Fashion Illustration and design can be done freehand or with a computer. You must use your pc and printer as much as possible, even when drawing freehand, to save time when doing your storyboards. Working fast when creating your storyboards is vital. When you do finally get a job, being a fast worker will be a deciding factor, when you use our fashion templates be resourceful and keep them handy in a folder or scanned in your pc for fast retrieval. Use the internet for any questions you might have, you will find almost anything if you have a little patience and use good search words.
Creating Fashion Illustrations with Corel Painter
Special thanks to: Cher Threinen-Pendarvis - www.graphics.com
Inspired by the work of Tobie Gildio, Cher Threinen-Pendarvis utilized Painter’s Pens and Watercolours to create her illustration.
Open a new file, size it to 1500 x 2000 pixels, and add a new layer to the image. In the Brush Selector Bar, choose Pens from the Brush Category menu, then choose the Thick n thin variant from the Variant menu. It’s a good idea to make some practice marks with the pen. When you’ve finished practicing, delete your practice strokes by choosing Select > All and Delete/ Backspace. Press Command-D to Deselect. For this illustration, I chose to sketch the basic shapes using this pen because it allows you to sketch smoothly, while varying the thickness of the lines. Use the stylus to add sweeping, curved vertical strokes that suggest the outlines of your subject. Then add a few details and accents with shorter strokes.
Tip: For the most responsive and expressive strokes, set up Brush Tracking. It allows you to customize how Painter interprets the stylus input, including factors such as Pressure and Speed. Choose Corel Painter IX > Preferences > Brush Tracking, and make a representative brush stroke in the window. For instance, if you plan to use both light and heavy pressure, sketch slowly, then quickly. Try to make a few brush strokes that include all factors.
Next, add texture to line work with two unusual Pen variants—the Leaky Pen to add textured spots, and the Coit Pen for textured line accents. Choose the Leaky Pen variant. Make a practice stroke using light pressure to begin the stroke, then apply heavier pressure. Add more irregular texture with the spotted strokes. Switch to the Coit Pen to draw a few linear accents, as shown along the sides of the skirt in my illustration.
Create a new layer, and choose the Broad Water Wash variant of Digital Watercolor. When you choose a Digital Watercolor variant, you’ll notice that the Composite Method for the new layer will change to Gel. The Gel method will allow the washes on the layer to be more transparent. Choose a light color in the Colors palette. Digital Watercolor enables you to paint smooth washes quickly and to subtly blend colors while the paint is wet. I suggest using light colors that are from the upper portion of the Value triangle in the Colors palette. Now press lightly on your stylus and paint loose, vertical strokes that generally follow the shape of the model. Don’t worry about staying within the lines, but allow the strokes to break out of the line work occasionally for a fresh, natural look. For this illustration, I chose to lay in the light washes on the dress using the Broad Water Brush. Then I used the Soft Broad Brush and a light peach for the skin. This brush allowed me to paint smooth, soft-edged washes.
To make the illustration livelier, I added a few strokes of deep pink to the clothing. Choose the Soft Broad Brush variant of Digital Watercolor. The Soft Broad Brush allows you to paint smooth-looking, wet-into-wet washes. The small amount of Diffusion in the brush allows you to lay brush strokes next to one another with the paint blending subtly between the edges of the strokes. Wet Fringe, also in the brush, allows the paint to pool slightly at the edges of the wet area of paint. To have your Digital Watercolor paint stay wet between painting sessions, save your working file in RIFF format.
9 Steps to a Woman’s Face in Photoshop – Fashion Illustration
www.associatedcontent.com
In this guide we’ll help you create a fashion-style woman, you will need Photoshop, any version will work.
Part One – The Base
One: Create a new canvas (File > New) size 500×500 pixels. The larger the better, it will then keep the quality if you want to downsize it later. Background must be white, keep it in RGB mode.
Two: First we’re going to create a gradient that will represent our illustration woman’s hair. First duplicate your background layer (right click it and choose duplicate layer) If you double click the layer’s text, you can change the layer’s name to “hair. Now set the foreground colour to #c03c85 and your background colour to #d27db8. Then go to your layer styles (Layer > Layer styles > Gradient Overlay) and choose “Gradient Overlay”. Apply the dark-to-light pink gradient. Leave all settings at default, but click the inverse box.
Three: To create the base for the illustration woman’s face, set the foreground colour to #da7a96 and background to #f9f0f1. Then, use your elliptical (circle) SHAPE tool, not the marquee, to draw a long, oval face that is offset to the right (not centered). It will look like the shape is filled with a gradient – don’t worry, its not. Its an optical illusion. Double click the layer’s text and name this layer “face”. Once you create the oval for the face, you need to rasterize the shape. This step allows you to create the smooth, non pixellated lines that make crisp, professional graphics and illustrations. Thats why you need to use the shape tool rather than the marquee tool. Finally, to apply the gradient overlay to the face: Click > Layer > Layer Styles > Gradient Overlay and apply the pink-to-almost white gradient. Again, leave settings at default, but tick the “inverse” box. At this point, its best to save: File > Save As – just to be safe!
Part Two: Basic Additions
One: To create the nose set the foreground colour to #bb5674. Create a new layer (Layer > New > New Layer) then go to the paintbrush tool, load the calligraphic brushes set and choose the 15px oval. Now, click once on the new layer to create the right nostril. Duplicate this layer (Right click and choose “Duplicate Layer”) and click: Edit > Transform > Flip horizontal. Move the right nostril into place. Right click the duplicate layer and choose “Merge Down”. Then, name the layer “nose” (Optionally, you can play with the “Smudge” tool to alter the nostril shapes).
Two: For the mouth, download this free shape set: http://graphicsoft.about.com/od/photoshopdownloads/ss/shapes1.htm – and install it. Then select your custom shape tool and load up these shapes, select the mouth and draw it out. Hold the shift key as you draw it to make the shape keep the proper proportions. To add shine: Set foreground colour to white, add a long oval to the lower lip. Lower the “Fill” of this shape to about 21%. Right click and choose “Merge Down”. Name the layer “Mouth”.
Three: Do the eyebrows first, its easier to position the pieces this way. Use your elliptical shape tool and create an oval with the right shape at the top. Then use the elliptical marquee tool to cut out the bits you don’t want. Duplicate, flip, and merge.
Part Three – The Eyes
One: The eyes are more difficult than the rest. First make your foreground colour white and draw an oval. Use Edit > Free Transform to tilt the shape downward at the inside. You’ll be altering the shape as you go along. Duplicate the layer and flip it, move it into place and merge it down. Now select your face layer, use your magic wand to select the shape of the face, and then click “select” and choose “inverse”. Then go right back to your eyes and select that layer. Hit the backspace key on your keyboard to remove all the white that currently goes into the hair.
Two: Now for the eyelashes. Use the same method of drawing a black oval and deleting portions of it to frame your eyes with black eyelashes. Like the eyebrows, the eyelashes will extend past the border of the face.
Three: Create a black circle, several pixels inside that, create a light purple circle for the iris. Several more pixels inside, create a dark purple circle for the pupil. Then, create a pure white highlight circle. Finally create a pure white highlight oval and lower the fill to about 25%.
Now its finished! You can add makeup or jewelery. Adjust the colour scheme to achieve totally different looks, just use the layer styles.
