Fashion Illustration Tutorial- eye placement within the face

Since we already know how to draw an eye, the next area we will tackle is in regards to eye placement within the face.  We all know there are two eyes in a face, but did you know they are located exactly in the middle of the head?  When the head is turned the eyes turn as well, losing a bit of their almond shape.  When viewed from the side the eye still remains 3-D, it has just been cut in half.

Faces are usually seen in one of three positions: full on, 3/4 view, and side/profile.  The best way to approach putting the eyes in the face is to start by drawing 2 lines.  The first is vertical line dividing the left and right sides of the face in half.  If you look at a face straight on you should be able to flip one side of the face over the center line and it is relatively symmetrical.  The second line is horizontal dividing the top and bottom of the head.  Heads are larger at the top than at the bottom, indicating a forehead and a chin.  

Below are 3 examples showing relative placements of the two center lines for the viewing angles of the face:

**Important** When viewing a face from the side, the vertical center line is technically the actual profile line.  I have added the vertical line here to show that an eye is never right on the edge of a face.  There is a hole in the bone structure that creates a pocket for the eye to rest in.  Viewed from the front you can hardly tell, but viewed from the side you can, and this needs to be indicated in your artwork.

What’s next: Drawing the Eye pt. 2

Fashion Illustration Tutorial – drawing an eye pt. 1

In the illustration courses I have taken I found general facial anatomy almost completely disregarded.  We possibly spent one day on drawing a face, though it was never in depth.  I guess you could call that day dumbed down anatomy:  ”A face has 2 eyes, one nose located between and below the two eyes, and one mouth located below the nose.”  That sort of thing.  (Yes, that is a bit of an exaggeration.  If that was the only instruction we received I’m sure there would have been far more Picasso-style faces handed in at the end of the semester).  As I have stated before, there are some excellent illustration/anatomy books available to buy on this subject.  However I realize not everyone can buy an outrageously priced text book, so I thought I would share the very basics.  If you are trying to draw an eye do not fall into the trap of forcing as much realism into it as possible, that usually only ends in frustration.  I struggle with realism just as much as the next person… which may be why I love fashion illustration, sometimes the crazier and less realistic it is the better.

This tutorial will be divided into two sections: drawing an eye and eye placement in the face.

1. Simple anatomy of an eye:  The eye is completely round, including the iris and pupil.  The iris is never one solid color, but a myriad of many colors overlapping again and again, giving it vivid depth and life, and the pupil is always in the center of the iris.

2.  When the eye opening is drawn you will never see the full circle of the iris since the rim cuts at least one edge off.

**If you draw an iris without cutting an edge off the effect tends to look like the character being drawn is in shock.  This is generally a big NO!  (Unless you are trying to draw someone in absolute shock and terror… then by all means go ahead).

Drawing an eye:

1.  Start with the rim of the eye opening.  Eyes tend to be shaped like an almond with the inner corners (the ones closest to the nose) dipping just slightly for the tear duct.

2.  Add the iris (remember, it is hinted as a perfect circle but at least one edge needs to be cut off) and faint lines for the eyelids.  In an illustration only the upper lid really needs to be drawn, which is perfectly fine since the level of detail is minimal.  If you are aiming for realism you must add a bottom lid.  The eye has two flaps of skin covering it, one on the top and one on the bottom.  If you add this one element to the drawing your eyes will actually look slightly 3-dimensional.

3.  Detail the iris and pupil.  The pupil is always directly centered in the iris, though it varies in size depending on the lighting.  The iris tends to get darker as it moves towards the pupil.  Another element of detail that should be included (even in a simple illustration) is a reflection of light.  This reflectiongenerally covers both the iris and pupil, not just one or the other.

4.  Eyelashes tend to make the rim of the eye darker and the final illustration more glamorous.  They also tend to never flow in the same direction, but will slightly overlap.  It is personal preference whether they are drawn thick or thin.  For a hint of realism add a small mark to the inner corner of the eye to further emphasize the tear duct.

5.  Simplifying the eye:  Realistically eyes have massive amounts of detail, but in a fashion illustration you rarely see that much detail in a face.  So we have to simplify.  I have found one of the easiest things to do is create two lines for the rim and a black spot for the iris with a dip in one corner (indicating the light reflection).  It’s easy, fast, and still looks like an eye even though it is small.

Yay!  Now you can go have ice cream… or a popsicle.  Enjoy!

Fashion History & Illustration- Fashion Era: the ultimate historic costume/illustration database

I absolutely adore Fashion Era.  It has an extensive look at historic costume, vintage fashion illustrations, a few basic illustration tutorials and free templates.  If you are taking courses in historic costumes and textiles then this site is beyond incredible for references and background information.  Plus there are oodles of links posted for other sites around the web.

Some of the categories listed and areas covered include:

• What is fashion?  An explanation of fashion history and dress theories
• Current fashion trends
• Body adornment
• 1800 – 1845 Fashion French influence on costume and fashion history; Regency and Romantic era
• The Victorian Era
• 1890 – 1914 La Belle Epoque
• 1914 – 1955 Dress Reform
• 1960 – 1980 Rise of the miniskirts, disco, punk
• Royal Fashion
• Couture Fashion History
• Image and Wardrobe Planning

From the site:

“At Fashion-Era.com we analyse two centuries of women’s costume history and fashion history silhouettes in detail.  Regency, Romantic, Victorian, Edwardian, Flapper,1940’s Utility Rationing, Dior’s New Look, 1960’s Mini dress, 1970’s Disco, 1980’s New Romantics, Power Dressing, Haute Couture, Royal Robes, Fashion Semiotics, and Body Adornment, each retro fashion era, and future fashion trends are all defined.

We’ve also outlined the history of Jewellery, Perfumes, Cosmetics, Corsetry and Underwear manipulation of the body silhouette.  Fashion history is a rich area to explore. The effects of past and present technology, changes in work, leisure, media and homelife that affect lifestyle trends, attitudes, fashion trends and shopping trendsetters are all covered in the various eras.

New sections such as hats, hair, cloaks and capes fashion history continue to explore and make this a great web fashion history and costume history resource.  Recent new sections also include consumer tests for example on clip in hair extensions plus tips on how to buy and sell vintage, pattern drafting and Christmas themes.  There is also a Fashion Forum over 3 years old called Fashion-era Forum.  There you can discuss anything from current fashion trends, vintage to costume history from Greeks to the 21st century.”

Have fun exploring!

Fashion Era

Fashion Illustration Tutorial: Creating poses with stick figures

Not too long ago I posted a tutorial on blocking out the basic fashion figure.  If you use the proportions and measurements I gave you, we can take the process one step further: giving your figure pose or movement. 

 Giving a pose to the croquis evokes mood, emotion, and movement.  The more interesting the pose the greater visual effects you can achieve when rendering fabric on top of it.  Multiple methods exist in regards to how to move your figure around, but I prefer to start out with stick figures!  Ah yes, those wonderful little twiggy humanoid elements everyone has drawn since elementary school.  With a stick figure I find you can capture the essence of the human form without having to worry about details.  You can determine whether a position looks natural and balanced, and if it is going to enhance whatever style of clothing you decide to create. 

Things to remember: 

1. Physics.  Make sure your figure is balanced.  Draw a line from the center of the head straight down and try to keep the figure’s weight centered around that.  This doesn’t mean the whole body is on that line.  In fact, often only the head and one lower leg are positioned exactly on the line.
2. Work quickly.  These aren’t works of art, they are stick figures.
3. Remember the fashion aspect.  Don’t put an evening gown on a figure that appears to be sprinting.  In general, the more formal the attire, the more formal the pose. 

This provides a wonderful excuse to doodle!

Technically, I was planning to type out an actual tutorial, but I found an AMAZING one from elfwood.com that uses the exact process I was going to explain, but in greater depth:

Figure Drawing: Basic Pose and Construction

Fashion Illustration Inspiration: Deea Muntean and abstract illustration

Time for a little Illustration Inspiration!  I found this artist while browsing around the web.  Deea Muntean is a Romanian illustrator with visually stunning and unique representations of fashion.  Browsing through her work takes your breath away as all of her pieces combine the surreal and abstract with actual couture design.  I’m pasting a few of my favorites, but I would definitely suggest checking her website out because she has 11 pages of illustrations posted! 

http://dushky.deviantart.com/

  

  

Photoshop Tutorial: Blending colors in digital painting

Believe it or not, I finally finished the blending tutorial I promised almost half an eternity ago!  The sad part is I really had to cut the amount of content down so I could actually fit everything into one post.

What I am left with is one of the most basic elements of digital painting: blending colors.  Technically, there is no right way to blend.  Blending is often achieved either through using the smudge tool or actually painting with brushes by varying opacity and flow.  I will be honest: there is no quick solution for blending.  No matter what method you choose be prepared to spend quite some time on it. 

The Smudge Tool: 

Many (though not all) digital artists are aghast at the thought of using the smudge tool to blend, but some do use it.  I personally can’t stand working with the smudge tool alone.  I used to, but it takes an extremely long time when used properly.

• Smudging only moves pigment around, it doesn’t actually blend colors.  The best way to smudge blend is to use a spackle brush, and only a spackle brush because it takes up little bits of color to smudge around rather than an entire section.
• We will start with these three shades of green

• Using your spackle brush set at a low strength (about 50% or below, but it is always good to vary it), move the brush back and forth perpendicular to the color edges

• Varying the brush size and strength, move it back and forth, up and down, diagonally, every direction you can think of over and over and over again to achieve the look you want.  If you want a more artistic style then leave it less blended, more smudged, and vice verse if you want a realistic blend

Painting:

I have grown to love the painting method.  It is delightful to see that whichever brush you use will have a different effect in your art.  Try a variety of brushes to see what you like best.  You may even decide to use a uniquely shaped one that becomes your trademark style.  For the sake of simplifying this tutorial I am going to use the following two brushes:

                

• Let’s start with purple splotches

• I am now going to make a note about opacity and fill.  These are some of the most vital functions you use to paint.  Opacity relates to how transparent the color is when released, fill is how much color is released.  When blending I find it easier to start with a mid range opacity, higher range fill, then slowly start decreasing both as you go.

• Using your spackle brush, hold down the “alt” key (command for mac) and grab the darkest color.  The darker the color is the lower your opacity should be.  Start painting along the dividing line of the dark and mid-range color.  Keep pressing the “alt” key to grab the different shades (including dark, mid-range, and lighter colors) as you go along.  It also may be wise to vary your brush size.  Go over and over this section until you achieve the look you want.  But keep lowering your opacity and fill!
• Repeat for the middle color and lightest color. 

• For a final step, paint over the entire area with an airbrush set to low opacity and fill (around 10% & 30% respectively) to give it a polished look.
• At the end you should have a relatively smooth gradation moving from dark to light

• If you have a streak of color that isn’t behaving and will not blend, don’t be afraid to “cheat” and smudge it out.  That often helps immensely.

Other popular brushes to use for painting:

• solid round-gives an almost oil painting, artsy style
• airbrush- makes the painting looks, well, airbrushed
• Clouded speckle brush- looks like a bunch of airbrushes stuck together.  It gives more texture than the airbrush, more distinct lines than the spackle brush, and less harsh lines than the solid round.

This technique can be applied to almost everything you paint, though I find it especially helpful for skin tone and fine fabrics.  Below you will see how my canvas tends to look when painting an illustration.  I create little “palettes” of color on separate layers and use the “alt/command” key to grab whichever color I want.  This also goes to show that it is okay to be extremely messy while painting… there is the wonderful eraser available!

After I have started adding detail and cleaning:

I hope that was at least slightly helpful.  Remember, don’t be afraid to experiment.  That’s when you find something fun and unusual to put into your artwork.

Fashion Illustration: the Golden Age of Illustration

Much of my illustration inspiration comes from the golden age of fashion illustration: approximately from 1911-1930.  Before 1911, fashion illustrations were drawn as realistically close to the human body as possible until a Parisian couturier, Paul Poiret began an innovative movement in the opposite direction.  He published Les Robes de Paul Poiretshowcasing ink drawings colored with the Pochoir process, where a monochrome drawing is colored by hand using a set of stencils layered one on top of the other).  This method became a signature style of the Art Deco era where it glorified purity of line.

Some of the illustrators you may already be familiar with: Paul Poiret, Erte, and George Barbier.  There are a couple more I admire as well, George Lepape and A E Marty.  Not long ago I participated in a research and creativity competition in which I submitted 3 hand drawn illustrations re-interpreting 3 art deco works.  The garments themselves were not changed, I just gave my interpretation of mood conveyed in the original and decided to share one with you:

The original illustration, En Plein Coeur by A E Marty, was beautifully, yet morbidly depicted:

My re-interpretation was created on watercolor paper using marker and colored pencil (my favorite medium).  Marker allows for an amazing saturation of color on paper.  If you use a blending marker (which has no pigment) to pick up colors put onto a paper that does not absorb marker well, such as vellum, you get a beautiful, more realistic effect. 

 I hope that was fun!  And yes, that blending tutorial is on the way.  For the last week I have had my face glued to ebay because I’m slightly obsessed with buying vintage clothing. 

Photoshop & Fashion Illustration: quick tip for texture

Photoshop tip of the day:  Never ever underestimate the power of the spackle brush.  It is probably one of the most common brushes I use in photoshop and can be applied to everything from painting, blending, erasing, blurring, creating texture, etc.

Simply put, a spackle brush is a set of little dots clustered together.  Really, that’s it.  It can range from tiny dots to very large ones, separate or layered on top of each other, but the idea is still the same.  When you use it, pigment is applied only from each individual speck within the brush.  I have included a couple examples:

Spackle brushes should be used on anything that has a distinct, visible texture, such as skin, denim (or most twill weave fabrics), and velvet.  Varying both the opacity and the flow of pigment is vital when using this brush especially if you want even blending.  Make sure you keep your opacity below 50%, somewhere between 15%-35% is usually very helpful.

I have been in a velvet phase recently, so I decided to quickly render an image using only the spackle brush so you can see what it can do.

Once again, the entire image was painted with the spackle brush, and I am currently working on a tutorial demonstrating how to use the brush for blending.

There are loads of places online to get free brushes for use in photoshop.  A great site to see the spackle brush in action is http://www.imaginefx.comwhich caters to the sci-fi/fantasy digital art crowd.  There are some phenomenally talented artists hosted on that site.

Fashion Illustration Tutorial- blocking out the fashion figure pt.2

Yesterday I explained the basic measurements used in fashion illustration, and I promised to extend that by giving step by step instructions on how to block out the figure.  But first I should probably make one thing clear: the measurements I gave yesterday are guidelines rather than actual rules.  You can change proportions depending on what area you want emphasis.  For example, if you have a blouse with embroidery on the front you will probably want make the torso longer and the legs slightly shorter to draw attention to the embroidery. 

Now for basic blocking:

• Draw an oval in the the first section
• Use two straight lines extending from the head down to the dotted shoulder line; this is the neck
• To indicate the  muscle and shoulders use two slanting lines (very shallow triangles) starting in the middle of the neck, extending out to the sides
• For the torso, draw a straight line from the shoulder point to the notches on the dotted waist line (3 1/4 heads down)
• For hips, draw a straight line from the waistline to the hip line (4 heads down)
• Legs, draw a slightly tapered straight line from the fullest part of the hip down to line 10.  To indicate leg division darken the center line from line 10 to the dotted crotch line (4 1/2 heads down)
• Feet can be indicated by little triangles drawn from the dotted ankle line (9 1/4 heads down) to line 10
• Draw a slightly curved line from the waistline and crotch for determining elbow and wrist placement
• Draw two tapering lines starting one from the shoulder point, the other from the dotted bust line until they reach the slight curve you drew from the crotch level (4 1/2 heads down)
• Indicate hands with a rectangle and triangle that touch the line 5 heads down

The final result should look something like this:

The next step would be for you to flesh out your figure, which simply means rounding and softening all the hard angles.  This may be easier if you put it under a sheet of tracing paper and drawn on top, which means you will have a clean fresh image to work with.  Simply smooth along each line and intersection and the result should be a soft human figure.

The best advice I can give is after you block out a couple of figures use your pencil to trace the final picture over and over again; ignore using tracing paper, just draw right on top of what you drew previously.  Try it at least 5-10 times, preferably more.  What this does is train your mind and hand to “think” in these proportions as they become familiar with the general path you are using.  It sounds silly and you end up with extremely thick, black lines, but it does work.

I hope you enjoyed that and you found it helpful!

Fashion Illustration Tutorial- Fashion Figure Measurements pt. 1

I have a treat for everybody:  I am going to start posting tutorials about various aspects of fashion design including illustration, Photoshop, couture sewing, fashion history, etc.  So for the first little morsel of how-to yumminess I will explain the basic fashion figure (croquis).  One of the best books I can suggest for illustration is Illustrating Fashion: concept to creation   by Steven Stipelman, probably the most well known illustrator from the later 20th century, especially the 1980s-1990s.  If you can find the book definitely try to purchase it.

Let’s begin by breaking down the basic figure.  The average fashion illustration is approximately 10 heads high.  To make this easier I suggest grabbing a piece of graph paper and marking the following measurements to equal 10″:

• The first section contains the head, the chin on the 1″ line
• 1 1/2″ shoulder line
• 2 1/4″ high point of the bust
• 3 1/4″ waistline
• 3 1/2″ high hip
• 4″ fullest part of hip
• 4 1/2″ lowest part of hip or crotch (this is generally the middle of the fashion figure)
• 6 1/2″ knee
• 9 1/4″ ankle
• 10″ toe

Now for widths.  If you take the figure’s head and turn it on its side, this will give you the appropriate measurement:

• shoulders are 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 heads wide
• waist is approx. 3/4 heads wide
• hips are approx. 1 1/4 head wide

To simplify things, I have drawn out the measurements for your use!  Just remember to enlarge it:

This concludes part one of the tutorial, I will post part two: blocking off the figure, later today.  I hope this helps!  Feel free to ask questions