The finished fashion design illustration
sketched in Adobe Illustrator.
Last week my illustration students learned to render transparency using gouache paint and marker. And after completing the demo I thought to develop this Illustrator version using the original painted example but render the sketch with vectors!
My approach for digital fashion illustration is to focus on gestural line and silhouette while executing the sketch in minimal steps.
Similar to natural media, illustrating on the computer may invite artistic inclinations to overly describe details. Getting practice quick sketching from the live model is important to learn to immediately capture the necessary information expressed in a fluid line.
Setting up the Illustrator file I also consider processes that would make editing the figure less time intensive. To achieve transparency effects rendering fabrics such as chiffon, understanding Illustrator’s stacking order using layers and altering the opacity are the most important concepts. Alternating between the tints, tones and shades of the color palette will also give the sketch more dimensional illusion.
The painted design illustration.
The classic gouache rendering to the right represents the designer sketch. Beginning with the wash, I loosely laid down the skin tone following with the overlapping dress shapes to create the transparency illusion.
The unexpected results using water based paints is ideal for interpreting a sheer fabric by the bleeding tones. The line, the final step, finishes the sketch accentuating the model’s movement and fabric flow.
Translating this effect illustrating with vectors, color tonality and layering the objects or strokes are essential. If you haven’t followed my examples before, Illustrator’s Brush and Blob Tools provides intuitive results.
In this view, I’ve pulled apart the layers to demonstrate the stacking order of the shapes and strokes. I begin to sketch the line art saved in its own layer. The skin tone and shadows are painted and placed in a layer behind the line art.
Next, the dress silhouette is sketched, filled with color experimenting with the opacity. The bra and legs, underneath the dress, are drawn and placed in a layer on top. I used a simple gradient, applied the Gaussian Blur filter and altered the opacity to achieve the transparent illusion.
Choosing the Brush Tool with Tapered Stroke selected, I sketched the drape and folds of the dress.
Now, having created the design sketch in Illustrator, the shapes and strokes can be selected to recolor the dress.
