This is a beginner’s guide to digital fashion illustration for all the fashion design students aspiring to start their career in fashion illustration or sketching or the working professionals looking forward to upgrading their skill set. As you may already know that rendering an illustration is a very important step before going with the stitching process. It helps in representing the garment on paper. These days the paper approach has been replaced with digital designs.
There are plenty of benefits to using digital versions of a fashion illustration and with the introduction of Metaverse, the demand for digital fashion illustrators has increased tremendously.
Let’s begin with the basic introduction first.
Introduction of Digital Fashion Illustration
A digital fashion illustration is an art of communication, to communicate the design, how a garment will look and the patterns, embroideries, and draping styles to be used in it. Every fashion designer has their own style. The styles are usually inspired by something, somewhere and to give it a new makeover. Design styles vary because of how a fashion designer or illustrator perceives them. It is like seeing the same sky with different lenses. And depending on your lens, you will perceive a different image of it, even in your drawings. So, there is nothing wrong with the design styles you seek for. Just be creative and different from others.
To design a creative digital fashion illustration, you need some tools or software to render your garment style and inspiration. Software tools like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Procreate among others make it easy for any illustrator to communicate his/her design thoughts and ideas.
There are a few steps a digital fashion illustrator follows and these steps may vary depending on the person but this is just an overview of designing steps. If you want to actually learn digital fashion illustration then there is a course designed for you.
This fashion illustration course covers everything from rendering an illustration, design styles, draping styles, patterns, embroideries, designing croquis, and most importantly how to get new clients as a digital fashion illustration freelancer. However, you can also hire a professional digital marketing agency to bring you new clients but that will be a paid service so opting for this fashion illustration course is a perfect solution for you. It gives you free marketing strategies and tips.
A step-by-step guide to digital fashion illustration
- Define your style
- Find an inspiration
- Choose your concept
- Decide a model posture
- Design your Croquis
- Render a garment
- Adddraping styles
- Addembroideries
- Finishing touch
As mentioned above, the actual steps may vary but overall this is how it works with most designers and illustrators.
Define your style
It all starts with defining your unique style. It may take time for beginners but don’t lose hope. Just Keep going and keep trying until you find yours.The most important aspect to remember here is you should keep innovating even after you become successful, no matter what.
Find an inspiration
To design a new garment, everyone looks for new inspiration. This inspiration cannot be found in a packaged box. You may find it anywhere. Some people go shopping, some attend wedding events while some travel across. Not necessarily, it will be found at these places only. Some people find inspiration in their dreams while some find it in their fears or demons. It could be in nature or right into your own house. So, just keep exploring and put up your own lenses. The way you see the sky with your colorful lenses, others might not be able to see. Be an explorer.
Choose your concept
What are you planning to render needs to be defined before you start? If you want to design garments for kids, everything should revolve around that. If it is about women then colors, palettes, embroideries, styles, and croquis all need to be in accordance with that only.
For example, once Sanyam Jain planned to design a concept revolving around the social cause of “Stop Abortion”. So, he has defined everything around that only.
Decide a model posture
The Posture of the model matters a lot and so is the proposition of size, body parts, etc.A well-proportioned body adds an amazing look and is the first impression you are gonna make with your designs. Don’t hurry, just do it right.
Design your Croquis
Once you decide on everything, it’s time to design a Croquis. If you are designing for general purposes then a standard body size is the way to go forward. But, if you are designing exclusively for a client, you may design according to her/his body proportions. This will make the client feel herself/himself in the garment itself. It increases the probability of getting everything right. The illustration course by Sanyam Jain covers this aspect as well.
Render a garment
Once the setup is ready, it’s time to start the garment rendering process. Rendering a garment on Croqui needs to be specialized and you would be able to do it over time. All you need is continuous practice and someone to guide you and mentor you on your mistakes. Obviously, Sanyam’s course has it all with lifetime access.
Add draping styles
After rendering the garment, the next step is to add draping styles. There are different types of draping styles, depending on the occasion you are designing for and the style you are applying. Styles may also vary if you are designing illustrations for kids, women, or men.
Add embroideries
Embroideries can be added to design as per client expectations or styling preferences.
Finishing touch
Your garment rendering is ready with your style, draping, and embroideries. Now is the time for a final finishing touch on it.
Once done, you are ready to showcase it to your client.
Why Digital Fashion Illustration over Traditional illustration Design?
Making changes in traditional illustration design practice wasn’t easy. While with digital fashion illustration, you have the flexibility to keep the old design safe and incorporate client feedback in a copy file of it. Even, in the same file, you can showcase color variations easily in your digital illustration design.
That’s why, everyone is going in this direction, making their career into it. If you are also interested then enroll in the best digital fashion illustration courses today.
