Useful Art Materials for Fashion Sketching

A wide selection of art materials is available in some countries but not all. Every now and then, new items are being introduced, for us , fashion enthusiasts, to experiment and develop new techniques. Different materials used to sketch and color ,can give a different feel and effects of the design you want to showcase.

Pencils

Pencils (wood cased)
The degree of hardness is printed on each pencil. (2B, 3B etc)
F and HB medium, EX is extremely soft

Charcoal Pencils
The effect is like using real charcoal sticks. It comes in hard, medium or soft.

Carbon Pencils
It can be used to provide a dull matt finish to a sketch

Black Pencils
Heavy large leads for bold drawings with a matt finish

Colored Pencils
A good range of colors are available in the market. It gives good control in color depth. Easy to use.

Watercolor Pencils
Soft water soluble pencils. You can use dry or use a brush to wash over to achieve a watercolor effects

Pens

Technos drawing pen
the Pelikan Tefchnos is a cartridge filled drawing pen. Pen points are designed for different purpose.

Rapidograph pens
A special pen that do not need to be constantly refilled. Drawing points come in varies sizes and can be replaced depending on the effect you want to create.


Marker pens
A wide range of colrs available. From fine detailed work to broad strokes. Provide good control of lines. Applied ink dried fast.

Osmiroid Sketch fountain pens
Provide a wide range of line thickness from fine to bold. This pen is fitted with a refillable reservoir to maintain constant ink flow.


Other color materials

Watercolor
Inks can be mixed with one another or diluted with water. A wide range of colors is available.


Acrylic colors
Can be diluted with water, but become waterproof when dry. Can be used with a variety of techniques.

Pastels
Quality of the pastels is important.

Color inks
Some are waterproof. A wide selection are available.

Papers
Document Paper
White paper with a smooth surface. Suitable for pencil, crayon and colors. This type of paper is made in varying thicknesses and qualities.

Drawing Paper/ Sketch Book Paper
The surface has slightly rough texture. Suitable for colors work like watercolor and pastels

Ingres Paper
This type of paper is suitable for pastel and tempera work.

Tracing Paper
Come in sheets of different sizes. Translucent.

Carbon Paper
Coated on one side with a layer of a loosely bound dry ink or pigmented coating. It is used for making one or more copies simultaneous with the creation of an original document

Boards

Fashion boards
Very good quality thick board that will take charcoal, crayon , watercolor paints etc.

Pasteboard
A white for general use and or paste up usage.

Other Art Materials

Brushes
Come in many sizes and qualities (hairs types)

Presentation Books
Fitted with clear acetate pockets, ideal for the presentation of work

Portfolios
For storing and showcase of art work. Come in different sizes.

Leatherbag portfolios
For protection and carrying of art work. Come with a handle, two fasteners, a lock and key.

Soft eraser
Usually a white soft eraser to erase pencil lead marks or drawings.

Fashion Sketching

Whether you're an aspiring fashion designer, an avid sewer or just a fashionista, fashion sketching is a skill you can use to help design original garments, take notes on fashions spotted while you are out and about and help train your design eye---as well as strengthen your drawing skills. It takes practice to create professional looking fashion sketches, but this step-by-step piece will introduce you to the basics, get you started on your first sketch and give you the tools to start sketching clothing with style.

Step by Step guide to drawing a Fashion Sketch
Fashion sketch is like an art. The aim is to give you ideas and guide you on a step by step approach to draw a fashion sketch. Study the fashion around us, or through the internet about the world of fashion. Fashion can be as simple as a piece of cloth wrapping around a model, but as to how you, as the fashion designer enhances the visual impact, by adding colors, lighting effects, folds, and all the drawing techniques to the model. These showcases your originality, your passion about how the clothing will look like when worn.

What you need:
Art materials and supplies required to sketch a fashion design that you have in your mind

Easiest way is to use a fashion template. Traced (using tracing paper) the body template with the pose you want.. Trace the outline and major lines of the figure onto a sheet of tracing paper, Add in facial features and hair styles if you like.

Drawing a fashion sketch and fine tuning it
Lay a carbon paper in between your sketch book and your traced figure. Draw your own design, Fill in the rest of the drawing by retracing the head, feet and any details from your first tracing. Use a darker pencil (say 3B pencil) to do some fine tuning.
Alternatively, without using carbon paper, you can flip over your traced figure paper. By retracing the outlines of the full body sketch onto the sketch book, you can also achieve the same 'duplicate' body outlined with head, body, feet etc. Use a darker pencil (say 3B pencil)to do some fine tuning.

Add colors, shading depth, folds, assessories to the fashion sketch

Add patterns,assessories to the final fashion sketch

Always remember, making sketches is a prerequisite for the fashion designers to market their ideas and designs. In the highly competitive fashion industry, fashion designers must have their own style and originality. And the fashion designers should also consider whether the collection you want to showcase has a market. Because, at the end of the day, the consumers are the ones who will buy your final apparels.

So a fashion designer must also have the target people in mind when they do the sketch.

Step 1
Practice sketching fabric in still-lifes. Good fashion sketches capture the movement and drape of the fabric on the body, and even though it may seem tedious, taking a hint from the old masters of drawing is invaluable. Try arranging cloth in different ways on a tabletop and become practiced at drawing the folds and contours.

Step 2
Study the way clothes are constructed. Sewing patterns contain two types of illustrations---a depiction of the way the completed garment will look and a flat, two-dimensional schematic of each piece with details on its construction. If you understand the different components that go into construction of a button-up shirt, for example, you'll be able to better visualize how to sketch it.

Step 3
Look at fashion magazines. There's no better education for the multitude of ways that clothes can be designed and worn than looking at what is going on in the world of fashion. Also, for beginners, tracing body and garment shapes from magazine photos is a common way to build sketching confidence.

Step 4
Prepare to make your first sketch. Find a photo of a garment similar to the one you would like to draw. Trace the outline of the body and garment onto a piece of sketch paper. Remove the photo and begin drawing your own design, using your tracing as a foundation. Color and add textures, as well as notes as to the placement of details such as buttons or zippers.

Step 5
Start the schematic version of your sketch. Using a croqui (an illustration of the human body that uses standard proportions upon which fashion illustrators sketch the schmatic construction of clothes), try redrawing your design You can find sources for free croqui templates and information on how to turn these croqui drawings into "pattern" pieces in the Resources section below.

Step 6
Collect photos of people in different poses. You can get these from magazines or the Internet. You can use these figures to expand your sketching skills beyond tracing--slide one of theese photos or illustrations under blank sheets of sketch paper and sketch your fashion ideas on top of the figure. This will also get you familiar with drawing for different body types and seeing how your fashion ideas would look from different angles.

Step 7
Practice! Fashion sketching takes time and experimentation. Feel free repeating steps 4 through 6 until you feel confident.

Fashion Sketch

Fashion has its own language. Utter no word and listen to your wardrobe you will hear the whispers of those scarves, those gowns, those broad hats, those stilettos and those fashion accessories that murmur the saga of dreams that gradually turned into reality. Quite eminentlytherefore fashion is simply not just those linens and silks, those shoes and slip-ons but is a dream which begins there at the mind of the designers and then finds expression amidst those million fashion items.

Between the imagination of the designers and the “landing strip” there are many months’ hard work and those countless amount of scribbles’ in order to attain that ideal “fashion sketch”

Fashion sketch is definitely one of the most important parts of fashion designing. Also known as “illustrations” fashion sketches are more than mere outlines of human figures.

With those few lines, with those imaginary silhouettes fashion sketch is as if a gestation of an idea, as if the gradual growth of dream! Thousands of designers spends hours after hours in order to make that perfect fashion sketch which is of course the corner stone for making those apparels which have raised brows of the fashion freaks with its shades, color, pattern and style.

What best can illustrate the designers’ dream than the details of fashion sketches? What best can take fashion to the further level of sheer mellowness than those myriad hours of sheer detailing of the fashion sketches which has actually delineated the very idea of “fashion” and style over and over again? The fashion sketches are just the basics and it is indeed not necessary to implement the whole sketch in totality whilst designing particular apparel.

Some details of the fashion sketch often makes that “final cut” while sometime designers abandon a particular part in some point of the final creation process. Often the designers tend to keep the final product quite similar to the fashion sketches.

Again sometimes the very voyage from the sketches to clothing makes the end product pretty much unrecognizable, where it is the very vision, concept, dream and creativity of the fashion designers which finds an articulate expression amidst his finale designs.