FASHION ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: HOW TO CREATE 3D DRESSES WITH DIFFERENT MATERIALS?

January 18, 2019

Hello lovelies! How are you? It's Friday and sometimes that means I do this thing called fashion illustration. I was planning to start a Fashion Illustration Friday thing, but I guess I'm still not super regular about it. I do post my fashion illustrations pretty often, so yeah. I might be able to turn it into a regular feature some day. Speaking of Friday.... Are you happy it's Friday? One thing I love about Friday evening is that I always feel like I have so much time, you know, I feel like the whole weekend is ahead of me, while on Saturdays and Sundays I tend to panic a bit and feel like my weekend is ending sooner than I'd like it to. Does the same thing ever happen to you?

Anyhow, as the title indicates today I'll talk a bit about fashion illustrations, more precisely about creating 3D dresses. How to create 3D dress effect in your fashion illustrations without actually drawing them? You can actually do it in a number of ways, using all kinds of materials, from natural ones (such as wood pieces, fruits, food, dry flowers etc) or artificial (glitter, scarps of paper, bows, left over materials etc). Now, I've already talked about creating 3D dresses with dry flowers here, so today I'll focus on other materials.

The first illustration I'm sharing with you is one you already had the chance of seeing here, but this time instead of dry flowers, I'm using something else to decorate it and that would be a bit of leftover tartan/checkered fabric. This little piece of fabric was a leftover from the fashion sewing course I took. I preserved it to remember what I learned there (I keep all of my similar 'sewing practices' safely tucked away). Anyhow, I also added some pearls to this dress I improvised and then I took some photographs. I typically don't overthink these sort of things. For me creating fashion dresses from scrap material is just a fun activity. I would even say that it is a nice rest from drawing. As you might know, drawing is very hard on the hands (like most repetitive activities), so you need to rest your hands as you work. This is a nice activity for that, as it still keeps me in this 'fashion illustration' frame of mind. It's fun snapping these photographs. If you want to see me have more fun, you're welcome to check my Insta account (there are some new fun fashion illustration projects available videos and Insta stories). I'm not super regular on Instagram, I have to admit to that, but when I do log in there I make sure I leave you some interesting materials. I also added one of my new collages to my redbubble store, and I plan to add some more in the future.

iPhone cover Fashion Illustration Tartan Dress

Back to the subject of this fashion illustration. I couldn't resist creating one collage art with this tartan dress (since it's so cute) and this time I placed the girl on top of bell tower belonging to Saint Dominious cathedral in Split. I think she doesn't mind, for the views are quite lovely. For more views be sure to check my post about whether the Split's famous bell tower is worth the climb.

Basically, today we're talking about decorating our fashion illustrations. As I said, you don't need to be able to do fashion illustration to be able to do this. You can use someone's else illustration or a fashion template (be sure the author is fine with it) and you can create all kinds of dresses or outfits. This is a great way to develop or test your creativity. Another great thing about this activity is that it can give you a chance to recycle. You may put that old wrapping paper to a good use. Some of materials you can use to decorate your fashion drawings or illustrations:

1. Necklaces, earrings and other jewelry items (even broken one- that's a good way to put it to use)

2. Rhinestones, glitter and other shiny things

3. Textile of all sorts, bows, left over materials or scarps of textile.

4. Scarves and other accessories

5. Food (but you should be aware that some food like the leaky kind might potentially ruin your illustration. Pasta is a great safe option because it is dry and easy to layer)

6. Flowers, dry and fresh (but dry is safer to use as fresh flowers might leak).

7. Toys or toy accessories (borrow them from kids)

8. Christmas ornaments (the metallic dress you can bellow is actually made from those!)

9. Coffee beans (they are quite easy to control and they smell lovely), cinnamon sticks (again the lovely aroma is a plus) and other spices.

10. Artificial flowers and other decor items (quite easy to use).

So, what do you think about my list? Do you plan to try any of these? Do you think this might be a good activity? As I said, it can be fun. Bellow you can see a metalic dress I made from Christmas ornaments that have fallen out. I think it looks pretty cute. Metallic dresses are in right now, or so they say. Bellow you can also see a photograph collage I did with an old photograph of Starigrad city (island Hvar). Feel free to check that Starigrad photography post as well.