How to Draw Fall Fashions

By Lisa Arnold and Marianne Egan from Fashion Drawing For Dummies

Fall fashions offer a wonderful range of opportunities in fashion illustration. Jackets look smart in the fall. Blazers over turtlenecks convey the elegant country look, and short, snappy jackets work for the city. The fall look is about layers, because a fall day can go from chilly to warm to chilly again.

A T-shirt layered over a long-sleeve shirt with a hoodie on top can make your fashion look, as can a flannel over a hooded shirt and a knit skirt over leggings and knee-high boots. The combinations are endless!

Enlarge 1 Capture the jean jacket look for a guy. Sketch a male front torso. Create a boxy look by drawing side seams that come straight down from the armpit to the waist. Add a slight curve for the hem and place four buttons to the right of the center front line. Draw the collar, neckline, and additional buttons. Draw a V under the chin to show the jacket slightly open. For the collar, add some triangles on both sides and a curve going around the neck. Add buttons on the left side of the open part of the center front line and buttonholes on the other. Add in boxy sleeves down to the wrist. The fit of a jean jacket requires a slightly dropped armhole seam, so be sure to draw the armhole seam a little farther down than you would for a woman. On both sides of the center front line, add in pockets and lines for fitting. Don’t forget to add a seam line at the cuff of the sleeve. Finish the drawing by adding rows of topstitching next to every seam line	Enlarge 2 Try a hoodie-based fall fashion look for a teen girl. Sketch a three-quarter pose with one arm bent. Follow the center front line for the centered zipper. Use the sides of her torso to draw the sides of the hoodie and draw a curved line at her crotch level for the hem. Sketch in an oval at her head for the opening of the hood and add another curved line behind it for dimension. Include the center seam of the hood with topstitching on both sides. Draw sleeves following both arms. Add in the ribbing at the end of the sleeves and the bottom hem of the hoodie. Just below the waistline, add in a pocket that curves down from both sides of the center front. Finish the hoodie with two drawstrings for the hood at the neckline. Complete the look with knee-high boots and thigh-high socks.	Enlarge 3 Illustrate some ankle-high wedge boots. Sketch a lower torso with one leg stepping forward and the other leg behind. Draw the wedge-shaped heels. On the foot stepping forward, sketch a slightly curved triangle for the wedge. On the other foot, draw a line that goes straight back from the ball of the foot; form a 90-degree angle by adding a line that goes straight up to the heel. To create the tops of the boots, add two curved lines on each boot, with one line slightly above the toes and the other at the ankle. Fill in the bottom half of the legs with long cylinders that taper in at the ankle and round out at the knee. Add cylinders from the crotch to the knee for the thighs. Finish the wedge boot with laces in a zigzag pattern down the center of the shoe. Add some knee socks as well by drawing ribbing just below the knees.
Enlarge 4 Draw the layered look for men — a down vest over a cotton button-down shirt. Sketch a male upper torso with one bent arm. Draw the outline of the vest. For the collar of the vest, draw a pair of curved lines that wrap around the neck; one goes right under the chin, and the other one sits at the base of the neck. Draw lines for the shoulder seams following the shoulders, curved lines for the armholes, and side seams that follow the body down to right above the crotch. Add a center front line going from the collar to the bottom of the vest. End the bottom of the vest with a pair of lines parallel to one another with vertical lines between them to show ribbing. For the cotton shirt underneath, draw loose lines on both sides of each arm and two curved lines just above each wrist for the turned-up cuffs. Add topstitching lines down both sides of the vest’s center front line to show the zipper seams. To finish the vest, add horizontal topstitching lines across the body. To show the vest’s puffiness, add short and long curved lines that extend from the horizontal lines of topstitching.	Enlarge 5 Try the layered look for women with a knee-length dress paired with a sweater coat, knee-high socks, and boots. Sketch a full length female pose in three-quarter view. The Peter Pan collar takes two steps. First draw a curved line at the neckline, and then draw two half circles below it, meeting up at the center front of the collar. For the rest of the sweater coat, follow along the sides of the body and draw the hem right over the knees. Draw the coat buttoned at the first two buttons and open the rest of the way down. Start a center front line at the center of the collar and keep it as one line until below the breasts. Split the center front line into two lines that go down to the hem, spreading out more the farther down they go. Add two horizontal lines near the bottom of the coat’s opening. The lower line is the back hem of the coat. The higher line is the bottom of the model’s dress. Add buttons to one side of the coat and fringe on the coat’s hem. Finish the coat by drawing sleeves that end a little below the elbow. Add the model’s legs, paying attention to where the thighs show in relation to the hems. Instead of ending the boots at the ankle, end them around the middle of the calf and add knee-high socks with ribbing at the top.