Lisa Arnold

Fashion drawing is all about attitude, exaggeration, and style. As you develop your fashion illustration skills, infuse your work with personal flair — your signature — to create a look unlike any other. Start by observing the golden rules of fashion drawing, mastering the S curve and other figure drawing techniques, and putting a creative spin on the fashion drawings you create.

When drawing fashion illustrations, you first create a rough sketch of the body, also referred to as a croquis. Then you draw the clothes that go on top.Grab your pencil, a black pen, some tracing paper, sketch paper, and a fashion magazine if you have one handy. Here’s how to begin drawing a front view croquis:Lay tracing paper over a full-body picture of a model from a magazine.

Drawing a stick figure, or line figure, is a perfect way for beginners to get comfortable with basic figures for fashion drawing, and it serves as a refresher for people who’ve done figure drawing before.Draw an oval to represent the figure’s head and then draw a dashed line of symmetry.The line of symmetry, or balance line, runs down right through the center of the stick figure’s head and continues to the bottom of the stick feet.

Sun hats, brim hats, and snug-fitting hats all start with one mini golden rule: draw a shape that fits around the head before adding brims, textures, and accessories.Draw three different hats for women.Draw the head and neck of a female fashion figure. Map out the crown of the hat close to the head. Embellish the hat by adding different brims, textures, or even feathers or flower shapes (not shown) to adorn the lady’s hat.

Most fashion illustrators love to draw fancy dresses and create a glamorous mood. With gowns for women, just about anything goes, and as a fashion artist, you get to go to new and exciting places with your pencil.Dress up the basic shapes.Just about every basic shape comes into play when you’re drawing gowns and dynamic dresses.

You may be torn between buying a pad of paper or individual sheets for your fashion drawings. When you’re starting out, buy pads of drawing paper because you get more bang for your buck.When you have a full pad of paper at your disposal, you’re more likely to flip the page and keep experimenting with figures and colors, which helps you improve your skills.

When you’re drawing a dude’s arms, don’t aim for muscle beach in fashion drawing. Male arms can look toned and terrific without making people’s heads swivel in disbelief at their size and shape. Keep in mind that men’s shoulders are wider.To draw attention-getting arms on a man, follow these easy steps:Lightly sketch a torso with armholes.

Pants are pretty simple to draw: They start around the waist and follow the legs down to the vicinity of the feet . . . although in today’s fashion, they can also start somewhere around the middle of the derrière and end anywhere from just below the knee to the ground!They can’t be called pants if they don’t have two legs, but the pant legs can hug the body or flow outward and can end above the ankle or drape the floor.

Eyes really are the windows to the soul. The expression in the eyes is the first thing that people look at in real life as well as in fashion illustration. Eyes instantly express a person’s mood and can convey a haughty, happy, or distant look. There’s no end to the looks you can give your fashion creations through their eyes.