Fine Drawing Pens

Today a huge range of wonderful fine pens exist at about a fifth of the price of lesser models of twenty years ago. They can be used over a coloured sketch to sharpen it up instead of using a B pencil. They are very useful if you're trying to show intricate detail such as embroidery on a design.

Mounting Board for Presentation Work

Work may need to be presented for all sorts of reasons. It might be that you have a college interview or a job to apply for or you may just want to make your work look better for display purposes. So you'll have to learn to mount your work.

You can buy mounting board from good art shops for presentation work. Related or toning colours can be best. For final background boards try fairly neutral, but expensive dusty looking colours such as cream, taupe, olive, sand, grey blue, wine and black. A set of story boards all in one colour can look very attractive and thought out from a presentation point of view. Avoid crude background colours for boards. Aim to make your work have an look expensive look.

You can of course instead use CAD software such as Colour Matters.

A Sharp Knife

You will need a sharp Stanley type knife or surgical craft knife and replacement blades to trim card and paper. Don't try to use anything but a knife of this type to trim a hole out of the centre of a piece of mounting board. Never use a scissors as it will produce a very amateur result.

Metal Ruler

A metal safety ruler will give you better cutting edges than a wooden ruler that eventually develops little irregularities.

Suitable Adhesives for Fabric

For sticking fabric and braids I have found general PVA glue, Copydex and Evostick wood glue all very good. Don't apply too much of any of the glues and do allow time for the glue to get tacky and thicker before applying the fabric, so that the fabric does not absorb glue through to the top surface.

Cartridge Paper

In addition to layout paper, cartridge paper is ideal for fashion drawing and is thick enough for light painting with gouache or watercolours. If you use a heavy bold black felt pen template beneath the cartridge paper you can see just enough of the template outline to get the line of the silhouette and the correct body proportions.

Putty Rubber

A putty rubber can be bought from an art supplies shop. It's very useful because unlike an ordinary eraser it does not rub away the background paper.

Pencils

Pencils for fashion drawing should be soft B pencils. You will need a B or 2B for general sketching and a 4B for highlight and emphasis. Keep the 2B quite sharp and use the 4B to make the emphasis mark you like best.

When you make the light trace of the template beneath your layout paper, be sure to ensure the trace is just that - light.

Coloured Pencils

I like Caran d'Ache coloured water soluble pencils. These high quality Swiss made water soluble colour pencils come in 2 types - the Caran d'Ache Prismalo 3mm lead range and the Caran d'Ache Supracolor 3.7mm artist's range. These colours are great when you blend them in strokes or follow curvature and then use a damp paintbrush to create water colour paint effects and highlights with minimum effort.

Go easy and don't over wet or over draw. Be patient as you can slowly build more colour layers once its dry.

Felt Pens

Felt pens by Pantone can be used to great effect. The flesh tones can be used for skin areas like arms and legs and faces. They give good non blotching colour on layout paper. Some people like to colour the sketches they make using felt pens always. That's fine if that's your style, but do use quality felts as some cheaper versions run and blotch over outlines

Posture, Poses and Template Silhouettes

You should take care to note that anyone in period costume would stand more gracefully, sedately and modestly than a woman after 1960 might pose. So make any costume history drawings you do on very elegantly posed templates. Think about how the person you are trying to represent would look posture wise. If you can get the hair right you will also capture the spirit of an era.

The second factor for success is to keep to a theme when sketching a sheet of ideas. For example concentrate on interesting waist variations or necklines. The theme will give flow to your designs.

Fashion Silhouette Templates

The easiest way to draw fashion when you have limited skill is to use a template. Here are templates of a model pose in 3 sizes suitable for historical costume work or simple fashion designs. In the next 2 pages there are 2 modern stance fashion pose silhouette templates in strident pose and 2 elegant poses for free download.

If these are not suitable why not purchase my new ebook on Fashion Drawing Figure Templates ebook in a range of over 40 different poses with 5 sizes to each pose. There are many different poses in my ebook, including elegant, confident, sexy and strident poses as well as back and side view poses and a runner.

Layout Paper

Layout paper is a fine semi opaque paper that allows you to faintly see an image beneath it. This enables you to use a fashion or body template under the top sheet. It has a good quality for a semi opaque paper and is suitable for remounting onto firmer background papers and cards for presentation purposes.

The Basics of Fashion Sketching

This section is for those nervous of fashion drawing. The hints and tips appear as more detailed information in my ebook, the first Fashion Drawing Figure Templates ebook on the web.

You may have to do some fashion drawing as part of a course or you may simply want to sketch out an idea you have for a special evening dress, ball dress, wedding dress or bridesmaid's dresses. With a little technique most people who insist they cannot draw can achieve a satisfactory fashion drawing. To aid results use some of the following items - you will find the list helpful if you do not have a clue where to start