Fashion Illustrations with iPhone 6 Plus

Hello, before we get started on the blog post I would just like to apologise for not uploading last Friday. The reason being I was in London Wednesday night until Thursday night because of my interview for Central Saint Martins and I was just exhausted because it was a really long day. Anyway, I thought I would share with you the stages of the process for my latest fashion illustration. 

I begin by choosing a look I would like to draw, by scrolling through the archive of shows on Style.com mainly because I prefer drawing full frontal looks and that is the best place to find a high-resolution photograph. As you may already be aware I love Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane so I went back to his first womenswear collection for the house, Spring and Summer 2013. I loved the vintage, bohemian vibes of this collection. Particularly this cute little black dress with long trail behind, bow tied around the collar of the blouse, the platform heels and of course that amazing hat, which covers her eyes. 

The way I prefer to work is, on the Style.com app I save the image I want to draw onto my iPad Mini and start with a rough sketch on my iPhone 6 Plus. I draw everything with my finger although I may purchase a Wacom tablet stylus. Like most artists, at this stage all I want to capture is the key shapes and flow of the drawing, no details just yet. if you're interested, I use the highlighter tool but very very slimmed down version.

I then lower the opacity of this layer to around 75% although that sometimes varies depending on the drawing. I then select the pencil tool and then re-draw the whole thing but much more refined, ready to colour.

If you're unfamiliar with Autodesk Sketchbook the layers are a god-send. I choose sections of the drawing and block colour with the marker pen tool, each section has it's own layer if you will. I began with the skin tones, the face, hand and legs. Once I've blocked in a flat colour, I lock the layer which means I can only edit what's already been coloured and I then switch to the airbrush tool. For colour accuracy I squeeze in the image I have been copying from in a corner of my iPhone screen and use the colour selector tool, easiest by holding my finger down on the screen until the pipette appears. 

It makes sense to focus on the larger areas of the drawing, especially when you take into consideration the fact I'm working on a iPhone 6 Plus screen, which in comparison to most other mobile phones is large however still not huge if you get what I mean. So the dress was next to colour. I then focused on the hair because in this case that probably would have been the most time-consuming part of the illustration. I like drawing as many stands of hair as possible, it brings the drawing to life more I feel, so yeah.

Almost done. Next came finishing off the hat and the platform heels. I don't know, for some unknown reason I always fear colouring in the shoes, especially when they have really high-shine. Maybe it's the angle of the feet when walking and capturing that shadow and highlights. Anyway I feel I done good with these Saint Laurent heels, hope you all agree? Finally I remove the initial outline sketch to make it more realistic (but I save both because I kind of like that graphic comic book style) and add or remove any small details.

So there you have it, my Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane SS13 Bohemian Girl. For any art related updates follow me on Instagram, there should be a lot more of these coming soon. However for any fashion illustration enquiries please email: 

jonny952011@googlemail.com 

1) Please email me with the image attached, no links to external web pages.

2) Please find it on Style.com (website or app) with high-resolution.

3) Please clearly state the designer, collection and year in the email. 

...I mean I love fashion, but I can't remember every look from every collection. Finally, please bare in mind I'm only one guy and each drawing does take a while to complete.

Join me next time, but for now goodbye.

The Wolf of High Street

xxx