Contemporary Fashion Drawing Tutorial

Today’s tutorial is a “hack” in every sense of the word {the literal meaning of “hack” will become clear in a bit}. I am going to show you how absolutely anyone can make a contemporary fashion drawing, and I’m going to show you how to do it in a very unique, mistake-proof way. It doesn’t require any special equipment. In fact, you probably have everything to make this tutorial laying around your house. And, trust me, you’ve got the skills to do it.

To create your contemporary fashion drawing, you’ll need a small paintbrush or two {one is fine, though} and a gel pen. I like Pilot G2 05. Your life will be made easier if you also have a permanent marker and a hobby knife {though scissors make a decent substitute}.

Next, dig through one of your catalogs or magazines, and choose a guy or gal to use as a model for your masterpiece. I think women are more fun to draw {probably because of the hair and makeup}, but that’s my personal opinion. I chose the blonde here on the top, compliments of Anthropologie.

Now, use your hobby knife to cut her out.

Be sure and place a surface under your model that you don’t care about getting cut up. In my case, that’s a Paper Source catalog. {Sorry, Paper Source.}

This is what you should end up with:

At this point, we are going to trace around our model on a piece of paper. I have chosen to use watercolor paper; but you should be fine using any paper that’s conducive to mixed media, really.

Trace all the way around her …

This is where the “hack” comes in — I’m taking off her appendages. You’ll want to do the same with your model.

The reason for this ruthless amputation is being able to know where the dress ends and the limbs begin. Basically, I’m now going to trace around the limbs so I can have a good, proportionate representation of this woman’s body.

Keep tracing!

I decided to go ahead and cut off her hair as well, so I could trace around the hairline.

And here she is — along with a pile of body parts, which you’ll want to reserve.

The next step for me in particular {and you, if you chose a model with a loose dress}, is to use a little guess work to think about where her body is under the dress. You’ll want to make an outline of that in pencil.

Now, use your permanent marker to fill in where her body is in the dress.

I used a Prismacolor art marker, but, trust me, Sharpie would work fine — as would acrylic paint or anything that can cover a large area in black.

Now, take your Pilot G2 pen, and draw some folds. Basically, I draw icicle-type shapes.

One set of “icicles” goes down to account for gravity, and the others go up to account for tension in the fabric.

Do the same to the bottom of the dress. No need for downward-reaching icicles here.

Okay, here’s the really cool, fun part. We are going to harness the utter non-resistance of your usual, run-of-the-mill gel pen to water make a “watercolor” wash. Just get your brush wet, and brush over the edges of the icicles to blend. You’ll notice that the ink starts to bleed out, and will be darker near the edges of the icicles. That’s exactly what you want, and you’ll continue to tease the ink out with water until it fades into light gray.

Pretty cool, huh? Repeat with drawing your icicle folds on the other side.

… And fill those in with water as well.

Now, I’m going to watercolor the legs. You’ll want to pull the individual body part you wish to draw out of your reserve pile, and position it near its traced counterpart. See how the right edge of the leg has a black shadow? I’m going to mimic that with my gel pen.

Use the same blending technique you used with the dress above. Use your wet brush to tease your ink out so it blends.

Since the left side of the leg isn’t very dark, I’m just going to use a medium gray shade. I got that shade simply by dipping my brush in water, then rubbing the brush in some of the black ink {from the gel pen shading} on the right side of the leg. Voilà — instant gray.

Now, repeat the process with the other leg.

Here I am actually illustrating how I’m getting a supply of gray ink. Just dip your {very} wet brush in an area of black that you’ve drawn …

… And use the resulting gray to make a medium shade.

I am already loving the look of this!

Repeat the same process you used on the legs with your model’s arms. I shaded in the noticeable shadows on both sides of her arm.

Then I used my blending technique to fade the black to white and contour the arm a little bit.

Cool, huh? Oh, by the way, sorry about the lighting change! The sun was setting as I was creating this tutorial.

Okay, now, the other side. I know you know the process:

Now, I’m cutting off the model’s neck to figure out where her neck ends, and where her head begins.

Trace above the neck, as you did with the other body parts.

And mimic the shadows you see in the neck with your G2 pen.

Then blend!

The face is a little trickier; but the key is proportion rather than accuracy. It’s not important to me that this illustration look just like my model, but I do want her face to look realistic. To achieve that, I placed my model’s head parallel to the traced head, and used a ruler to draw lines where the top and bottom of the lips are. I used that same process with the nose, as well as the eyes and eyebrows.

{You don’t need to measure, though. Go crazy and make the face however you want it!}

Once you’ve got the features how you want them in pencil, trace over them with your gel pen.

And, of course, blend!

Now, we’re at the part of the tutorial that’s most fun: the hair! To create it, simply draw several quick lines representing the direction of the hair.

You can then use these lines to get ink from, and give the hair a multi-faceted look.

Love it.

And here she is!

The goal of TPK is to make illustration and calligraphy accessible to everyone — I believe that you shouldn’t have to have fancy, specialized equipment to make something beautiful. I am particularly proud of the tracing “hack” used in this contemporary fashion drawing because, truly, anyone can do it.

At this point, it’s up to you what you’ll use this technique for. Some obvious suggestions would be to use it to make chic wall art or a striking sketchbook page. But, you know, you could also use it to make anatomically-correct fashion sketches featuring your own clothing designs. If you have skill in free-handing, you can even make a portrait of someone you know using this technique. It would make for a very classy gift, framed in black with a white mat. I’m sure you’ll come up with something; I create these tutorials because I love seeing where your creativity takes you after reading them. It’s the best feeling to see a TPK tutorial-inspired piece on Facebook and Instagram!

Thanks so much for reading — enjoy your weekend!

XO,

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