Fashion Illustration with Photoshop

Understanding LAYERS in photoshop is one of the most critical aspects of understanding this ( sometimes ) complex program. When you understand HOW layers work, and how effective they can be in the creative work flow - you will really start to appreciate just how much flexibility and freedom you have to create, experiment, re-think , and enhance your creative work.

The Layers exercise ' How to Bake a Cake in Photoshop ' is a fun, simplistic and creative way to get you started, practising and mastering the importance of layers in using Photoshop.

Make sure that you repeat this process over and over again to ensure that you are really comfortable with navigating your way though the techniques, layers, naming layers, visibility -  shown in this training section. When you are really comfortable with this first exercise - you will be are able to move forward with confidence, into creating fashion illustrations. Enjoy and have fun with this section !

It's time to open a document in Photoshop & start importing a fashion illustration template to start rendering. Remember the skills you have learned in 'Bake a cake with Photoshop' so you feel comfortable creating new layers & naming those layers, before you start the rendering techniques to digitally colour your illustrations.

LINE WORK - is by far the most critical aspect of creating your own templates. An incomplete line will create issues with the selection tools ( magic wand ) in Photoshop, therefore you will will learn to fix line work and clean up your templates as you import them into Photoshop.

5 pre-prepared templates have been provided for you. These vary in clothing styles - so that you can experiment with different fabrication, shading, colours and textures. It is highly recommended that you complete all of these 5 templates provided - from start to finish ( as essential repetition and practice of the new skills you will learn ). You will be proficient with Photoshop illustration once you have completed the 5 templates provided - using the techniques shown in Videos part 1, 2 & 3. ( the templates are downloadable and at the end of this section ).

SKILLS COVERED IN THIS SECTION.

1. Open new documents.

2. Importing a fashion illustration template.

3. Understanding LINE WORK as a critical requirements in the creation on your own fashion templates.  Import and repair line-work that will not perform with the selection tool.

4. Creating new layers and naming those layers.

5. Selecting areas to render from the original template layer.

   
   

RENDERING SKIN TONE / SHADING.

Creating skin tones and shading is the first part of rendering your fashion illustration. The techniques and skills used to achieve skin tones and shading are used across in the rest of your illustrating applications.

When creating skin tones it is important that you look at cultural diversity and the range of skin colours and tonal shades that 'humans' come in ! You can not only select your favourite skin tones - but this is another step towards creating your own style of fashion illustration - by experimenting with skin tones and colours that you like and relate to.

There are 2 handout resources in this lecture that look at the diversity and range of skin tones and shading.

HUMAN SKIN TONES - handout looks at the a range of different human cultures and skin colours. Below each image is a Pantone reference number. There is also a diagram which shows where the Pantone colour can be inserted into your colour selection area in Photoshop. This will create an accurate and direct reference to your colour selection.

Remember : Pantone colour selection applies across the entire process of fashion illustration rendering. You can use direct Pantone references for season colours / fabrics / and specific print match colours that you want use in your fashion illustrations. Fashion designers, fashion studios and creative agencies always refer to Pantone colours for colour and communication accuracy.

SKIN TONE TIPS  - handout is a TIP sheet that you can use as a guide when applying the skin tone shading layers. At first it is better to select a generic style of applying your skin tone and shading. This makes it an easier process at the start to follow a guideline ( image ) until you are able to practice your airbrushing skills to a standard that you are happy with.

When you are comfortable with a standardised application style, and you have had plenty of practice with the templates provided - you can then look at the work of highly skilled illustrators or styles that you like - and you can practice those techniques to help develop your own unique fashion illustration style.

AIR-BRUSHING / RENDERING THE FASHION ILLUSTRATION

In this lecture you will complete the airbrushing and rendering techniques to complete the fashion illustration.

Select specific areas of garments / skin / hair etc to render. You can select the air-brush tool and learn to manipulate the opacity, size and flow of the colour from that brush. ( The soft ) air-brush is recommended for beginners because it has the most forgiving and soft look with the finish. Even though there are a large amount of brush tools to select - these take experimentation and practice to be able to get specific required looks & results. The soft brush gives you greater scope and at a beginners level - you can achieve 'better' results faster. Also learn to created depth through shading and working with multiple layers to create realism and a more refined look to your digital illustrations.

TEXTILES AND FABRIC INSERTION.

Learn to select and insert textile prints and fabric textures into specific selected areas.

This is an exciting and unique feature when it comes to digital fashion illustration. With the huge variety of fabric print designs, textures and innovative fabrics constantly emerging into the fashion world - fashion designers can 'drop' these fabrics directly into their illustrations  - 1. To show accuracy of the fabric 2. For the speed of achieving the best result faster.

Digital  fabric insertion also lets you expand these skills into Fashion Boards / Presentation Boards and media marketing graphics - simply by learning the skills to insert fabrics into shapes and present your work in a more creative style.

SAVING YOUR WORK.

Learning to name your work, save your files in the correct formats and file your work for future access is a vital part of working in the digital space.

Photoshop uses PSD files - which means that the layers will be saved in the photoshop format as you have been creating and working layers. This also means that you are able to come back to that file and make alterations and edits - that only the digital space can offer.

• Eg:  you can delete a blouse colour, and change it to a printed fabric.

• You are able to use the same illustration and garments styles and show re-fabrication and range expansion of those designs. This saves money and time when a designer wants to see garments in a variety of fabrics and colours to ensure that the range designs work together as a cohesive collection.

You are also able to FLATTEN your layers and create JPEGS or PDF files depending on the purpose and requirements of the end-use files.

FILE sizes for presentations are maintained at the highest possible resolution. This gives your work the print quality, sharpness and detail necessary for fashion boards and presentation.

This can be reduced as required if you are working on slide presentations or images that are inserted into text documents. File size must be assessed individually for each output requirement.

SOCIAL MEDIA FILES.

Social media files are much smaller in resolution and in size. Files can be reduced dramatically  and reinserted into Instagram / Facebook resolution. This can be done by first flattening the image. Then GO TO >  File > EXPORT > SAVE FOR WEB  ( which will give you re-sizing and file size options to create files that will travel across social media more efficiently ).