How to Draw Clothes on a Fashion Figure

Drawing clothes on a fashion figure is absolutely essential when creating your own fashion illustrations. Drawing clothes on a fashion models us much like other forms of illustration. It is best to consider the each element of clothing in terms of its most basic shapes. For the example in this article, you will be learning to draw a woman in an open jacket, shirt and skirt with a belt. These techniques will provide a great foundation for drawing other articles of clothing on fashion figures. Once you have these steps mastered you can begin churning out your fashion ideas on the page.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Pencil
• Eraser
• Markers in beige, gray, black, brown, and green

Instructions

1. 

   Draw the model frame first. Use an oval for the head and rectangle for the torso. Add another rectangular shape for the hips 2 inches below the torso. Add a vertical line for the neck. Connect the torso to the hips with a slightly diagonal vertical line in the middle of these shapes. Add the shoulders with two circles on the upper left and right of the model's torso.

2. Add bent lines for the arms. The left side arm should bend out to the left and then back towards the body. Draw the legs with a straight line for the left side leg and a slightly diagonal line for the right side leg. Add knee guidelines with two small circles. Add the feet with two ovals.

3. 

   Draw the jacket on the model. Draw a triangle in the center of the chest to show the jacket as open. Add parallel lines around the arm guidelines for the jacket arms. Draw the skirt with a large triangular shape that stops just above the knees. Add the belt with two parallel lines between the hips and torso. Thicken the legs with two parallel lines around the leg guidelines. Add the shoes with two semi-circles at the base of the feet.

4. 

   Draw the hair with a large curved line that starts at the left side of the face and counties around the head and comes to a point on the right side of the page. From this point add a curved line to the connecting the point to the right side of the face to finish the hair. Add eyes with two small dashes on the face. Create the mouth with a simple line at the middle bottom of the face. Add the nose with a small dash above the mouth.

5. 

   Erase any overlapping guidelines that you don't need in your picture. Draw folds on the skirt with very thin, long upside down "V" shapes running from the base of the skirt up to just below the belt.

6. 

   Color the skin of the model beige and the hair brown. Color the jacket and skirt gray. Color the shirt underneath green. Add black trim to the collar of the jacket with a black band. Color the belt black and add black trim to the bottom of the skirt as well as the end of each on the jacket.

Tips & Warnings

• Make a photocopy of the model frame in step 3. This will allow you to draw multiple outfit ideas without having to constantly redraw a model.

• Be sure to place a piece of paper under your illustration when you are coloring it to prevent the ink from bleeding through.

Resources

• A gallery of fashion illustrations and paintings.
• For inspiration check out this proffesional fashion designer's illustrations.