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Yesterday I explained the basic measurements used in fashion illustration, and I promised to extend that by giving step by step instructions on how to block out the figure. But first I should probably make one thing clear: the measurements I gave yesterday are guidelines rather than actual rules. You can change proportions depending on what area you want emphasis. For example, if you have a blouse with embroidery on the front you will probably want make the torso longer and the legs slightly shorter to draw attention to the embroidery.
Now for basic blocking:
- Draw an oval in the the first section
- Use two straight lines extending from the head down to the dotted shoulder line; this is the neck
- To indicate the muscle and shoulders use two slanting lines (very shallow triangles) starting in the middle of the neck, extending out to the sides
- For the torso, draw a straight line from the shoulder point to the notches on the dotted waist line (3 1/4 heads down)
- For hips, draw a straight line from the waistline to the hip line (4 heads down)
- Legs, draw a slightly tapered straight line from the fullest part of the hip down to line 10. To indicate leg division darken the center line from line 10 to the dotted crotch line (4 1/2 heads down)
- Feet can be indicated by little triangles drawn from the dotted ankle line (9 1/4 heads down) to line 10
- Draw a slightly curved line from the waistline and crotch for determining elbow and wrist placement
- Draw two tapering lines starting one from the shoulder point, the other from the dotted bust line until they reach the slight curve you drew from the crotch level (4 1/2 heads down)
- Indicate hands with a rectangle and triangle that touch the line 5 heads down
The final result should look something like this:
The next step would be for you to flesh out your figure, which simply means rounding and softening all the hard angles. This may be easier if you put it under a sheet of tracing paper and drawn on top, which means you will have a clean fresh image to work with. Simply smooth along each line and intersection and the result should be a soft human figure.
The best advice I can give is after you block out a couple of figures use your pencil to trace the final picture over and over again; ignore using tracing paper, just draw right on top of what you drew previously. Try it at least 5-10 times, preferably more. What this does is train your mind and hand to “think” in these proportions as they become familiar with the general path you are using. It sounds silly and you end up with extremely thick, black lines, but it does work.
I hope you enjoyed that and you found it helpful!
Hi I just dicovered your blog, It’s very interesting and just what I was looking for which will be very helpful to me, as I will be studying fashion design in the autum.