Three Tips For Creating Unique Fashion Designs For Your Art

Coming up with interesting, memorable and unique fashion designs to use in your artwork can be a slightly complicated subject.

Whilst you can obviously copy fashions from real life and from photos, this is probably something of a grey area (in practice at least, if not in theory) when it comes to copyright. Not to mention that it also means that you are limited to only using fashions that you actually see too. So, how do you come up with slightly more unique fashion ideas for your art?

The day before I wrote this article, I happened to see a really interesting old photo of a group of people from 1993 in the local paper.

As someone who is fascinated by vintage fashion, I was drawn to this photo pretty much instantly. The fashions in it were wonderfully interesting, but the outfit that really caught my attention was an outfit featuring a slightly baggy white T-shirt and a knee-length black pencil skirt. The contrast between formal and informal was really cool (and very 90s) and it stuck in my mind.

Although this is the kind of generic outfit that probably wouldn’t raise any copyright issues (unless I exactly copied the logo on the T-shirt), it made me think about coming up with unique fashion designs.

And, yes, I used a slightly similar generic outfit in one of my surreal “1950s America” paintings -albeit with much more of a beatnik-style look to it. Although, for the guy in the background, I kind of based his generic outfit more on modern hipster fashion than on beatnik fashion.

“On The Lost Road” By C. A. Brown

But, how do you come up with unique fashion designs? Here are three tips:

1) The type of outfit: Thanks to the internet, artists have literally thousands of reference photos at their disposal in a matter of seconds. So, if you see an interesting outfit, then work out what general type of outfit it is (eg: gothic fashion, tunic dress, trilby hat and suit, plaid suits, denim skirt and knee boots, T-shirt and pencil skirt etc..) and then just enter this into a search engine and do an image search.

Seeing lots of different images of the same general type of outfit is surprisingly useful when it comes to coming up with unique fashion designs. At the very least, you can come up with a much more original design by taking elements from different outfits (of the same type) and combining them in a unique way.

But, if you want to do more than this, then just spend a while looking at all of the photos, then don’t look at them when you design your outfit. Because memory isn’t perfect and because you’ve looked at lots of different pictures, you’re probably going to end up making something that looks similar – but different – to the outfits that you looked at.

If, for whatever reason, you can’t use a search engine – then you can still use a version of this technique. Just think of the general type of outfit that you saw and then try to draw another outfit that fits into this type, but looks slightly different from the one you saw. Again, since memory isn’t perfect, you’ll probably end up making more changes than you think.

“And Pixels In The Sky” By C. A. Brown

For example, in this digitally edited 1980s/90s-style painting from last year, I’d originally just planned to draw a generic 80s/90s floral maxi dress, but I wanted to combine it with something more unique.

So, thinking back to all of the vintage fashion photos that I’d seen from this time, I remembered that patterns using geometric shapes were all the rage back then.

Since the only other item of clothing I could think of which would go well with this outfit was a short-sleeved blouse, I added the pattern to the blouse (in addition to using some cross-hatching too). So, even having an imperfect memory of lots of similar outfits can allow you to come up with something fairly original.

2) Patterns, designs and colours: Once you’ve learnt how to draw a particular type of outfit, one of the easiest and quickest ways to make it look unique and interesting is to just come up with an interesting pattern, colour scheme or design to add to it.

Even if your outfit design is based heavily on other designs, it can still look unique if you come up with your own pattern for it. For example, in all of the versions of the background image that I use for this blog, the character in it wears a blue and black T-shirt, which shows a rectangular picture of a city broken up with several black bars.

“The Silent Future (VI)” By C. A. Brown

This was inspired by a black and pink (or was it black and yellow ?) T-shirt that I saw in a shop back in 2011, where an anime-style picture was split into several oval-like sections using a similar technique.

Likewise, I’d originally planned for the character’s outfit to include a plain blue miniskirt but this seemed a bit dull, so I decided to add a spider web pattern to it – since this looked kind of edgy and gothic.

You’d be surprised at how unique and original a generic outfit can look if you add an interesting pattern to it, if you change the pattern completely or even if you use a different colour scheme.

3) Mix and match: I’ve alluded to this earlier in the article, but one of the easiest ways to come up with interesting outfits for the characters in your artwork is fairly similar to how you can create interesting outfits in real life. Just mix and match lots of different pieces of clothing.

You might have to do a bit of trial and error here and you’ll probably have to make a few creative changes, but this is probably the easiest way to come up with unique fashion designs for your artwork.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

Four Reasons To Include Unfashionable or Strange Clothing Designs In Your Art

Well, for today, I thought that I’d talk about fashion – but not in the way that you might expect. In fact, I’ll be talking about why you shouldn’t pay the least bit of attention to fashion when you’re coming up with clothing designs for your artwork.

Yes, if you’re trying to paint or draw a realistic scene of everyday life, then it makes sense to pay attention to current fashions and to use similar clothing designs in your art. But, I’d argue that there are a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t be afraid to include unfashionable or strange clothing designs in your art. Here are a few of them:

1) It’s memorable: Generally speaking, mainstream fashions are all about conformity. They’re either about blending in or about standing out in a socially-approved way. Even something as cool as gothic fashion, punk fashion or heavy metal fashion (eg: some of my favourite fashion styles) is all about signifying that you belong to a group of people who like good music etc…

In other words, current fashions aren’t always particularly memorable because lots of people are wearing them. However, unfashionable or strange clothes stand out a lot more and are a lot more memorable. In real life, this is unfortunately usually for all of the wrong reasons (eg: negative attention, ridicule etc..). But, in art, it is for all of the right reasons.

It draws attention to your character and it makes your audience remember them. It gives your art a slightly “unrealistic” and “stylised” look that makes it stand out from the crowd. It makes people wonder why the people in your paintings are wearing strange clothes and it hints at the idea that people don’t have to conform to mainstream fashions if they don’t want to. It’s a world away from the slick and polished images that people see everyday in advertising and the mainstream media. It’s attention-grabbing and it’s rebellious.

2) Fashion history: Generally speaking, things that are unfashionable now used to be fashionable at one point in time. Sometimes things that were unfashionable end up coming back into fashion. Sometimes, they don’t.

But, nonetheless, you’ve probably seen at least one or two interesting old fashions – either in real life or in old movies, TV shows etc… that you wish would make a comeback in some way or another. And, well, one of the easiest, cheapest and (ugh) most socially acceptable ways to do this is to include these fashions in your art.

If it isn’t practical for you to buy lots of interesting vintage clothing or if you don’t feel confident enough to express your own historical fashion interests in real life, then you can at least show them off in your art. Yes, it’s a secondhand form of self-expression, but it’s better than no self-expression.

3) Because you can: Yes, if you’re trying to make your artwork look “modern” and “realistic” then it makes sense to pay attention to current fashions – but, let’s be honest, where’s the fun in that?

Don’t get me wrong, striving to make your artwork as technically realistic as possible (eg: using realistic lighting, drawing people realistically etc…) is a good thing, but if your paintings all look like ordinary scenes from everyday life then, well, where’s the fun in that?

One of the great things about being a traditional artist or digital artist is that you can create pretty much anything, without being limited by reality in the same way that a photographer is. Yes, photography is a type of art – but it’s an artform that is very much limited by whatever the photographer happens to be standing in front of when he or she takes a photo. On the other hand, traditional and digital artists can use their imaginations – so why not use yours?

4) Artistic considerations: In art, there are at least a few rules (about things like composition, colour schemes etc…). You can have a huge influence on how your audience sees the “unfashionable” clothing designs in your art by choosing whether or not to follow these rules.

In other words, you can make the “unfashionable” clothing designs in your art look a lot cooler and more interesting by following all of the usual artistic rules. Conversely, you can make them look obviously unfashonable by ignoring all of the usual artistic rules.

For example, take a look at this digitally-edited painting of mine from earlier this month:

“And Pixels In The Sky” By C. A. Brown

In this painting, I ended up using two sets of complimentary colours (purple/yellow and red/green) almost unconsciously because I wanted to make the character’s outfit look cool in a quirky, nerdy retro kind of way. If I’d gone for a less complimentary colour scheme, the clothing designs would have looked more obviously strange or unusual.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

How To Draw Four 1990s Fashions

Well, although I’d planned to write a proper article (about fascinations and creativity) for today, it didn’t really work out that well and I eventually ended up abandoning it.

So, instead, I thought that I’d make a few drawing guides for today that are based on one of my current fascinations- I am, of course, talking about 1990s fashions.

Regular readers of this blog might notice that these guides bear a slight resemblance to my old “How To Draw” guides from mid 2013-early 2014. Although I have no plans to re-start this as a regular series, it was kind of interesting to return to it again, albeit briefly.

Anyway, here are how to draw a few 1990s fashions:

1) Dark Floral Patterns: Although I vaguely remember this being more of a formal fashion, it was also apparently quite a popular grunge fashion in the 1990s too. I am, of course, talking about clothing with dark floral patterns. Not only can this style be both formal and informal and both conservative and edgy, but it’s also simultaneously modern and timeless too.

However, drawing one of these patterns properly is an incredibly time-consuming and complicated process. So, here’s a shortcut I found that can help you draw these patterns a lot more quickly (albeit at the cost of making them look less detailed):

[CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE]

2) Sweatshirt Belts: Although I was still doing this as late as 2008 or 2009, the whole idea of wearing your sweatshirt or jacket as a belt seems to have been invented back in the 1990s. This also seems to be one of those “everyday” 1990s fashions that is incredibly forgettable until you read about it somewhere.

Anyway, it’s surprisingly easy to draw and I thought that I’d show you how to do it:

[CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE]

3) 1990s shades: Back in the 1990s, sunglasses were a lot chunkier and more plasticky – and, yet, they still seemed like they were a lot cooler than most modern types of sunglasses are.

1990s shades are one of the easiest types of sunglasses to draw and here’s how to do it:

[CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE]

4) Plaid: Back in the 1990s, plaid patterns (like floral patterns) were another thing that seemed to be fairly universal. On the one hand, they were part of the no-nonsense aesthetic of grunge fashion, but they were also a pretty major part of the much posher aesthetic of American “prep” fashion. Hell, even these days, plaid clothing is currently part of hipster fashion.

Unfortunately, these are surprisingly difficult to draw well (and I kind of messed up the final part of my drawing guide). But, here’s one way to draw them – albeit not a very good one:

[CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE]
Yes, I messed up this drawing guide. But, in theory it should work – although it might be an idea to do the third step BEFORE the second one.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

Five Tips For Designing Futuristic Fashions

..First of all, sorry about the extremely late post – there was something of a screw-up with the scheduling and I apologise for this. I’ll post today’s art post in a few seconds. Anyway, on with the article..

Well, if you’re making sci-fi comics or sci-fi art, then one of the things you need to think about is how people are going to dress in the future.

After all, the clothes we wear these days look very different to what everyone was wearing 100 years ago, let alone 300-500 years ago. So, what’s to say that it won’t change again over the next five hundred years or more.

If you’re setting your comic or artwork in the near future, or if you’re making it in the style of older sci-fi (eg: 1990s sci-fi, 1980s sci-fi etc…) – then you don’t really need to change that much. In fact, you can pretty much get away with using either modern-day fashions or even vintage-style fashions. Kind of like this:

“Data Tower” By C. A. Brown

But, if you’re setting your sci-fi comic or artwork in the distant future or you’re trying to make it look “realistic”, then here are a few tips that might come in handy when creating futuristic fashions:

1) Simplicity: Generally speaking, everyday fashions (in Europe and America at least) become simpler and more practical over time. Although formal fashion is somewhat frozen in time, even these fashions are travelling towards simplicity, albeit at a glacial pace.

These days, typical informal clothing usually consists of a T-shirt/ short-sleeved top/ hoodie, trainers and a pair of jeans (or tracksuit trousers). Whereas, say, sixty years ago people would still be wearing long-sleeved shirts, hats, dresses, heeled shoes etc… even on weekends.

So, how does this affect future fashions? Well, if this trend continues, then futuristic fashions will possibly remain fairly similar to what they are now. I mean, typical informal clothing really hasn’t changed that much in the past 20-30 years. Yes, there may be some variations in it over time, but the basic style of clothing probably won’t change that much.

Of course, it’s possible that this trend might be cyclical and – like in several periods of history – everyday fashion might become more ostentatious and formal again. You can pretty much go either way with this in your artwork or comic, but my guess is that everyday fashion in the future will be more on the practical and informal side of things.

2) Self-expression: Throughout history, fashion has been a lot more uniform than it is these days. Yes, we might mostly be wearing similar informal fashions – but there’s a lot more variety avialable to us now than there has been in any other period of history. I mean, if you can think of something, there’s probably already an item of clothing with this design printed onto it.

But, if you go back in time – there were far fewer clothing colours and fabric patterns for people to choose from. So, clothing looked a lot more homogenous than it does these days. If you wanted to wear something that made you stand out from the crowd, you either had to make it yourself or hire someone to make it for you. If you wanted to express yourself through fashion, then you had a much more limited palette to choose from.

So, if you’re designing futuristic fashion, then you need to take this trend into account. Even though most people will probably still be wearing the same types of clothing, there will probably be a huge amount of variety within these types of clothing.

3) Technology: Technology affects fashions in all sorts of ways. I mean, before the mid-19th century – purple clothing was pretty much reserved for royalty, since no-one had been able to invent a cheap purple dye that could be used in ordinary clothing. Likewise, if you wanted to add lettering to clothing in the past -you’d probably have to sew or appliqué it onto the clothes, because inks that worked well on fabrics hadn’t been invented.

The next innovation in terms of clothing will probably be either nanotechnology (eg: making hydrophobic/antibacterial fabrics that require little to no washing) or wearable technology. Of course, this will have to be perfected to the point where it can be easily mass-produced cheaply (more on that subject later) before it enters everyday fashion, but it probably will happen at some point in the future.

So, things like T-shirts with moving patterns and glasses with augmented-reality displays (like the Google Glass) will probably end up being a part of fashion in the future. As for what comes after this, I really don’t know – but it’ll probably be something we currently consider to be impossible.

Likewise, the way that clothes are produced will probably change too. The current exploitative situation where clothes are often mass-produced in sweatshops in poorer countries will probably change in the future. This will either be because those countries will have become prosperous and democratic enough to insist on fairer working conditions, or it will be because of growing controversy around the issue or – most likely – it’ll be because we’ll have found a way to create clothing even more cheaply using robots.

4) Subcultures: Ever since the 1950s or 60s at least, people have been using fashions to show that they belong to a particular subculture or fandom (hell, my own fashion style is probably mostly something between metal, punk and goth fashion).

Using clothing to signify belonging obviously goes back a lot longer than just the past sixty years, but it’s certainly a lot more prominent and widespread than it was before then.

Of course, subcultures grow and change over time. So, if you’re making something that is set in the distant future, then you’re going to have to come up with new subculture-based fashions that don’t exist today. These can, of course, be based on current or older subcultures or they will be totally new. But, subcultural fashion will probably be a much larger thing in the future than it already is now.

5) Nostalgia: Finally, never underestimate the nostalgia factor. There seems to be a 20-30 year nostalgia cycle in modern fashion, so it could be an idea to show some of the characters in your comic wearing fashions that were inspired by other futuristic fashions from a couple of decades earlier.

In other words, you’ll also have to invent a second set of futuristic fashions that look slightly older than the ones that you’re planning to use in your comic.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

Today’s Art (26th June 2014)

Well, I felt like trying out making fashion illustrations for today.

Although this is a good way to practice drawing realistically-proportioned body shapes (and I’ve suddenly realised how terrible I am at drawing legs), about halfway through making this picture I suddenly thought “This picture just looks really… well… lifeless and boring” – so, I ended up turning it into a comic.

As usual, this painting is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.

“Not Quite Fashion” By C. A. Brown

Today’s Art (18th June 2014)

Well, shockingly, I only learnt what a “fascinator” was a couple of weeks ago (I’m frightfully uncultured and unfashionable, I know!). And, my first thought when I learnt this was “well, what’s so fascinating about that? If it’s going to be fascinating, it needs to make random noises, sparkle and shoot fire."

Of course, I’ve also just learnt that a fascinator is usually worn instead of a hat. When they were described to me originally, I thought that they were a type of hat decoration. So, yes, I’ve got this detail wrong in today’s painting.

Since this painting will probably end up on my DeviantART gallery before it appears here, I’ll also provide the lineart for this painting as a blog exclusive 🙂

(And, no, I can’t draw horses very well. And, yes, that is supposed to be a jockey from “Left 4 Dead 2” in the distant background by the stables.)

“Fascinators” By C. A. Brown

And here’s the lineart:

“Fascinators (Lineart)” By C. A. Brown

As usual, this painting and lineart drawing are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.