Clothes Design - How do you do it?

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TsukiShima
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Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#1 Post by TsukiShima »

I've just recently realized that one of my weakness is designing, and I'm really bad at it.

I'm not sure what's the correct theme for it, but clothe design is something that needs creativity of the artist or the creator, and it's all depends on them. Either it will look plain, or something new and unique.
Clothes are something that you need fit within the era, place and fashion. That's said, if you want to design, you'll need to consider all the surroundings as well. The most common types I see are the British era (Princess-ly and King-ly style), Steampunk (I still don't understand what it means), and Modern era.

But how do you do it?
Do you create your own?
If you use reference, where do you get it and how often do you use it? Or is everything in your head?

We would appreciate if anyone gives some detailed guidance as well. ^^

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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#2 Post by MaiMai »

You should research clothing brands and go to their official websites to see what they currently sell. That way you can design clothes based off what you see on their sites.

Pick up fashion magazines! If you mostly draw teens, seek magazines for teens, they're always advertising clothes there.

We actually had a topic like this a while ago and I remember answering them by providing just a few links to clothing websites I go to for references: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... on#p213056

And based on mens clothing: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... on#p213548

Basically, Google is your friend. (And as for Steampunk fashion, it involves a lot of gears and machinery parts and colors aren't often that saturated. This is Steampunk.
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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#3 Post by dramspringfeald »

TsukiShima wrote:I've just recently realized that one of my weakness is designing, and I'm really bad at it.

I'm not sure what's the correct theme for it, but clothe design is something that needs creativity of the artist or the creator, and it's all depends on them. Either it will look plain, or something new and unique.
Clothes are something that you need fit within the era, place and fashion. That's said, if you want to design, you'll need to consider all the surroundings as well. The most common types I see are the British era (Princess-ly and King-ly style), Steampunk (I still don't understand what it means), and Modern era.

But how do you do it?
Do you create your own?
If you use reference, where do you get it and how often do you use it? Or is everything in your head?

We would appreciate if anyone gives some detailed guidance as well. ^^
Well depends, First you need to pick a time period. This will be your base for making an outfit.

Then look at clothing of that style. This will give you an Idea how it hangs

Then you need to pick a "Class" for the character. Different classes have different clothing. The Surf wears rags while military wears uniforms and so on.

THEN you pick the Build of the character. Those who are larger tend to use broader and heavier fabrics while the smaller slimmer character use lighter "breezy" outfits.

Pick colors to work with the skin and "personality" of the character and repeat.

This works pretty well for the future if you keep the 20/40/100 pattern. Outfits repeat themselves for more or less this interval. the minor things like color and basic design are every 20 years. the major things like Gender and Fabrics change or repeat... I dread for the Neo-Renaissance. then every 100 years it tends to reset. just ask the cowboy hats and flappers coming back. Course as times move on they add and remove parts but it usually stays the same. Instead of using hemp like the 1800's we started using Cotton, mid 1900's Instead of cotton we started using Nylon but Easily growing grass and hemp are coming back.
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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#4 Post by Tonna »

I just search in google and mix them (^ ^;

ex: I got work to do character costume design in concept of "Egypt Princess".
Step 1 - google image "Egypt Princess" "Egypt Modern costumes" "Egypt Fashion" etc
Step 2 - see amount of costume design references
Step 3 - mix them and add some of my own design
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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#5 Post by Nuxill »

Tonna wrote:I just search in google and mix them (^ ^;

ex: I got work to do character costume design in concept of "Egypt Princess".
Step 1 - google image "Egypt Princess" "Egypt Modern costumes" "Egypt Fashion" etc
Step 2 - see amount of costume design references
Step 3 - mix them and add some of my own design
I just want to mention that you should be careful about this if you're working with a culture you don't know much about. You'll want to look up more information about the clothing than just a few google searches. Parts of the clothing will probably be significant in ways that aren't obvious and using outfits or other parts of a culture together without knowing their significance is not the best thing to do.

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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#6 Post by Tonna »

Nuxill wrote: I just want to mention that you should be careful about this if you're working with a culture you don't know much about. You'll want to look up more information about the clothing than just a few google searches. Parts of the clothing will probably be significant in ways that aren't obvious and using outfits or other parts of a culture together without knowing their significance is not the best thing to do.
Oh I see, I will be careful about it. thanks for your mention (^ ^)
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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#7 Post by SHiNKiROU »

I'm good at drawing modern and futuristic fashion, but fantasy is a problem for me. It must use references (Google Images) to compensate for that.
I pass fashion design if I can draw lolita dresses.

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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#8 Post by Semienigma »

I used to draw weird furture fantasy clothing...for no reason. It was like everyone was in some sort of cosplay. Now I draw regular clothing. What I like to to is look online at different outfits. Men are usually harder than girls for me since Men tend to wear the same thing or be shirtless >.> IMO that's what kept happening.

I also have a ton of artbooks from the anime's and artist I like and that helps.

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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#9 Post by Itwasneveradream »

I use references dahlin.

Also, when designing clothes, you have to ask yourself some questions.

Like: Does this suit my character's personality?

Or

Is this costume believable?

For example, you can't exactly have a ninja assasin running around in flashy clothes complete with heels. And you very well can't make a cold and stoic guy wear something so incredibly shiny that it's blinding.

As for believable, think "If someone wanted to cosplay this, could they?"

Because I'm pretty sure it would be hard to cosplay a piece of cloth attached to nothing.

And then the color scheme! Usually, color schemes of clothes are dependent on what era the setting is or the characters personality. For example, the use of brown is extremely dominant in the steampunk era. And bubbly girls like to wear pink.

Think about what they would like to wear. If you draw up a blank, it's good to look at fashion magazines or online blogs (as for me, harajuku inspires my clothes)

Be creative~

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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#10 Post by Omnificent »

I'm almost convinced that once you keep saving and looking at pictures of styles/costumes you particularly like, you absorb elements of it by osmosis.

One thing I've always found useful is to think of one or two design motifs and just repeat them throughout the costume. For instance, if the character has a polka-dot headband, why not also give their dress a polka-dot belt? Coordinating things like that + complimentary colors make for pleasing character designs.
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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#11 Post by Laniessa »

As you can see, references are quite important! Always look around for designs and art - even on the streets! See what you think is nice, see what most people are wearing; see what's being well drawn. Fashion in anime often looks pretty nice, so you should think of designs when watching anime too!

I do think the most important thing is just to draw some styles and critique yourself, though. Just keep practicing - and when you've done a fair bit, you can go back and use elements from different designs to make one cohesive design! (I reuse a lot of my old art like this.)

Also, learn colour theory. Just a bit. Colour is a huge part of fashion (and I'm always at a loss on what colours to use), but again, it takes a lot of experimenting!

I wish you good luck c:

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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#12 Post by Nicasio4 »

MaiMai wrote:You should research clothing brands and go to their official websites to see what they currently sell. That way you can design clothes based off what you see on their sites.

Pick up fashion magazines! If you mostly draw teens, seek magazines for teens, they're always advertising clothes there.

We actually had a topic like this a while ago and I remember answering them by providing just a few links to clothing websites I go to for references: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... on#p213056

And based on mens clothing: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... on#p213548

Basically, Google is your friend. (And as for Steampunk fashion, it involves a lot of gears and machinery parts and colors aren't often that saturated. This is Steampunk.

I am working and talking only about the men's wear so thanks to suggesting these topics..

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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#13 Post by deviltales »

Well, depends on what genre you're writing, really. If you write medieval stories you ought to dress the women into long, beautiful and accesorised gowns and the men into shining armors. Environment, era, and surroundings are really important in the defining of clothing.
Most time {For females} I draw 90% percent of my personal wardrobe, since I am a female myself.
For males, I look at my friends' clothes or google them. Google is indeed your friend here.
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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#14 Post by Youkos »

Generally you start with a theme that all the clothes you are making share (time period, style etc).
After that I think about what would fit the character's needs. Like if they were rich or poor, what they did for a living, etc. (can't have beggars be in nice clothes or adventurers in ridiculous armour...)

Next I just attempt to come up with something that might look appealing. I start simple and then add on more designs if it needs to be more fancy.

After that if I feel like something is lacking or missing, I tend to go google some stuff that has simliar themes as mine or shamelessly rip bits and pieces off character designs I like.

If I utterly can't think of something I leave it for a while or just draw random clothes on another layer over my characters and see what looks the best. If the lines make something interesting I normally just mod it until I'm happy, then repeat the process of adding details etc.

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Re: Clothes Design - How do you do it?

#15 Post by shinyshoe »

Traditional attire of various cultures (that you can also mix and match for fantasy settings)

Also, The Costumer's Manifesto (which is transitioning to a new site). Absolute recommend.

Modcloth for any cutely dressed girl.

Adjust and alter to fit according to the character's personal preference, status, theme of project, and what have you.

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