Technical Drawing for Fashion – FREE Digital Illustration Course

Technical Drawing for Fashion – FREE Digital Illustration Course

TECHNICAL DRAWING FOR FASHION

Learn Professional Digital Fashion Illustration & Technical Drawing Techniques in Adobe Illustrator with our FREE Video Tutorials
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TECH DRAWING TEMPLATE PACK
SPEED UP YOUR ILLUSTRATION PROCESS

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FASHION ILLUSTRATION, PRINT DESIGN & MORE

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Learn how to create professional technical drawing for fashion in Adobe Illustrator

Technical drawings for fashion (often referred to as specification drawing, spec drawing, or flats) are an essential part of the fashion design process. This is especially true if you are planning on transforming your fashion designs or fashion illustrations into finished graded patterns or initial samples.  Stylised fashion illustrations can look great in your portfolio and can be used to sell the look and feel of your collection, but are generally useless when it comes to explaining the technical aspect of your garment or design. For a pattern maker or sample room to turn your idea into a finished, working product, they’ll need clear, detailed drawings in order to reproduce your design accurately. This is where technical drawings come into their own.

With this in mind, we’ve created a series of video tutorials that will enable you to convert your inspirational fashion illustrations into polished technical drawings that can be translated by any pattern maker, saving both you and them time and money. Our video tutorials are completely free to watch and we don’t ask you to sign up or subscribe – simply click and watch! To get the most from these tutorials, start at Part 1 and work your way through the tutorials step-by-step.

We love hearing from you! If you enjoy our content, please share it with your friends and leave us a comment. Likewise, if you have any issues with the techniques we teach, or you have time-saving tricks that could help our community, then once again, please leave a comment- we can always create a new tutorial to showcase the concept and we’ll also tag you to say thanks!

Download the fully-editable Technical Drawing Template Pack!

If you love the fashion spec drawings and elements that we created whilst making this tutorial, you can now get the fully-editable technical drawing pack from our sister site, DesignLab.London.  This technical drawing drawing pack gives you access to over a hundred fully-editable illustrations, templates and other content we’ve created whilst producing these tutorials. The pack took weeks to produce saving you weeks of work, allowing you to concentrate on what’s important – the design process.

Click below to take a look!

technical drawing for fashion pack

Part 1 – Create simple silhouettes & design details

In this tutorial we explain and introduce the proportionate model template and demonstrate how to create basic garment or silhouettes.

Next, we show you how to add design details to the silhouettes to create a selection of simple technical drawings. It’s the most important tutorial of the whole series and will teach you the key tools required to create technical drawings.

 

proportionate model template pack patternlab.london

Part 2 – Create sleeves & more complicated design details 

In this tutorial, we expand on the existing tools and skills taught in the first video, only this time we take it further. You’ll learn how to create a variety of sleeve styles and add more complicated design features to the silhouettes we created in Part 1.

 

Part 3 – Digitise hand-drawn technical drawings

In this tutorial, we take a look at the second technique that involves using the proportionate model template to hand-draw a selection of technical drawings. We then scan and import this back into Adobe Illustrator and digitise your hand-drawn sketches by tracing the hand-drawn illustrations.

We also show you how to use this technique to digitise imagery found online, such as sleeve styles and necklines etc. It’s a simple and incredibly useful tool when it comes to creating your own technical drawings.

Part 4 – Create a library of design details: zips, pockets & more…

In this tutorial, we show you how to create your very own library of universal design details such as: zips, pockets, bows and more. Your library can then be used time and time again. Once your library is complete, simply drag and drop your preferred design detail from your library to your technical drawing, it’s that simple! 

Part 5 – Add colour, texture, fabric & print

This is the final tutorial in the series and possibly the most exciting part of the whole course. In this tutorial, we demonstrate how to add colour, texture, fabric and even prints to your technical drawings using the swatches and clipping mask tools. Watch this tutorial to add the finishing touches to your technical drawings.

More FREE Fashion Illustration Courses & Tutorials

Why not check out our other FREE fashion illustration tutorials. We’ve got a whole series of courses that will help improve your skills and knowledge about digital fashion illustration in Adobe Illustrator. Take your pick from the course outlined below!

Part 2 Adding Makeup Fashion Illustration Master Class

Master Course – Fashion Illustration

Our most comprehensive and up-to-date fashion illustration course yet. Learn how to create your own unique model templates including: customised faces, hair, makeup, body poses and much more. Then add your fashion designs to create stunning professional fashion illustrations.

fashion illustration in Adobe Illustrator free courses tutorials patternlab

Legging Design – Fashion Illustration

Learn how to design a collection of leggings in Adobe Illustrator, using pre-made fashion templates from Pret-a-Template.

digital fashion illustration patternlab

The Basics – Fashion Illustration

This course was one of the first we ever created and has since been updated by the masterclass but it still contains some great content and learning!

Digital Fashion Illustration in Adobe Illustrator

Digital Fashion Illustration in Adobe Illustrator

FASHION ILLUSTRATION

Learn Professional Digital Fashion Illustration Techniques in Adobe Illustrator with our FREE Video Tutorials
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FREE FASHION ILLUSTRATION COURSE
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TECHNICAL DRAWING, PRINT DESIGN & MORE

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Learn Digital Fashion Illustration in Adobe Illustrator for FREE!

We’ve had so much love online and so many requests in response to our existing fashion illustration tutorials that we thought we’d expand the range! We’ve now created a whole series of in-depth video tutorials that showcase the various methods used to create detailed professional fashion illustrations using Adobe Illustrator. Like all our tutorials, they’re completely free to watch. We don’t ask you to subscribe or sign up-  just click the video to watch!

Fashion illustration is a highly subjective matter. There are hundreds of different illustration styles out there and most are based on a person’s experience and ability to draw freehand. With this in mind, we’ve attempted to take the pain out of digital fashion illustration by creating a series of tutorials that demonstrate fashion illustration techniques in Adobe Illustrator. You don’t need any prior experience of Adobe Illustrator and you certainly don’t need to be a talented free-hand or fashion specific illustrator. We source, copy/paste and trace face and body images found on the internet using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. When tracing real imagery, it produces fantastic realistic results in a fraction of the time, leaving you more time to perfect your actual garment designs.

First, we demonstrate how to illustrate the face, we then add skin tone, makeup, hairstyles and then illustrate a series of body poses. Finally, we show you how to piece all of these separate elements together, giving you the potential to create hundreds of different fashion templates, ready for your garment designs. Once again, you don’t need any prior experience using either Adobe Illustrator or freehand drawing and the course is completely free to watch.

This digital fashion illustration course is designed to fill in the blanks of our existing courses and answer some of the questions that our followers have asked over recent months. We hope you enjoy the content and learn something truly valuable.

We love hearing from you! If you enjoy our content, please share it with your friends and leave us a comment. Likewise, if you have any issues with the techniques taught or you have time-saving tricks that could help our followers then once again, please leave a comment- we can always create a new tutorial to showcase the concept and we’ll also tag you in to say thanks!

Download the Fully-Editable Fashion Illustration Template Pack!

If you love the fashion illustrations and elements that we’ve created, you can now purchase the fully-editable fashion illustration template pack from our sister site, DesignLab.London. Click below to view the product on the DesignLab.London site. This fashion Illustration template pack gives you access to all our fully-editable illustrations, templates, and content that we’ve created whilst producing these tutorials. The pack took weeks to produce and will save you weeks of work, allowing you to concentrate on what’s important-your fashion designs. Click the image for an overview or click the button to purchase the pack.

digital fashion illustration pack model templates PatternLab

FREE Digital Fashion Illustration Tutorials

Part 1 – Face & Portrait Illustration

Create detailed illustrations of the face without any prior experience of free-hand drawing or Adobe Illustrator. Learn how to copy, paste and accurately trace the outline and details of the face from portrait imagery found online. Learn how to transform or mirror image the finished illustration to speed up the process and create symmetrical face illustrations. Finally, learn how to stylise the finished illustration using line widths, skin tones and colour fills.

 

Part 2 – Adding Makeup Concepts

Design and apply your own makeup concepts to your existing portrait illustrations. Learn how to add blocks or colour, experiment with transparency, and apply a range of filters to create soft subtle layers of colour that complement and enhance the skin tone. A compact, fun tutorial that showcases a very powerful and useful set of tools. It’s a firm favourite of ours!

Part 3 – Illustrating Hair Styles

Create hair templates from scratch to radically transform the look and identity of your portrait illustrations. Learn how to map the initial hair outline, add hair strands with stylised line art, create colour layers, and finally adapt each hairstyle to suit each portrait illustration or face shape. It’s a long process, but once you have a range of hairstyle it dramatically increases the number of different portrait styles that can be created.

 

Part 4 – Illustrating the Body

Learn how to create a range of beautiful body illustrations, poses or fashion templates to go with your portraits, makeup and hairstyles. This is the final piece in the puzzle when it comes to creating your own professional fashion templates. Similar to Part 1, we demonstrate how to copy/paste and accurately trace the outline and details of the body from high-resolution swimwear or lingerie imagery found online. Next, you will learn how to add depth and texture to the illustration using line widths, and skin tone. Finally, we demonstrate how to add a simple garment layer such as a swimsuit or activewear.

 

Part 5 – Creating Model Templates & Digitising Hand-Drawn Fashion Illustrations

In this tutorial, we demonstrate how to create and print transparent model templates from your existing face, hair and body illustrations. These model templates are then printed on to A4 and used as templates to sketch a range of designs. Once the designs are finalised, we scan them back into Adobe Illustrator and once more trace or transform them into beautiful digital fashion Illustrations.

Part 6 – Adding Colour, Print & Texture to your Digital Fashion Illustrations

The moment you’ve all been waiting for! In this tutorial, we demonstrate how bring your black and white digital fashion illustrations to life by adding colour, print and texture using the eyedropper, clipping mask and swatch tools. It’s possibly the most interesting and fun tutorial out of the whole range… Enjoy!

More FREE Fashion Illustration Courses & Tutorials

Why not check out our other FREE fashion illustration tutorials. We’ve got a whole series of courses that will help improve your skills and knowledge about digital fashion illustration in Adobe Illustrator. Take your pick from the course outlined below!

fashion spec drawing free tutorial adding colour texture and print

Technical drawing – Fashion Illustration

Learn how to create professional technical drawings to accompany your fashion illustrations. Watch this 5 part FREE fashion illustration course. It’s a must-see!

fashion illustration in Adobe Illustrator free courses tutorials patternlab

Legging Design – Fashion Illustration

Learn how to design a collection of leggings in Adobe Illustrator, using pre-made fashion templates from Pret-a-Template.

digital fashion illustration patternlab

The Basics – Fashion Illustration

This course was one of the first we ever created and has since been updated by the master class but it still contains some great content and learning!

S2. EP2. Leggings Fashion Illustrations – Transforming hand-drawn sketches into digital fashion illustrations

S2. EP2. Leggings Fashion Illustrations – Transforming hand-drawn sketches into digital fashion illustrations

S2. EP2. Leggings Fashion Illustrations – Transforming hand-drawn sketches into digital fashion illustrations

In this episode we take a closer look at the hand-drawn fashion sketches that we created in episode 1. We’ve selected eight final leggings designs that we’ll now transform into dynamic, digital, fashion illustrations using Adobe Illustrator. Transferring them to Adobe Illustrator allows us to quickly duplicate them with ease. We can then add colour, texture and print to efficiently create hundreds of variations based on the original designs. This is important, because when we come to finalise our prints we have a range of leggings that we can add them to to create our final designs. Once we have the final designs, we can then make our selections and start sampling.

This blog post looks at hand-drawn sketched versus digital design and how they can be used side by side to speed up your design process. This is also the next step in our process when it comes to designing a range of leggings sewing patterns.

Digital Fashion Illustrations – Outline & design details

The first step in the process of digitalising our leggings fashion illustrations is creating the outline and design details or panelling. We use various line thicknesses to represent various parts of the design. A thick line is added to the outline or finished edges of the leggings. A medium-thick line represents the seams or panels that make up the design. A thin line represents creases or position of the knee. When all these lines are combined, they create depth and a greater understanding of how the leggings blocks might be sampled.

Digital Fashion Illustrations – Colour, texture & print

The final step in the process of digitalisation is to add colours, textures and print. We do this by creating fillable areas from the panels. Each panel can be filled individually with a colour, print or texture. Grouping these panels allows us to add colour in bulk and to areas that have already been established as visually appealing.

DOWNLOAD: Want to play with these designs? Download the fully-editable design pack and open it in Adobe Illustrator to have full access. You can then change colours, adjust the panels and create your own set of designs- a great tool for designing your own leggings variations!

Creating a line up allows us to build a range of designs that work in harmony with one another. They are held together using a common colour palette. You can see the colour palette in the bottom left of the image below.

lily source imagery stock imagery

Gallery

Pinterest

Follow this collection’s inspiration and progress on Pinterest. We have loads more imagery around the project and we post daily! Click the button to take a look. Subscribe to our Pinterest channel to ensure you never miss a post!

What’s next: digital fashion illustration?

In the next episode, we’ll start developing our print inspiration into a range of full-scale, digital, repeat prints, using Adobe Illustrator. We’ll then combine these prints with our fashion illustrations to create gorgeous designs, displayed in a line up, ready for selection and sampling. 

 

 Made-to-measure leggings patterns

Create a profile, add your measurements and design your basic leggings block. We’ll then draft it for you in seconds for you to download either as a multi-page PDF or a fully-editable SVG file –  compatible in Adobe Illustrator.

Graded Leggings Block UK 4 – 24

Want a ready-to-wear set of editable leggings patterns that you can edit in Adobe Illustrator or any other SVG editing suite?  Check out our sister site DesignLab and get the entire set of standard sizes in our Pattern Pack.

SE 2. EP 1. Fashion Design Leggings: Image Inspiration & Initial Fashion Sketches.

SE 2. EP 1. Fashion Design Leggings: Image Inspiration & Initial Fashion Sketches.

SE 2. EP 1. Fashion Design Leggings: Image Inspiration & Initial Fashion Sketches.

To celebrate the release of our latest made-to-measure pattern, the basic leggings block, we’ve decided to design a range of high-stretch leggings that we’ll eventually sample up and showcase with a photoshoot. Watch the video below to see the whole process and understand what ideas and concepts have inspired our designs.

 Made-to-measure leggings patterns

Create a profile, add your measurements and design your basic leggings block. We’ll then draft it for you in seconds for you to download either as a multi-page PDF or a fully-editable SVG file –  compatible in Adobe Illustrator.

Graded Leggings Block UK 4 – 24

Want a ready-to-wear set of editable leggings patterns that you can edit in Adobe Illustrator or any other SVG editing suite?  Check out our sister site DesignLab and get the entire set of standard sizes in our Pattern Pack.

Imagery & Mood Boards

To start the design process, we collate inspiring imagery found on Pinterest into a series of mood boards that refine our ideas into more cohesive themes or concepts.

For this project, we have been inspired by design details such as hidden pockets, waistbands, leg hem styles and body panelling. A strong theme for modern leggings is the use of bold dramatic prints and colours. This concept has also inspired us to come up with three separate print concepts: neo tropical (large diagram below), hyper shapes and hyper-real.

Like our mood boards? Feel free to download the original PDF files straight to your desktop. Click here.

Fashion Illustrations/ Sketches

Using these mood boards as inspiration, we then sketched around 25 legging designs, using Pret-a-Template fashion templates as a drawing template. This speeds up the process of design considerably, allowing us to focus on the design, rather than redrawing the female form over and over again. From this collection we choose 9 of our favourite designs.

What’s next: digital fashion illustration?

In the next episode, we will turn our fashion illustrations, or hand-drawn sketches, into gorgeous digital illustrations or outlines using Adobe Illustrator. We’ll also start to add colours and experiment with the three print concepts. This will bring our designs to life and give us a better understanding of what they finished samples will look like.

Editing the measurements of basic blocks drafted using standard size charts

Editing the measurements of basic blocks drafted using standard size charts

Editing the measurements of basic blocks drafted using standard size charts

Vladimir would like to know how to edit the measurements of basic blocks drafted using our standard size charts, post purchase. That’s a great question and something that we originally didn’t offer. However, after this question was posed, just under a month ago, we’ve managed to add this rather useful functionality. Not only that, but this feature now works for all existing basic blocks and orders that have been drafted using our standard size charts. So, thank you Vladimir for your great suggestion! Check out the video tutorial below to see exactly how you can utilise this great new functionality.

Question:

Hi PatternLab… I’ve drafted my block using a standard EU size, however, I would like to edit the standard measurements post purchase. Is it possible? I found a guide on your website but I can´t see the option edit standard measurements.

Vladimir H

 

Answer:

Yes, you certainly can edit the measurements of a block drafted using our standard size charts.

1. Make sure that you are logged in to your account.
2. Navigate to My Library=
3. Select the order you wish to edit by clicking the EDIT PREVIEW & DOWNLOAD button. Ideally, edit a basic block drafted using our standard size charts. You can also edit the measurements of basic blocks drafted using a profile or unique set of measurements.
4. Click the EDIT MEASUREMENTS button located in the top left area of the order page.
5. Next, locate the measurement you wish to change in the list and add your new value using the input box.
6. Finally, click the DONE button at the top of the page and you’re done. PatternLab will then redraft your block, with the new measurement, ready for download. Simple!”

Learn digital pattern making

Learn how to customise your made-to-measure basic blocks and slopers using Adobe Illustrator as a pattern making platform, using our in depth video tutorials. It’s completely free!

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