TECHNICAL DRAWING FOR FASHION
Learn Professional Digital Fashion Illustration & Technical Drawing Techniques in Adobe Illustrator with our FREE Video Tutorials GET STARTEDWATCH TECHNICAL DRAWING COURSE
BRING YOUR DESIGNS TO LIFE
TECH DRAWING TEMPLATE PACK
SPEED UP YOUR ILLUSTRATION PROCESS
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FASHION ILLUSTRATION, PRINT DESIGN & MORE
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THE BEST TOOL FOR FASHION ILLUSTRATION
WATCH TECHNICAL DRAWING COURSE
BRING YOUR DESIGNS TO LIFE
TECH DRAWING TEMPLATE PACK
SPEED UP YOUR ILLUSTRATION PROCESS
WATCH MORE ILLUSTRATION COURSES
FASHION ILLUSTRATION, PRINT DESIGN & MORE
GET ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR
THE BEST TOOL FOR FASHION ILLUSTRATION
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!
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.

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!
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.
Legging Design – Fashion Illustration
Learn how to design a collection of leggings in Adobe Illustrator, using pre-made fashion templates from Pret-a-Template.
i loveeeeeee it
Hello! is there a men’s croquis we can use?
Hi Lia, thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, we do not stock or sell men’s basic blocks at this time. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.
Hi, thank you so much for your courses they are a big help I really enjoyed it. them. I am currently working on a children’s line and was wondering if you can give me some tips on fashion illustration specifically for children.
I look forward to hearing back from you
Rachie
Hi Rachie, What would you like to know about?
Información en español por favor
Hola, lo siento mucho, actualmente no tenemos traducciones al español. Lamento mucho las molestias
How do I get to episode 3,4 & 5?
I’m so sorry! It seems we did not update this page with the remaining video links. We’ve now added them to this page. If for some reason you do not find them, please visit our YouTube channel to see the full playlist. You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgOpHffgkLSdq5Ao3f5u6iew3fMSxO0V3
I would love to learn more about pattern making and fashion illustrations
Great! Why not subscribe to our youtube channel? You can find all of our digital fashion illustration and pattern-making tutorials in one easy-to-access place.
Fashion illustration:
Digital Pattern Making:
Enjoy!