modern style fashion drawings

Step One: Selecting the Croquis

There is ENORMOUS variety in the styles, sizes, features, and proportions of croquis that fashion designers use to draw their designs. You can see a gallery of all different types of fashion illustrations HERE. Check it out to get some inspiration.

When you are thinking about what type of croquis to use for drawing your own designs, here are some things you can keep in mind:

Reflect Your Customer

Pick a croquis that reflects the person that you are designing for. What is their gender, their size, their lifestyle, attitudes and tastes? Try to capture that person in the pose and details of your croquis.

fashion sketches with childlike models

Convey Your Aesthetic

Pick a croquis that fits with your design style and taste. Think about the type of runway shows you like, or what fashion magazines you prefer. Do you like poses with a lot of movement that

show emotion and feeling, or more straight poses that allow for sketching details and construction.

stylized plus sized croquis

And MOST importantly of all. .. pick a Croquis that you want to Sketch on!

If you struggle with drawing, or you don't feel confident about hair and faces and hands and feet... that's OK! Pick a croquis pose that has a more simplified and abstract style, one that is easy to draw over and over.

Later in the semester, we will consider the process for developing your own fashion figures. But for now, we will use croquis that have already been created by other artists. You can select any of the figures from our texbook, or you can consider purchasing or finding other croquis online. There are a variety of resources described here: Fashion Croquis

Step Two: Prep the Croquis for use

Once you have found some poses that work for you, you can create a useful and convenient Croquis Template that you will carry with you in your sketchbook and use for your design development sketches in the coming weeks. The following are some suggestions or ideas for how to use your croquis to start designing.

Re-trace or re-draw an existing croquis to customize it and personalize it. Your croquis does not need to have a face or detailed hands or feet. Find a style that appeals to you and just go with that.

If the croquis does not have a balance line, draw one in. If the croquis does not have basic body positions indicated, draw them in. Center line of the torso is most important. Waistline, bustline, and hipline are also helpful, as well as princess seamlines and bikini line.

Print your Croquis DARK for easy visibility. You can scan or photocopy the croquis and turn up the darkness or increase black levels in Photoshop so that the outlines and body position lines show up clearly.

croquis page for drawing directly copy.jpg

Consider having multiple croquis views. You can place multiple poses on a single page for easy access. Size the croquis so they are all the same and then you can switch between views but keep a consistent size in your sketchbook. Consider finding poses for front, side, and back view drawings. You might also want to have mirror images of the same pose. Closeup view poses can also be helpful for drawing garment details.

Another option is to print multiple copies of the croquis with the opacity reduced (image is lightened). Then you can draw directly onto the croquis for quick and easy design sketching.