Welcome to our crash course in fashion flats! Come and take a deep-dive into the world of fashion with flat sketches, also known as tech sketches, line drawings and design development sketches (DDS). You'll be an expert by the time you're done reading this!
Fashion sketching class will be all about experimentation and refining your drawing abilities, your knowledge of basic figures and fashion stands will be put to a test. The grey pencil sketches will come live. Advanced Diploma in Fashion Design Course Details. Feb 23, 2018 - Fashion Sketching 101: How to Draw Fashion Figures – College Fashion- Tap the link now to see our super collection of accessories made just for yo. Fashion sketching class will be all about experimentation and refining your drawing abilities, your knowledge of basic figures and fashion stands will be put to a test. The grey pencil sketches will come live.
It All Started in The Caves
Since the dawn of man, humans have sought out ways of communicating, sharing ideas, practices, customs and beliefs. The scribes, painters and stone cutters of ancient Egypt (3200 BC—30 BC) were among the first 'commercial' artists, working as paid or conscripted artisans for the Egyptian nation-state.
With the development of the modern fashion industry in the 19th century, designers started using technical sketches to communicate their design ideas so teams could work on them.
What's a Flat Sketch?
A flat sketch is a two-dimensional technical drawing which illustrates a garment with basic solid lines. It's like a 'blueprint' of your fashion design —much like an architect's blueprint for a house before they can begin to construct it.
The word 'flat' refers to the way that they are drawn: imagine the garment is lying flat on a table so that you are viewing all the details from either the front or the back.
Aside from front/back views, some brands will include drawings of details or the side views to show how panels travel around the body or how sections of the garment should be constructed.
Why Flat Sketches are Important
As an essential part of the garment specification sheet or tech pack, they give your pattern-maker and your manufacturer's sewing teams all the information they need about the technical components of a piece. How else will they understand your vision
Difference Between Flats and Illustrations
A fashion illustration captures the mood, proportion and color of your design, it's more of an interpretation of your idea. Whereas the technical sketch helps translate the garment into something 'universal' which a whole team of people can understand and work on.
A fashion illustration is transformed into a technical sketch to create a 'blueprint' for the pattern and construction of the garment.
Creating Fashion Flats: The Essentials
1) Include multiple views of your garment
Sometimes just front/ back views are not enough for a factory to understand your design requirements. Ideally, you should include side views, inside and other details to show how the garment should be constructed.
2) Be as Detailed as Possible
Develop templates that are detailed so you can use them later in other tech packs. Remember that with Techpacker you can save design details inside cards to be used again as needed.
3) Keep it Simple
Add details as explained above but don't overcomplicate things either. Avoid shading and use plain black and white sketches to clearly represent your design.
Read more about how to ace your flat sketches every time!
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Tech Developments to The Rescue!
Tech flats used to be hand-drawn using rulers and black felt tip pens and indicated the scaling of the original design sample measurements.
Today, most brands use Computer Aided Design (CAD) technologies that enable virtual true to life prototypes, instead of real samples. However, CAD technology isn't cheap and has a steep learning curve. Which is why most designers prefer Adobe Illustrator to create their flats.
The Technical Designer
There's actually someone who only specialises in technical flat drawings. In fact, their role should be to link the Design and Production teams. They are essentially the engineers of fashion.
Funnily though, no two Technical Design jobs are ever the same. To learn more about all the things tech designers can do check out this article. The learning opportunities in this field are endless!
Watch ▶︎
Here's a video from this insightful post by the University of Arts, London that we highly recommend for you to get on the right track doing flats!
Interesting Resources
→ Free fashion flats in Adobe Illustrator format and tips on how to create flats Designer Nexus (You need to sign up for free first!)
→ Check out this designer who looked into creating a Web-based Design Support System for Fashion Technical Sketches. Her idea was to enable users to design realistic garments in the form of technical sketches over the internet.
What's next?
Once you have your flat sketches ready, it's time to add them to your tech packs and send over to your manufacturers so they can get started to turn your idea into a product.
In 3 simple steps, Techpacker allows you to add all your flat sketches as cards, make comments and send PDF-ready tech packs to your manufacturers in the blink of an eye!
Related post-
How to Draw Fashion Illustration: Fashion Figure 101
Today, I’m excited to bring you some easy step-by-step instructions to creating a fashion figure. As soon as you know the basics, creating a fashion illustration will be so much easier. Hope you’ll find it fun and helpful! And if you love fashion illustration as much as I do, check out my Fashion Illustration class on Skillshare where I share all the basics about drawing a figure, finding great poses and painting illustration with watercolor.
There is no THE RIGHT WAY nor THE ONLY WAY to draw a fashion figure. Every artist has his/her own particular style so don’t be intimidated by the variety of tutorials and different techniques. All you need is to learn the basics and choose the technique that works for you.
It’s important to first understand the human body, how it moves, and how it is shaped so you can create realistic looking sketches.
There is a big difference between real human body proportions and fashion illustration proportions. If you measure a figure in heads, an average female figure will be 8 heads tall (example below). In fashion illustration we change the proportions to make the figure look taller and it can become 8-10 heads. Every illustrator adds their own style. Some artists exaggerate proportions to make their sketches stand up and be recognizable.
Here is a simple formula that I use to draw a fashion illustration
Tools:
Paper, Pencil, Sharpener, Eraser, Colored pencils or markers
Step 1
Draw 9 inch vertical line -so it’s easy to divide it into 9 parts – it will be the balance line
Step 2:
Divide the line into 9 equal parts (each part will be the size of the head)
At the beginning you can use a ruler but after some practice you will feel pretty confident and will draw without itStep 3
At the top (part1) draw a head (egg/oval shape)
Step 4
Now lets find the lines for the neck, bust, waist, hips, crotch, knees and ankles.
1 1/3 heads -the neck and shoulder line
2 1/4 heads -bust line
Fashion Sketching 101 Youtube
3 heads – waist and elbow line
4 heads- hips line
4 1/4 -crotch line
6 heads-knees
8 heads -ankles
Step 5
Shoulders will be about 1 1/2 -2 heads wide
The waist is 1 head wide
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Hips -1 1/4 heads wide
Draw the figure, don’t pay attention to rough lines, when the proportions are correct, make the lines smooth.
Step 6
Draw the legs and leave the last part for the feet.
The thighs (from hips to knee) and the calves (from knee to ankle) are the same length
Step 7
Draw the arms-elbows are at the waist line (3 heads)
Hand starts at the crotch area and ends a little above the mark 5
Hope this tutorial was helpful, please let me know if you have any questions and what would you like to learn in my next post and check out my Fashion Illustration class on Skillshare