Book review-Fashion Illustration by Anna Kiper

Fashion Illustration by Anna Kiper

This is the first book on fashion illustration that I have read for a long time and on the initial flick through the book I was quite impressed with the eye-catching art.  Before I even looked in the book in any great detail I found the artists own story, which was included as part of the introduction, inspiring in itself; a young Russian girl immigrates alone to the USA in order to follow her dreams of becoming a fashion illustrator.

The book begins with some important tutorials aimed specifically at the aspiring fashion illustrator, detailing the fashion figure, tips on proportion and form used in fashion design and drawing interesting gestural forms. The positions are kept realistic but interesting and emphasises the importance of supporting leg positions, the shape of the walking figure and the blocking in method to create interesting silhouettes. Also covered is the fashion figure in perspective and various rotations of the body.

She then goes into more depth when adding detail to the figure, focusing on faces, hair, skin tones and drawing the elegant forms of a fashion models arms, hands, legs and feet.

Next up is clothing the fashion figure and this fills the majority of the book. Particular attention is paid to the way that different clothes and materials behave on the body depending on the position of the model. There is a very interesting part included within this section which demonstrates how to build up layers of clothing starting from underwear through to overcoats.

A ‘Fashion Dictionary’ is included which basically consists of labelled illustrations of a wide range of clothing. The labels are particularly useful and aid the reader in identifying the names of different types of pockets, or shapes of lapels for instance. The author then demonstrates different page compositions and layout variations to assist in producing your own design board, coloured accents are featured to add balance and energy to your page.

There is a short section on illustrating children and men and looks at the types of clothing they may wear but the main focus of this book is on women.

Another section I enjoyed was on fabric rendering techniques which demonstrates the best media for illustrating particular types of fabric and also looks at using fabric swatches to inspire or accompany your designs. This then leads into the final section of the book where the artist explores a wide range of media.

I found this book to be useful and interesting but I would have liked it that bit more if there had maybe been some input from other illustrators just to give it more variation in style.