How to Become a Fashion Illustrator – Step 1

Do you want to become a fashion illustrator but don’t know how nor know where to start? If so, keep reading (or watching!)

This video is part 1 of a free series on how to become a fashion illustrator.

You can watch the video or read the post, whatever is most convenient for you 😉

A bit of my background + story

Well, my fashion journey started when I was studying industrial design in college. I was feeling kind of frustrated because I loved fashion and I was creating other kind of products in school. So, I started creating my own handbags, and one day one friend told me, “hey, could you make a bag for me, design it, sew it, and all that is needed?”, and I said, “of course, yeah.”

Then more friends started to ask for the same, and also friends of friends, so that’s how I started my first fashion business; it was a handbag business. But then, as new orders began to come, it started to be kind of impossible for me to keep going with the business, especially because the time and money investments were higher than the revenue I was having.

So, one day I was searching the web, and I found a blog or an article about freelancing, then I said, “hey, I could become a freelance fashion illustrator and work on my own terms, on my own schedule, and make money while I’m still in college.” That’s what I did; I built a little portfolio and a web page, and then I started to apply to a lot of jobs and fashion illustration projects. And after a couple of weeks, I got an invitation to a footwear design project, and I said yes.

It was about designing and creating the samples of a footwear collection for women, and it was so great because I got involved in the whole process from A to Z. Besides, the samples ended in a show in Milan, so it was so super fun. Then, new projects came and all kinds of different clients, and after a couple of months I got my first fashion illustration project. It was super fun because it was all about illustrating a handbag’s collection from a brand in Dubai, and now I’m about to start a Master Degree in fashion next year (I’m super excited about it!). But in summary, that’s how I started as a fashion designer and as a fashion illustrator.

Well, after some time designing and illustrating, I started teaching and mentoring, and through all my years of experience (8 years as a fashion creative and 4 years teaching and mentoring), I found out that there are 3 major steps or phases towards becoming a fashion illustrator.

The 3 major steps to become a fashion illustrator

These phases are what I call in my course become a profitable fashion creative, the 3 pillars of success, and they are basically the same whether you want to become a fashion illustrator, fashion designer or a surface pattern designer. But in this video and in this series we’re going to focus on fashion illustration only, so let’s begin.

The 3 steps to becoming a fashion illustrator are:

1. Nurturing your skills
2. Discovering your authentic style
3. Building your biz and showing up.

We’ll cover the 3 steps in the series, and for this post we’ll start with the step number 1: nurturing your skills.

Before anything else you have to learn, practice and experiment with your skills, so you nurture them until you feel confident about them. Your skills are the foundation of your style, your career and your business they make your talent pop up, and they are the first thing potential clients see; they are looking for your skills first thing.

So what skills should you nurture?

1 | Fashion Drawing

Well, the very first skill is fashion drawing. Fashion drawing is the foundation of fashion illustration, and it comes in any fashion illustration.

You have to learn how to draw fashion figures, faces, clothing, and accessories.

Learn more: How to draw fashion figures (post), Drawing Fashion Figures + Faces (course)

2 | Fashion Illustration Techniques

The next thing you have to learn are fashion illustration techniques and what tools and materials you can experiment with. You can learn all the fashion illustration techniques that you want and must love.

For me, I got introduced to markers when I was in college, so whenever we designed something we had to illustrate that with markers. But, over the years I realized that I could mix that brand of markers with other tools like brush pens, fine liners, ink, color pencils and jelly pens. And, I really liked how the texture of the fabrics turned out, so that’s how I do whenever I have to create some quick illustrations or some quick sketches.

Another technique that I love, love, love since I was a kid is watercolors! And, also when I was in college, I took a watercolors class, but it wasn’t focused on fashion, it was more like landscapes and flowers and that kind of things. So, I started to practice and practice and practice and experiment with watercolors until I found my own style of using watercolors – and you can do the same 😉

The key here is to learn, practice and experiment as much as you can with all the fashion illustration techniques that you learn.

Some of the illustration techniques you can learn are watercolors, markers, gouache, color pencils, mix media, collage, acrylics, oils…

Learn more: Getting started with watercolor (free series), Watercolors for Fashion Illustration (course), Fashion Illustration with Markers (course) 

3 | How to work with Inspiration

The next thing to learn after fashion illustration techniques is how to work with inspiration. You have to learn what themes inspire you the most, you have to know what topics you can develop further than the obvious, and what’s more important than anything is how to take an inspiration and turn it into a final fashion illustration.

4 | How to create and how to work with a Creative Brief

Another thing to learn is how to create and how to work with a creative brief, especially if you work with clients and create custom work or commission work. It’s important because the creative brief is the introduction to the project, and it must include everything that has to have the final fashion illustration or the final fashion illustration collection that you create.

For example, the creative brief could have the inspiration, the mood board, the colors and all the things that the client requires you to have in mind.

5 | How to work with Color + Texture

Another thing you have to learn is how to work with color and texture; here comes color theory and how to render fabrics and all kinds of materials.

6 | How to work with Composition

You should also learn how to work with composition and how to make your fashion illustrations to stand out whether it’s in print or digital format.

7 | How to use Adobe Illustrator + Photoshop

And you should also learn how to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, especially if you want to work with digital illustration, but also if you want to uplift and improve your work in those programs.

So these are the most important skills you have to develop to become a fashion illustrator.

Now what?

I have a couple of steps for you to follow:

1. Make a list of all the skills that you want to learn.
2. Determine how you want to learn those skills, maybe it’s through books, courses, or school. Think about the how.
3. Get what you need to learn those skills. Again, they could be books + courses, or they could be your materials and tools to start learning and practicing and experimenting.
4. Learn one skill at a time, practice it, experiment with it, evaluate your performance and improve it. 
5. Continue with the next skill.

This step won’t be completed until you feel confident about your skills, so learn, practice and experiment and create ruthlessly every day every time you can.

Great! Now tell me in the comments, if you want to become a fashion illustrator what are the skills that you want to learn first. And then if you like this video give it a thumbs up and make sure you subscribe to my channel, so you don’t miss any video of the series. Also, if you have friends who love fashion or who would like to become a fashion illustrators, share this video with them.

And that’s it for today. See you in the next video. Bye!

P.S: Want some free resources?

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(With LOVE!)