Drawing a proportional figure is the foundation of fashion illustration. The most detailed and accurate garment drawings can't convey their message without the proper fashion figure underneath. Getting that figure just right can often be the trickiest part for many aspiring fashion designers. Packed with scores of correctly proportioned fashion poses suitable for a variety of garments and styles of design, this book provides the tools to draw and render the draped fashion figure, perfectly, every time. As well as ready-made figures, students have a library of foundation garment blocks and design details, enabling them to bring their own uniquely clothed fashion figures to life.-Machine Knitting Monthly If you are doing a fashion course or (like this reviewer) have a job that involves designing patterns then you will need to be able to produce some good drawings of the garments. If a talent for artwork was not given to you along with your talent for fashion designing and pattern cutting then a book like this will be a godsend, as your work will magically be transformed into something that (hopefully) will pass exams and/or interest buyers. I am used to drawing my own, less glamorous-looking bodies wearing my creations, so opened this book with great interest. Not only is it filled with sketches of leggy figures of both sexes (no children) sporting attractive attire but it also looks at different markets and how to present garment for each one. From couture fashion to off-the-peg budget clothing it is interesting to see how the figures and their poses subtly alter. Also covered are how to show different fabrics, what to use to make your mark and a brief look at working with Adobe Illustrator. Turn to the inside cover and you will discover a CD featuring all the figure poses in .jpg and .tiff file formats, plus all the garments. All are copyright free and in very high resolution (over 100dpi) and all you have to do is choose a figure in a suitable pose, pick the garments and accessories you require that will fit over it and the line drawings will obligingly appear in transparent format reading to be dropped over the figure. Erase the parts you don't want, add your own touches and voila! My new lace overlay dress was magically before my eyes ready to show my editor. It was all very user friendly and I can recommend this as a painless and fast way of conjuring up a fashion plate in double-quick time that looks very professional indeed.-Myshelf.com This book is a fantastic aid for fashion illustration, oodles of poses for different clothes, shoes and bags and a very useful section on techniques for depicting fabrics and a disc of the poses too !! Excellent for beginners and a wonderful tool for teaching, it makes me want to draw. I am starting a fashion drawing class this year and this will definately be on the recommended book list for the students.-Billyshowell.co.uk What a fascinating thing the imagination is. Without need for evaluating budget, practicality or feasibility, one can invent all sorts of wild and wonderful things and allow them to exist happily in their own mind's eye. Unfortunately for fashion designers, this creativity needs to translate into fabulous drawings if it is ever going to manifest itself in a show stopping garment. With this in mind, Sha Tahmasebi has composed Figure Poses for Fashion Illustrators to teach designers how to express their ideas with paper and pencil. Divided into three main chapters, Dynamic Fashion Figures, Basic Garment Blocks and Rendering Techniques, Sha teaches her readers how to sketch the body in a number of positions and in relation to lots of different garments and styles of clothing. For instance, she may use this sexier silhouette for something like an underwear sketch. As well as providing tips and hints for how to sketch correctly, Sha also ensures that she provides lots of information about fashion terminology so that students understand the facts and figures behind their creations. This would prove particularly useful for the budding business fashionista. Not only does Sha provide an understanding of shapes and garments, but she also gives the reader suggestions for creating the illusion of different textures in shading and how to digitally enhance images. By including finishing touches like these, sketches can be transformed into concepts and thus the reader is capable of presenting completely refined designs. A CD is included with over 250 copyright-free images and the pages of the book include lots of different sketched figures, allowing for easy scanning, tracing or copying. Spoilt for choice when deciding how to create these images, it is merely up to the student to inject the sketched figures with wild and wonderful clothes. This book would be a brilliant starting point for budding fashion illustrators as it contains a perfect combination of beginner's tips and professional touches.-alamodeappraisal.wordpress.com Be your own fashion designer with the help of this book and the handy cd that comes with it. There are 250 templates of figures in various fashion poses for you to scan and create your own designs. Using them with the accompanying basic garment blocks and the design elements and textiles you can create garments from sporty leisure wear to the elegance of a luxury evening gown. I love the way that fashion illustrators in the Sunday and quality papers seem to be able to render a perfect figure and the swish of fine fabrics with a few simple strokes of a brush and this books shows some of the techniques used. Of course if you're pc literate the cd and the fact that you can ad your own fabric designs to the figures mean the only limits to what you can create us your own imagination. You can use this book to work by hand or use the CD to import into digital art programmes - and although marketed for those interested in fashion illustration I see it as having potential for any artist who does figurative work, as it has such a variety of poses and shows so well the way that clothing drapes according to the fabrics used. I can also see it having an appeal for the fashion conscious teenager who wants to begin creating their own design collections. Who knows where that could lead?-JeannieZelos.com
