Customer Reviews

Figure Drawing for Fashion Design (Pepin Press Design Books)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I ordered this book as a hobby figuring that the 200+ pages must have some decent methods to improve my drawing skills. I have been looking for a fashion design instruction book for a long time now. This is certainly an elusive topic to find information on -- even on the web I couldn't find any website that offered any helpful instructions. I have never been able to find anything suitable, especially since I didn't want to invest a lot. This book was a good price that I didn't think would be too much of a loss if I didn't find it useful.

I was thrilled when I received it and immediately opened the book to find everything I had always hoped for. Being that I have no formal art or fashion training, I thought this book was exceptional. It has tons of pages of basic fashion design drawing concepts, templates, body positions. There are so many samples that, with practice, any beginner can really get a good grip on. It's a very good basic introduction to fashion design. Also, for beginners, it's got some pretty good instructions and examples of drawing all parts of the body (head, eyes, mouth, arm, leg, feet, hands, etc).

If you think you might be interested in this area of drawing, get this book! You can't beat the quality for the price. In my opinion, a rare gem!

I am very picky about fashion illustration books. My two favorites are written by Kathryn Hagen. Figure Drawing for Fashion Design is my third favorite. The illustrations are very well done. I don't like the way the artist interprets faces and some of the drawings are a bit on the crude side, but overall, the drawings and instructions are very good. The women seem rather masculine, but the proportions are accurate and it is easy to make simple modifications to create more attractive faces with less angular features. I think, perhaps they are angular to emphasize the underlying structure. From what I can tell, most of the faces are the same. White women with high cheek bones and huge lips. I get the feeling there were a few illustrators who contributed to this book, because some of the illustrations are quite fluid and beautiful, while others are lacking. I attended FIDM, and most of what I learned came from my own determination, common sense, and observation of photos in fashion magazines rather than any book that was provided (which, by the way were completely unacceptable!). Had this been our text, I think my (we) did. Although I am fairly good at fashion illustration, there is lots of information that I found useful, and I think this book is an excellent reference for designers at any level of experience. I don't do much fashion illustrations these days as I spend most of my time making custom corsets, but if i did, I would certainly make use of this book. It's far less expensive than Hagen's books, and I like it much more than 9 Heads, which I never cared for. The colored illustrations are ugly (too gaudy and rock star-ish) to me, I must admit, but for someone who isn't really great at rendering fabrics or needs some quick, well proportioned croquis, this book will be very helpful. There are many different models, all shown in various, and even dynamic poses.There are some lovely hands from all different angles, and great examples of all types of foot wear, also from many angles. Those are the sections I found most useful. The section on flats is comprehensive and shows a great deal of detailing including top stitching with various silhouettes. Excellent instruction on how to place a garment on the body, and how to make the fabric look real and drape properly. There is a copy of a production schedule, croguis for flats from different angles (most books have only front and back). It shows how to build a fashion figure from scratch, starting with a stick frame, adding cylinders, then fleshing out the curves, once again, from many different angles, which is not very common in most books of this nature. I would very highly reccomend this book, even if you have only a slight interest or one time need for a fashion illustration reference. Even the less attractive drawings are useful. It's less than $20. Most books of this quality are closer to $100. I wish I had more books like this, and at such a low price, I almost felt like I had stolen something!

This book is a thorough guide for learning the art of fashion design illustration. The book features a plethora of examples to teach how to draw faces and poses in correct proportion, as seen in professional fashion illustrations. The examples in the book are large, facilitating the use of tracings prior to free-hand drawing. Anyone who wants to learn fashion design, especially teenagers interested in the field, will find this book an invaluable asset.

i thought this book was great and easy to read you learn alot from just copying and praticing your drawing technigues, its amazing and loved the art. its a must buy for a fashion student or for some interstead in fashion illustration.

I was abit disappointed in this book, I found the illustrations quite old fashioned with an 80's vibe, not what I was expecting. Even the clothes in the illustrations had Dallas style shoulder pads. I'm studying fashion design in college, so I was expecting to be inspired, through the use of different media and rendering techniques, which unfortunately didn't happen. But some of the templates for poses are useful and it would be ok as a starting point.

This is the kind of book that deserves 5 stars simply based on the current competition: many other fashion books are either too expensive, or are just not done well enough, to justify a click on the "Add to Shopping Cart" button.

It's illustrations are about 89% black & white (in number), and 100% detail the basics of female fashion figures- no men! It's true that many of these women look a little on the stiff or masculine side; they actually sometimes look like Mick Jagger(!). Still, they generally look reasonably good, and nearly all are done in a very clean & consistent pencil style, which contributes to an overall professional look here.

In 216 pages, about 26 pages include partial or full color. There are no photos or backgrounds, just figure drawings on white paper. About a quarter of the figures presented are nude; the rest of the figures having at least a little bit of clothing. The beginning of the book details basic close-up views of the head & figure, but most illustrations detail entire figures on the page. I really like the application of simple, 3-dimensional basic shapes to fashion figures here. It's a *highly* streamlined look at the basics. If you're a fashion artist I can't see why you wouldn't want this book, but if you're mainly interested in figure drawing in general, this is probably just a 4-star effort.

People interested in developing more detailed figure drawing skills might also want to check out: The Figure: The Classic Approach to Drawing and Construction by Walt Reed, Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm, and then How To Draw Manga Volume 22: Bishoujo Around The World (How to Draw Manga) by Hikaru Hayashi. Check 'em out!

This book is full of graphics and excellent information about drawing the fashion figure. I teach fashion design and illustration and I recommend this to anyone, beginner or intermediate!

This was a great book with fabulous sketches and ideas for upcoming fashion designers. The book presents sketches for all the different styles and cuts of clothing. Highly recommend!!

We got this for our teenage daughter to learn the beginning steps of fashion design. I think for the reviewers who said it was too basic for them, they may be more advanced, but for beginners this is a lot of foundational groundwork to learn about drawing bodies and clothing. Each page shows drawings/ sketches, and explains the technique and how to learn to draw QUICKLY as a fashion designer presenting ideas, not just a casual sketcher.

I would recommend this for high school age and above as a first book to try out their talents and learn some of the basics. For an introduction to fashion design it is a huge and detailed volume. It covers enough of the business side of fashion design that it can help a person decide if the career would really interest them. Well worth the price!

I bought this book in order to help me with a Principles of Design class. It was mostly a sketching class and the book helps the student understand how the body is divided when it comes to drawing fashion and croquis. Overall, I think its a fantastic book because it also includes how to draw faces, eyes, hands, etc as well as how textures are drawn and comes with a few color sketches and ideas to get you started. The rest is up to your own imagination.