Designing Costumes with software and other ?

[khanjar]

I need some focus as I am starting to lose it with the dancing as well and so, when like this I usually turn to art to centre and balance and so one thing I have not done yet is created a costume for dancing as one can perhaps appreciate not a lot is available off the peg, so it will have to be designed and made by my own fair hands and so I have decided to design a dancing costume hoping the practice will help me focus again.

I do have a design on the go, but 34,000 hand sawn magnesium alloy chain mail rings it's a big job and I am only 12,000 rings joined it's going to take too long and my need is this year or early next, but preferably this year and so I need a costume and I have a few ideas in mind but I need a pictorial representation and so where next?

And so my question, does anyone design their own costumes as in draw them prior to considering making and if so how do you do it, using manual art techniques or software ?

I have on my Mac Adobe In Design which includes Illustrator CS5 but I haven't got a clue how to use it, as my focus has always been on Photoshop, does anyone use Illustrator, and if so is there anything about, where I can hopefully learn what skills are needed specific to costume design ?

 

[Daimona]

I do both, and I've actually got a sketching book full of drawn costume ideas (some of them fulfilled, but most will never be made and the sketches have saved me from wasting both time and materials). Though, the recent years I've made more sketches in digital version (I've used Adobe photoshop or Gimp and Paintshop Pro) as it is easier to just make digital copies and work in layers for the big details.

For my sketchbook I've made a croquis with my proportions which I use as a guideline.
For digital design, I usually make an outline of my body from a full-figured picture and draw the costume on new layers above the outline. I've also manipulated pictures of other dancers in costumes I'd like have to fit my proportions to see if I could wear similar costumes.

 

[Ariadne]

Here: Male Fashion Croquis Templates
They are available in Adobe Illustrator and JPEG format so you can either work with it right on your computer or print and trace. As much as I love Photoshop and Illustrator I find it easiest to just draw them. I can always scan the drawings in and finish playing with color etc. in Photoshop afterward.

 

[Amulya]

Misreading thread titles: I read that as costumes with software in them, hahaha! I am a bit zoned out on painkillers, that's why I am so lame

 

[khanjar]

Here: Male Fashion Croquis Templates
They are available in Adobe Illustrator and JPEG format so you can either work with it right on your computer or print and trace. As much as I love Photoshop and Illustrator I find it easiest to just draw them. I can always scan the drawings in and finish playing with color etc. in Photoshop afterward.

Thank you to the link to the croquis, but what poses hahaha.

Also I do find the cannon used in fashion design to be irritating like 8.5 heads, those over long thighs annoy me but they are good for practising on, but for my ideas I will be doing as Daimona is and tracing from a photograph as correct proportions are a bugbear to me.

The Illustrator live trace function I need to get the hang of, as that will make life very easy.

But I used to draw manually but my place is damp so art materials don't last, my paper is always slightly damp and pencils dig in and my watercolour pencils have gone weird- all crumbly. So, it is using the computer now.

 

[Ariadne]

Thank you to the link to the croquis, but what poses hahaha.

Also I do find the cannon used in fashion design to be irritating like 8.5 heads,...

I know, aren't the poses insane?

Since you mentioned you have Photoshop... Personally I take the croquises and then adjust the proportions in photoshop till they're right using the edit>free transform function. That way I have the guidelines that I can work with when designing and I'm not guessing where the waist is etc. The legs are so long I actually cut them off, shorten them to the right length, and then paste them back on. I cut the head off before widening the body then paste it back on too. You could always take the photo of you and throw it in on it's own layer to make sure the adjusted croquis matches your exact size. It's just so handy to have all the guidelines.

 

[Aniseteph]

The male poses are stupid, but the legs on the female ones - :shok:

 

[Ariadne]

Maybe that is what the models really look like if they're eating these: "Are Fashion Models Really Eating This to Stay Thin?". *shivers*

 

[Shanazel]

Having had a lifelong struggle with weight control and consequentially having spent more than a few years struggling with anorexia/bulemia I am not the least bit surprised to read that women whose careers depend on being thin resort to anything to keep themselves from feeling like they are starving, which of course many of them are.

I watch Project Runway on the computer regularly and it's interesting to see how few designers are capable of turning out clothing for any body shape except tall and narrow. More appalling are the remarks some of those designers make about their "imperfectly" shaped models from the non-fashion world, as if those women and men are responsible for the goddawful clothes the designers create for them.

Wow. Totally off the subject. Where's the moderator when you need her?

Oops. That would be me. Sorry, Khanjar.

But it is an interesting subject especially in view of hyper-body-conscious dancers. Maybe time for a shift to a new thread? Would you mind if I started it with your post, Ariadne?

 

[Ariadne]

Go right ahead Shanazel. It's certainly a subject worth discussing.

 

[Shanazel]

Okay. Spinoff complete. New thread: costumes and body image.

I'm leaving a copy of the original posts here so as not to break the flow of conversation but please please add any further comments to the new thread.

Thanks!