Hi friends! Happy new year! I hope you all had a great Christmas. My vacation was wonderful—full of family and good food. I wish it could have been longer, but such is the life of an adult. We don’t always get what we want. I’m grateful for the time I had though.
On to today’s topic. There are many steps to costume design. Once you have read the script (perhaps several times) and done your research (which should include fabric), it’s time to put your designs on paper. This is called doing renderings. Renderings are simply a colored drawing or painting of your designs on a figure. Renderings can be as detailed as the designer sees fit. Many designers will draw multiple positioned croquis (a sketched figure) that they reuse as a base for their designs. This saves time by not having to entirely redraw figures for every design. Rather they only need to quickly trace their preexisting croquis. Finished renderings are often accompanied by fabric swatches that you intend to use in your designs.
The purpose of renderings is to communicate your designs to the production team as well as to give to the costume shop to base the costume construction off of. The more detailed the rendering, the easier to communicate the designer’s intentions.
Renderings are my weakness because my artistic ability is unpracticed. I would spend hours doing my renderings while in college and still be unsatisfied. My professor was right though, you just need consistent practice.
If renderings are your weakness, here are a few things you can do to get better.
1. Practice sketching a posed figure everyday. Just a quick sketch, nothing too detailed, but not a cop out either. Alternate between females and males.
2. Study human anatomy focusing on the body’s shape and musculature for both sexes. They are very different.
3. Watch and follow along tutorials on sketching and coloring your sketches in your preferred medium (I.e. paint, markers, colored pencil, computer etc.) Lots of tutorials can be found on YouTube and Pinterest.
Something to be aware of is the difference between fashion design figures and costume design figures. Fashion design figures focus on the ideal body rather than on character or diverse body types. They are taller and more slender than the average human. They often have more muscle and broadness to their shoulders in the case of males than an average human. Their faces are often blank expressions or that runway stoicism. We don’t commonly use figures like this in costume design. We opt for realistic and common body types and poses as well as character on our figures. If the designer has already seen the actors who will be wearing their designs, they will often base their sketch on the actor.
Here are some examples of renderings.
Here are some tools/art supplies used for creating renderings.
1. Sketch pad, marker pad, and water color pad. You pay for what you get. Acid free is best for longevity.
2. Water colors. The following brands work well: Turner, Daler, Rowney, Winsor and Newton, Utretcht, and Reeves.
3. Sketching pencil set.
4. Colored pencils. Some good brands are Prismacolor, Premiere, and Faber Castell.
5. Markers in neutrals and spectrum colors. It’s also good to have double ended markers with nibs and chisel ends to create different types of lines. Some good brands are Prismacolor, Copic, Primrosia, Winsor and Newton, and Arrtx. I found this article that lists reviews about the best markers and pens for fashion illustration if you want to dive deeper: https://www.artnyfair.com/best-markers-for-fashion-illustration/
6. Digital options: Tayasui sketches app, Photoshop, Adobe illustrator, Corel Draw, Pret-a-template, and Sketchbook.
Hope you’ve enjoyed delving into costume design with me. If you have any questions, comment below. Thanks for reading! XOXO!
The Struggling Artist 
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