Bright Colors, Dancing, and Soft Fabrics!
It’s been a long, hard winter for me, so I’ve been turning inward and burrowing into my warm room-cave to hibernate with my computer and sketchbook. With all the bleak flatness of winter outside I’ve been obsessing even more over fashion instead - fabrics, silhouettes, patterns, textures, hairstyles, accessories, everything (I feel like Vince Noir’s ideal girlfriend hee hee :D). I’m not going to pretend that I actually know anything about fashion now but I know when I like something and I’m trying to train myself to pick up a pen when I do. Clothing says so much about a person - it’s a crucial aspect of our identity as a species - and it’s a language we all share and that you can use to tell your readers about your characters. AND IT’S COMPLETELY AWESOME.
And that’s why I’ve decided to dump half my sketchbook over your head under the cut.
Inspiration!!!!
Right there Jaime Hernandez portrays Maggie at six separate points of her life simultaneously. WHAT
If you’ve talked to me about comics long enough I’m sure you’ve heard me bang on about Jaime Hernandez and how I admire every single last friggin’ line in every last panel he draws. One of the ways I admire him most and that I’ve been thinking a lot on as I reread my Locas collections is how he expresses his character’s shifting and growing identities through their clothing which often comes straight out of the LA punk scene. He’s incredible. Although young Hopey and Maggie are so similar in height and looks that their friends call them “the incest twins” because he is so consistent in the most basic details of his character’s looks I’ve never had any difficulty keeping them apart even if they’ve changed outfits, haircuts, and ages in every panel.
Back in December my family met in Virginia to visit my grandparents there. laughing_anima and her boyfriend barely escaped that first of many bizarre blizzards on their way down, but once we arrived at my grandparents' old house (they've moved to a retirement community) we were TRAAAAPPED. We scrounged up pumpkin dumplins and christmas snacks and had ourselves a little present exchange like the rugged survivalists we are. Then we watched this weird Hitchcock film "Suspicion" that laughing_anima brought and I grew obsessed with the outfits.
goddammit why do the people keep moving
A sketch of Chen Man’s piece Preference, the front cover artwork for Vison Magazine, February 2004, which I saw at the Cincinnati Museum’s China Design show a year or two ago.
A couple of cuties from Shoichi Aoki’s Fresh Fruits, his second photography collection of street fashion in Tokyo’s Harajuku district, which I have been all up on since high school! A gift from laughing_anima yayyy thank you for not being mad when I stole your copy of Fruits (the first one) over and over again :x
Ah yes, anatomy, the very first fashion! Our skeletons are dressed with the fabric of flesh 8D YOU SEE I AM VERY DEEP and also I love this cheap crow quill I bought and want to draw everything with it!
Can’t draw sleevies without armsies.
A parade of faces from Steve McCurry’s (National Geographic guy) photography collection Portraits (L: Insein, Burma, 1984, R: Chicago, USA, 1987) with some original character costumes thrown in there for good measure. These photographs are absolutely stunning and I would love to draw every last one. I just wish he had given the names of his subjects at least and maybe even a quote from them.
Another one (Timbuktu, Mali, 1985) plus some extra noses and mouths.
Sooo cool!
I just realized that I found every single one of these pictures on Tom and Lorenzo.
Pulled from this utterly glamorous and idiotically named Vogue Italia shoot Black Allure.
Since I’ve been living on the internet lately it’s only natural that I would want to lure you in my den. Please feel free to curl up and hibernate with me in the lovely world of fashion links:
The extremely talented Emily Carroll (who wrote the shiveringly good horror tale His Face All Red which I recommend you go read right nowwwww ok) and Vera Bosgal have been challenging each other to draw dresses from any era they can get their hands on.
Timeless Vintage is just that.
As you might have noticed Tom and Lorenzo have been delighting me with their constant witty and thoughtful fashion/reality tv posts that help me neverrrrr leave the house. I particularly enjoy their China Fashion Weekposts.
Illustrator Angie Wang has been coming up with some extremely bizarre “speculative fashion” on her blog Wangie.
I feel like whiz kid Tavi Gevinson’s has got it right: her particular combination of sincerity and playfulness with fashion excites me. Her heartfelt tribute to Alexander McQueen (whose work plain floors me) features some amazing photographs of his last line.
And Laurence Philomene’s photography has a peculiarly soothing presence.
Who, when, and where are your fashion inspirations?
And that’s why I’ve decided to dump half my sketchbook over your head under the cut.
Inspiration!!!!
Right there Jaime Hernandez portrays Maggie at six separate points of her life simultaneously. WHAT
If you’ve talked to me about comics long enough I’m sure you’ve heard me bang on about Jaime Hernandez and how I admire every single last friggin’ line in every last panel he draws. One of the ways I admire him most and that I’ve been thinking a lot on as I reread my Locas collections is how he expresses his character’s shifting and growing identities through their clothing which often comes straight out of the LA punk scene. He’s incredible. Although young Hopey and Maggie are so similar in height and looks that their friends call them “the incest twins” because he is so consistent in the most basic details of his character’s looks I’ve never had any difficulty keeping them apart even if they’ve changed outfits, haircuts, and ages in every panel.
Back in December my family met in Virginia to visit my grandparents there. laughing_anima and her boyfriend barely escaped that first of many bizarre blizzards on their way down, but once we arrived at my grandparents' old house (they've moved to a retirement community) we were TRAAAAPPED. We scrounged up pumpkin dumplins and christmas snacks and had ourselves a little present exchange like the rugged survivalists we are. Then we watched this weird Hitchcock film "Suspicion" that laughing_anima brought and I grew obsessed with the outfits.
goddammit why do the people keep moving
A sketch of Chen Man’s piece Preference, the front cover artwork for Vison Magazine, February 2004, which I saw at the Cincinnati Museum’s China Design show a year or two ago.
A couple of cuties from Shoichi Aoki’s Fresh Fruits, his second photography collection of street fashion in Tokyo’s Harajuku district, which I have been all up on since high school! A gift from laughing_anima yayyy thank you for not being mad when I stole your copy of Fruits (the first one) over and over again :x
Ah yes, anatomy, the very first fashion! Our skeletons are dressed with the fabric of flesh 8D YOU SEE I AM VERY DEEP and also I love this cheap crow quill I bought and want to draw everything with it!
Can’t draw sleevies without armsies.
A parade of faces from Steve McCurry’s (National Geographic guy) photography collection Portraits (L: Insein, Burma, 1984, R: Chicago, USA, 1987) with some original character costumes thrown in there for good measure. These photographs are absolutely stunning and I would love to draw every last one. I just wish he had given the names of his subjects at least and maybe even a quote from them.
Another one (Timbuktu, Mali, 1985) plus some extra noses and mouths.
Sooo cool!
Click to view
I just realized that I found every single one of these pictures on Tom and Lorenzo.
Pulled from this utterly glamorous and idiotically named Vogue Italia shoot Black Allure.
Since I’ve been living on the internet lately it’s only natural that I would want to lure you in my den. Please feel free to curl up and hibernate with me in the lovely world of fashion links:
The extremely talented Emily Carroll (who wrote the shiveringly good horror tale His Face All Red which I recommend you go read right nowwwww ok) and Vera Bosgal have been challenging each other to draw dresses from any era they can get their hands on.
Timeless Vintage is just that.
As you might have noticed Tom and Lorenzo have been delighting me with their constant witty and thoughtful fashion/reality tv posts that help me neverrrrr leave the house. I particularly enjoy their China Fashion Weekposts.
Illustrator Angie Wang has been coming up with some extremely bizarre “speculative fashion” on her blog Wangie.
I feel like whiz kid Tavi Gevinson’s has got it right: her particular combination of sincerity and playfulness with fashion excites me. Her heartfelt tribute to Alexander McQueen (whose work plain floors me) features some amazing photographs of his last line.
And Laurence Philomene’s photography has a peculiarly soothing presence.
Who, when, and where are your fashion inspirations?