Costume Design And Illustration (book review).
Even if I couldn’t draw or paint, I’m a sucker for books where artists shown their craft and any tips they have, With this book, ‘Costume Design And Illustration’, we have 10 artists doing just that with lots of samples of their work. These artists, in case you’re after your own favourites are: Carlo Arelleno, Phillip Bouttte Jr., Kevin Chen, Keith Christensen, Christian Cordella, Anthony Francisco, Jerad S. Marantz, Neville Page, Scott Robertson and Constantine Sekeris.
I’ll hit on some highlights. Keith Christensen points out that getting your hands on the material you’re going to draw or paint is so useful. Phillip Bouttte Jr. says study as many fashion books as possible and not to rely on Google.
Of them all, Kevin Chen shows his complete development of an illustration from pose up, citing posture as being an important ingredient to showing the costume off. If anything, it’s a reminder that unlike standard fashion design, the figure is not a clothes horse but needs to be shown how it might be used.
Even if you don’t want to make costumes, from an art point of view, this book does offer a lot of interesting art that might inspire you to your own designs.
GF Willmetts
June 2020
(pub: Design Studio Press, 2014. 127 page illustrated large softcover. Price: I pulled my copy for about £ 8.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-93349-258-2)
check out website: www.designstudiopress.com
