Fashion Illustrator 4- Niki Pilkington

Niki Pilkington is a Welsh illustrator based in New York, who is currently back in London working for MTV. She studied GCSE, A Level and Art Foundation in Wales, then received a first class honours degree in Fashion Promotion and Illustration from Ravensbourne, London.

Specialising in trend inspired fashion portraits with great details; she got her inspirations from people she sees every day, focusing on the clothes that they wear and also places that she visits.

She also likes to combine phrases, idioms, and quotes into her pieces to tell a story each time she produce an artwork. She draws the main illustration mostly made out of line drawings, first using pencil to draft, which takes about a few hours, and going through it again with harder lines, then add colour, prints and lastly, adding 3D elements so that her artwork will stay fresh. 

She uses pencils, felt-tip fluorescent markers and pens. 

Since 2011 she's been sponsored by Derwent pencils and she also manage to draw for the covers of Derwent pencils’ pencil covers!

Her contemporary aesthetic adorns the walls of private collectors’ homes and galleries, and she also exhibits her artwork at local exhibition centres to showcase her art work. She also had them up on pages of numerous books and magazines with client list of TOPSHOP, Ted Baker, Sir Paul McCartney & MTV.

She also sells her artwork online via her own online shopping site, and also customized phone cases, pencil cases, pillow cases and all, using her art pieces. She also sell post cards and tote bags.  And frequently, she will have giveaways for her loyal subscribers and customers!

In addition, she also opens workshop for kids to teach them how to draw like her.

Niki takes in portraits requests from customers who wished to have them drawn by her, but at a high price.

WHAT HAVE I LEARNT:

Not all illustrations have to be in 2D forms. Adding 3D elements to it can actually help in the appearance and also the effect of the drawing.

Fashion Illustrator 3- Sarah Hankinson

Sarah Hankinson is a 30 year old Australian who initially studied graphic design then changed to fine arts and finally illustration. She finished in 2004 with a Diploma and worked during weekends on her illustration before being a full time freelance illustrator.



Her drawings are of modern style, which pair light splashes of colors and clear lines which create elegant illustrations using pencils, charcoals, pastels, color pencils, watercolors and photoshop. Her inspiration comes from blogs, fashion, beauty sites, fashion photography, exhibitions, colors, cultures, movies and music.  
She usually just go straight to her final drawing without rendering, and she will always carry her watercolor palet and pencils everywhere she go to jot down ideas or to have a quick sketch.

Her first big break was with Girlfriend Magazine, then slowly, it includes Be Magazine of Paris, David Jones, Famous, Habbot, Inside Out and even Made in Chelsea and Harpers Bazaar!

She is also featured in magazines such as Canadian fashion publication 1968; an upscale fashion and art magazine, Shop till you drop magazine and Hello May magazine.
And she also exhibited at ‘Chapel off Chapel’ and ‘Design A Space’ galleries in Prahran, Melbourne

In 2012 Sarah co-founded The Windsor Workshop, a co-working studio space which is also a half of creative services agency Santiago Sunbird. She also has an online store which she sells her artwork of self-painted dairy covers, calendars, or just random drawings.

 

WHAT HAVE I LEARNT:

Personally, I really like her style of drawings as they look very elegant and they are of great details. So therefore, my takeaways from her is that, to experiment with different materials, and to find inspirations from anywhere and everywhere as there are no restrictions. And like what she said, “Work hard! Don’t be disheartened if it doesn’t happen straight away it takes time and commitment. If you are passionate you can make it happen.” So we need to be passionate about what we do!

 

 

 

Credits: Jackiemagpie.com
sketchbookmagazine.com
sarahhankinson.com

 

 

 

Fashion Illustrator 2- Gerardo Amparo

Gerardo Amparo is 26 years old, a Fashion illustrator & an artist from Miami, Florida.
He started drawing since 3 and had studied at New World School of the Arts and he started to post fashion illustrations on the net in 2012 and had a brand that he's building up called 'Royal Castle' and had already produced some of his designs out to his costumers and fans.

His sketches were all done by hand, using pencils, permanent markers & drawing markers/pens, then after that, scanned onto the computer to edit.
He draws celebrities and what they wore on red carpets, magazines, or their stage outfits. He also draws outfits from fashion designers’ runway collections that he likes, or is popular/ in trend and incorporates his own style to it.

He also designs for his own labels ‘Gerardo Amparo’ & ‘Royal Castle’ (Major in men wear with a little bit of women wear)
However his designs were usually of a specific theme. He seems to like to add a lot of embellishments and accessories to his designs and likes to use prints with loud colors, making his collection very fanciful and colorful at the same time. Haunt Couture Full Collection by Gerardo Amparo Poison Ivy

As much as he likes designing outfits, he also likes to design shoes. His shoes were of high heels and boots. And all the sketches were very bold.

 

 

His own designs of shoes collections using loud prints

 

 

From his sketch of the model, we can actually see that he tends to embraces and accentuate the curves & features women. In his sketch, the model have thin, small waist, with equal top and bottom. This is called as the ‘Hourglass shape’ aka, the ‘perfect shape’ of what a woman should have. The legs of the model were very long and are curvy and healthy looking, unlike what we see normally on the runway. His model sketches has also changed a lot, at first, when sketching, he didn’t draw any facial features, so the face were flat. He also didn’t color any clothes or body part he drew if the garment focus weren’t on them. The shading of his sketches has also improved, as at first, they were very empty, not much filled up. But now, the sketches were fully colored.

This was the expressionless, colorless, no figure model he drew back in his starting days.

 

the 'perfect silhouette' model of his recent drawing

 

 

Learning point:

DREAM BIG & NEVER GIVE UP.
If he didn’t dream big, he would still only be a fashion illustrator or just an artist, and wouldn’t be featured in GQ magazine or sell his collections!

Credits/Source:

facebook.com/ljricherson.love

instavillage.com/u/gerardo_amparo/

instagram.com/#gerardo_amparo

 

Fashion Illustrator- Hayden Williams

Hayden Williams, 22, is a London UK born British Fashion Illustrator & Designer.

He has been drawing since he was 3 and he revealed that Disney had played a fundamental part in his childhood and had been a strong source of inspiration for him. He said that the 1st character he ever drew was Cinderella. 

Although He had no formal illustrative training, he did go to college and then university to study fashion design. 

In 2009, he started posting his drawings online and currently have over 770 sketches and still counting!

He has vast following, which includes over 500,000 fans on media sites, like Vogue, Oprah, Beyonce and Naomi Campbell.

Most of his most popular designs are inspired by vintage fashion editorials and films. 

He love the 40′s, the late 50′s and early 60′s because women dressed so impeccably and with such class. So he incorporate those classic elements and add some modern twist it in his work. He also gets inspiration from Pop Culture; in the media or music.

 “I always want to portray women in a positive way that is strong, sexy and confident but sophisticated and classic too. Those elements make up the Hayden Williams woman and design aesthetic.”-HW

He also tends to draw celebrities, models, famous icons, runway collections, and adding his style together with their own styles and features.

He starts his drawings on papers with pen and markers/liners then scan them onto his computer.

He also revealed that it can take as little as 10-15 minutes to do a quick sketch, however one of his fully completed masterpieces with colour can take around one hour. He said: “I am a very fast worker and once I have an idea or vision in my head, I can translate it pretty quickly and in one take.”

And from what ive noticed, in this 5 years of posting his drawings online, his styles had changed quite a lot. From what i observed, now, he's more able to draw higher quality sketches and, the models, proportions and structures are more sharp, with his own sense of elements and style added to it, which make it more unique, like when you see his drawing, you can tell that it's his straight away. It is like his trademark. 

My learning point from him is that, 

-we need to be passionate about this industry

-must be consistent, focused & hardworking 

-use what we have around us to help us like photoshop, social media, phones, etc to take down references, help us in our work, & to help us in marketing ourselves

Credits; taken/read from; 

http://www.thearcadiaonline.com/

 http://myfashioncogitation.tumblr.com/

 http://haydenwilliamsillustrations.tumblr.com/

http://haydenwilliamsfashionillustrations.blogspot.sg/