Adobe Sketch App Fashion Sketching: Step by Step

Adobe sketch app for digital fashion fashion sketching is, hands-down, a top pick.

I’ve spent a lot of time inside all of the popular freehand digital painting and drawing apps for iphone,

Especially for beginners, AND BEGINNING IS THE HARDEST PLACE TO BE SO IT’S GOOD TO HAVE A SOLID START.

I name this app as one of my top choices

and also included it in my ABOUT FACES digital fashion sketching online course..

Check out my top article to learn about the 3 BEST APPS for digital fashion sketching here.

I’m going to walk you through some of the steps I used to sketch my friend for her birthday, from a photo I found on her instagram feed.

(QUICK TIP: sketching from photos and living things is a guaranteed way to improve your drawing. Stop judging, don’t try to create masterpieces every time, but DO allow yourself to explore and play and disciver drawing by actively capturing things you see on paper, any-which-way. For a deep drawing revolution experience, check out MODEL MAGIC online course.)

Here are steps and benefits of Adobe Sketch APP;

1. LOOK HOW NATURAL THE PENCIL IS.

You know that every fashion illustrator loves a good pencil. That’s why I have a hard time loving a digital drawing app that doesn’t offer me a pencil!

Smudgy, gritty, uneven, sensitive…Pencil. gets darker and more opaque as you add layers to it.

TOP TIP: It starts out rather sheer and soft so you can use it to draw something ever-so-lightly before you commit to anything. )

(QUICK TIP: this is the drawing screen. at the left, your pencil tool is the line at the top of the toolbar. Under that is a circle that selects how thick or thin your pencil will be. Under THAT is s circle that choose how SHEER OR OPAQUE your pencil will be. Finally, under THAT is a circle that is your color selector. YOU CAN USE ANY COLOR PENCIL IN THE WORLD! no sharpening needed!)

PS: Apple Pencil has some enhancements- you can also use this app with a bare fiinger. But, if you use apple pencil, when you tilt your pencil to the side instead of the tip it makes a braod smudge. Just like a natural pencil would. (See how I did that in the spine area and between her legs?)

Step 2: Check out the watercolor

See the smudge at the top of the tool bar at left in Adobe Sketch app? That’s the watercolor brush. Under that I’ve selected the size, opacity, and color.

Can you see how I used watercolor to add all of the colors to the digital fashion illustration? (If I had been working on paper I’d use markers, gouache, or watercolors. We use gouache in my Premium Fashion Design package)

(QUICK TIP: Notice how adding a horizon line and background create space behind the model, so that she really POPS out in front!)

Don’t forget to zoom in if you want to get a better look at the variations in the color that make the watercolor look natural.

(QUICK TIP: zoom in while drawing to work out details. ESPECIALLY if you are using your fingers instead of a stylus)

By the way, below the toolbar you can see a set of sliders (they make the brushes super-customizable once you understand the basics). Under THAT, there is a little icon that looks like a fan in Adobe Sketch App. A lot of watercolor digital painting apps have this so that you can control when the paint “dries” and stops flowing.

(QUICK TIP: Why? So that you can control when you get a “wet-on-wet” paint effect (like the green bottle on the blue sky here). If you use the fan,you won’t get that… the color will keep a hard, dry edge once you’ve dried it. )

STEP 3: DEFINITION by SHADING

Here you can compare the image below to the image above, and notice how adding depth with shading makes a tremendous difference. You get more depth and “POP”, more contrast, even more MOVEMENT when you add shadows to your digital fashion illustrations OR on paper. Really, the principles are the same.

STEP 5: “HOLDING LINE”

Notice that not only is it the shadows I added, but also there are new, blacker lines here and there in the digital fashion sketching I made.

(QUICK TIP: don’t worry about darkening EVERY line, darken SOME OF the lines. THIS is what gives VARIETY. If all of your lines are light, or all of your lines are dark, then your drawing can become “flat”. Why don’t you try it and see for yourself?)