Today I wanted to share a bit of insight into my work process – these sketches are from around 2013, but recently rediscovering them gave me pause to think about how I could share a little bit about the way I work.

Seeing as my focus recently has become more on the fashion and clothing element of my twin interests, these seemed more relevant than ever.

As a way to keep myself more fashion-savvy, I like to purchase glossy magazines. I read them and consume the articles within then put them to use for my artwork too. The idea behind them is not only to practice my drawing and illustration craft while cementing different looks in my mind, but also to try and ‘figure out’ what animal certain people look like.

The sketches are usually rough and ready and drawn in cheap lower-grade sketchbooks where I don’t feel guilty about sticking in the images resourced from the magazines.

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From there it’s simply a case of sketching out the framework of the body and drawing out the clothing on top – and seeing what sort of animal I can discover within the person they are next too. Some work out all right, others don’t so much; but the process is mostly used as a warm-up exercise leading into something bigger and a lot more polished. It’s a good excuse to try out both different outfits and different animals to those usually found in my work.

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I shall be sharing a lot more of these in posts to come as further examples and also showing how I find out which ones work and which ones don’t – although that often comes down to personal preference.