Collar to Cuff Project- Research

At college we are currently working on a new piece of coursework, where we have to design a shirt on our chosen theme using only black and white cotton. For my theme I have decided to do insects. I chose insects not only because I find them fascinating, but because there's just so many different types of insects, giving me countless aspects which I could take my inspiration from. Here's some photos from my sketch book in the researching progress, not all pages are finished or annotated yet but I'm getting there :)

Here I'm focusing mostly on moths and butterflies and the patterns that can be seen on their wings.

Close up of my first drawing in my new projects sketch book. I really like how the colour of the wings turned out.

Here I'm drawing an extreme close up of butterflies wings using different types of media to see which I work with best, and which gives me the best results. At the moment this is unfinished.

More research on moths, this time focusing more on their shapes and how I could translate that into a shirt design.

Here I extended my research to beetles, focusing slightly on their pincers.

First design, inspired heavily by the beetles on this page.

More research

Here I began moving my research away from my inspiration source and onto other aspects I should take into account when designing my shirts, such as shirt trends.

I began looking into illustrators I could emulate the style of when coming up with my illustrations. 

This is a illustration originally by Jamie Reardin drawn by me, I enjoyed drawing in her style.

close up

More research into illustrators I liked.

This is an illustration originally by Friedrich Herman but drawn by me. I found drawing this work more difficult, but I liked it at the same time.

Feeling inspired, I tried out drawing my own illustration designs but in the style of Friedrich Herman. I enjoyed this a lot.

I then went back to researching my theme, and coming up with another design based on the tubular shapes of the caterpillars.

I then began figure development to prepare me for when I began designing, so I would have a clear illustration style. I adopted Reardin's style of long legged, skeleton like figures, whilst incorporating circular cheeks and lined hair similar to that in Herman's illustrations. I gave my figures antennas and big eyes to make them seem more insect like in order to enforce my theme. 

Here I'm looking at other designers that have used insects as a inspiration source. This is a collection by Alexander McQueen that translates it's theme flawlessly.

So far I'm really enjoying this new project at college, I've got a load more in my sketch book which is all my designs, media experimentation and decorative techniques experimentation, but I'd like to add them when I'm more satisfied with their standard! (a lot of them aren't finished anyway haha)