Pippa McManus

I first stumbled upon Pippa McManus' intricately detailed illustration from Mary Katrantzou's Facebook page when she won one of the brand's illustration competition by recreating a dress from its Autumn Winter 2012 Ready-to-Wear collection. This Perth-based Australian grew with art surrounding her life. Pippa's father is an engraver and her mother is an artist. However, her passion in fashion design and illustrating came about when her 14-year-old self bought her first copy of Paris Vogue. Then, she started illustrating and even designing clothes for her friends. As of now, well-known brands such as Mary Katrantzou, Giorgio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Wildfox, and Steve Madden have all incorporated Pippa's illustration work to market their products.

"I try not to look to other artists for style; I believe that is truly something you have to work at on your own.  If you are a visual person you tend to be influenced by other people's work, so I look to fashion design instead of art and I chat to the gorgeous people at Jackson’s about what medium I should try next.  It really is something you have to work at solidly by yourself and I have learnt that through the mistakes you make whilst finding your way; they are sometimes the things that end up defining your style.", said Pippa when she was asked what influence she had on shaping her style to what it is now. I can learn that sometimes looking to other artists for style may not be good in shaping a sturdy and unique personal style of my own. Thus, I have to start looking at things through my own perceiving and interpret objects I want to incorporate into my art work in a style of my own, not influenced by any other artists. A lot of practice would be needed before I can achieve a high standard of my own style.

Here are some of my favourites of Pippa McManus' illustrations.

FLORIAN MEACCI

FLORIAN MEACCI is  a freelance illustrator in London who has finished his studies in graphic design in France. His specialities is in drawing with his ballpoint pens . often hired by companies to illustrate their products to market them in mass media. For example there was a cosmetic company like   SAGA COSMÉTIQUES who hired him to illustrate their products for the christmas campaign last year which launches their 30 stores across France. And here is the results :

He illustrate a woman with lots of beauty products such as lipstick,mascara, eyeliner,etc so people will know what they're selling just by looking at his illustration. His works also displayed in all  SAGA COSMÉTIQUES's branches all over the world. The second work that he made for that company was a woman who's wearing a mask which really shows that it is a promotion of a masking product which is one of the company's selling product. 

Another Huge company such as Dolce & Gabbana SS!3 for  online magazine SWIDE also hired him to campaign their products. He also uses woman as an icon who's using Dolce & Gabbana's trademark patterned headscarf so it's easily recognizable for people. 

Dolce gabbana campaign for SWIDE Magazine


He has his own style of drawing by using his pens, which is another media that's not usually used by other illustrator and most of his works are all handmade which he done manually. He might be using photoshop for the finishing touch up such as color brightness, details, and etc. His illustration tend to be simple but meaningful. Mostly the color is monochrome but he adds a little bit of color such as the picture above , as you can see the figure drawing in monochrome color and then he adds color in the details such as the headscarfs, mask, and the cosmetic tools.

You can also look through his other amazing works in his official website at http://florianmeacci.com/

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Cecilia Carlstedt

Out of a few illustrators whom I know, Cecilia Carlstedt's work has captured my attention. She is a Swedish illustrator with a tremendous style in illustrating, who studied Graphic Design in London College of Communication before she started her career as a full time illustrator. She has worked for Bloomingdales, La Perla, the NY Times and many more. She has her own stylish and colorful work which then endeared her to the world of fashion. So later on, she combined graphic design and fashion as one artwork, so her illustrations look quite different from other fashion illustrators which in my opinion, looks more interesting than the usual common fashion illustration. Here are some of her works : 

As you can see it here, She likes to play with colors and combining her drawing with various media for a rich and unpredictable expression and likes to play with the background which makes it looks more attractive. Cecilia has been commisioned by solid list of clients, which some of them are  New York Times, H&M, Bloomingdale, and swarovski.

Mostly she uses watercolor as a media and then she edits the illustration using photoshop. Especially for the background she uses a lot of digital effects. She also likes to use monochrome palette for some of her works. Her illustrations are simple yet it is looks very realistic. For example, in one of her illustration, she places a girl on the right hand of the illustration with beauty tools lining across the width of the image, probably telling the beauty process of the girl.

Hayden Williams

Hayden Williams was the first fashion illustration I've known and is still my favorite one. it started when i opened instagram then i saw many people posting William's work and i was interested looking at his account. It was JAW-DROPPING and then i started googling him and it turns out he's only 19 at that time.

 His works really inspired me and from that day forward i always checked his account to see his latest work. its an illustration but its very realistic, and his stroke are flawless. The way he illustrate the faces are magnificently beautiful, just like most of the times he likes to draw famous people such as Beyonce, Rihanna, Audrey Hepburn, etc and it's looks really similar to the real one. You can see it here :

 In fact, celebrities whom he ever drew also wears his design. It really amazed me how he could make a big success in his really young age and how it inspired lots of people. Besides that,he also got famous because of his Disney character which he recreates using his own style of illustration. Hayden loves disney ever since he was only 3 years old and now he made his dream came true. He's bringing the high back in high fashion and it is another reason to love fashion and to keep inspired

From what i know, Most of his works started out by using pencil for the base then he digitally transferred his sketch to computer using photoshop or illustrator and make the finalization which is the outlining and the colouring part, but some of them also finished manually. As famed as he is now, he still kept grounded and humbled. I can learn a lot from him as I would like to be a successful designer as well one day. His humble attitude towards his fame and his forever-improving technical skills are two of them.

You can check out his work at his official account on instagram @hayden_williams and tumblr http://haydenwilliamsillustrations.tumblr.com/.