Accessories
Book & Gift Store
Classes
Corsets & Underwear
Computers
Costumes 4 Sale
Costume e-Lists
Dance Costumes
Designs & Designers
Dolls
"Ethnic" Dress
Fashion Theory
Free eGroup
Free Stuff
Halloween
(Costume) History
How-To
Kinky Clothing
Major Sites
Military Uniforms
Movie Costumes
Museums
New Pages
Occupational & Occasion- Specific
Patterns
Questions?
Religious Dress
Theatre History
Travel for Costumers
Unite!
Vintage Clothing
Weddings
Weird Clothing

Costume Design & Construction

No Color Designs Project (15D)

Color is such a useful trick for establishing character and group identity in plays that often designers forget that pattern, texture and especially silhouette can also be more effective design tools.  One of the best exercises one can do to force oneself to rely more on these tools so as not to get rusty is to design a show periodically that is either monochromatic (uses only one color) or desaturated (uses only gradients of black and white).  It is the latter that you will do here.

To see an example of a show done in this manner see my designs for a low-budget Seagull done in Russia some years ago.

The Project:

From among the following plays, (Hamlet, Patience, The Importance of Being Earnest, Macbeth) choose 10 characters that you will render using only black and/or white or gradients of the same.  Using silhouette, line, and other means still left to you, delineate the characters and their relationships with one another.  You may set the play in any era before 1903, in any culture, or you may costume them totally abstractly, but do not set it any time in the last 100 years of Western civilization's clothes, or you will get unduly distracted by your modern mental associations with certain garments. 

Complete Book of Sewing

Watercolor Basics People : People

The Figure : An Approach to Drawing and Construction

Draw Fashion Models! (Discover Drawing)

The Costume Designer's Handbook : A Complete Guide for Amateur and Professional Costume Designers

The Costume Technician's Handbook : A Complete Guide for Amateur and Professional Costume Technicians

 

Stage Costume Step-By-Step : The Complete Guide to Designing and Making Stage Costumes for All Major Drama Periods and Genres

The Magic Garment : Principles of Costume Design

Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters

Virtual Pose : The Ultimate Visual Reference Series for Drawing the Human Figure (contains a CD-ROM)

Costume Construction Drawing the Head and Figure

Elegantly Frugal Costumes : The Poor Man's Do-It-Yourself Costume Maker's Guide

Baptista Bianca Gremio Kate Lucentio Petruchio Tailor Tranio Vincentio Widow

Then label your drawings something like this:

If you have difficulty drawing figures, you can print out some of the outline sheets below, and do your renderings on these sheets.  Printing the sheet onto cardstock will allow you to use watercolors without having the paper wrinkle.

  Female Front Outline sheet.

Male Front Outline sheet.

     Male Back Outline sheet. 

Another way of Making rendering easier is to make a "Dancing Man":   Make this out of heavy cardstock, connect the pieces with brads as shown in the center, and lay it on your paper to make different poses for your body-outlines.

Whenever you have spare time this semester, teach yourself more about rendering by going to this links page for more lessons.

Step 2:

Scan and post the images you drew to your files section and post a notification on the message board that you have done renderings for this play and would appreciate feedback from the other students.  

• Return to Class Index
• Return to Projects List