eDrop-Off Illustrations

The past few weeks I have been busy working on illustrations for a website relaunch called eDrop-Off. Now that the site is up and running I can share the illustrations with you! eDrop-Off is based out of Chicago and they are the leading designer consignment shop specializing in selling designer and luxury items on eBay. They offer the chicest designer labels, so my illustrations had to be on par with Chanel, Gucci, and Oscar.

They were such great clients to work with, very trusting and easy going. They loosely provided me with descriptions of what they were looking for (like "classic Chanel suit") and sometimes a pose (like "knees together,") and let me render how I saw fit, choosing colors, fabrics, hair, and accessories.

Every time we were about to be done a few more illustration requests were added, so it ended up being a pretty big job consisting of 8 girls, an authenticity seal, a stack of magazines with a designer shoe on top, a customized Tiffany bracelet and a bulletin board with "designer" push pins! I also did a few fun things for their launch party, but I'll share those another time.

The team at eDrop Off was an absolute delight to work with (thank you Nicole!) and I wish them continued success with the new website and in their new location.

Visit eDrop-Off to check out my illustrations in action, see all the fabulous designer items for sale, and maybe even send them some of your own. It's free pick nationwide, although I can't promise your UPS person will look like this one! (below)

New Cards & Bookmarks

Last weeks "Girls Night Out" sale was a success in that it had a great turn out and raised a substantial amount of money for a great cause, however I personally did not do so well. The positive side of this is that since I made sure to stock up for the sale by printing lots of new items I can now add as new listings in my Etsy shop; Brooklit.

Here are some of my favorite new cards. You may remember the girl in glasses and jeans from my denim "Tuesday Tip" tutorial. I liked her so much that I made her into a birthday card. The other fashion illustration's that adorn the new birthday cards are two of my more popular prints, Carrie and Mystie.

I've also made a fun new bridal card with a combination of some custom bridal illustrations and original ones. The bride card is blank on the inside which makes it suitable for any bridal occasion; engagements, showers, bachlorettes, weddings or even anniversaries.

My bookmarks continue to be popular, so I've expanded the selection. They're a nice, less expensive, alternative to purchasing one of my girls in art print form. And with summer now here, what better time for a fun new bookmark for all your summer reading.

Tuesday Tip: Sequins

A while back you may remember I wrote about my favorite tools for fashion illustration and I mentioned the whiteout pen. Well to successfully render sequins a whiteout pen is vital. (At least for this fashion illustrator!) It's also best when choosing your marker to pick a very wet and saturated marker, like a Chartpak and a classic black Sharpie marker.

I happen to really enjoy rendering sequins, especially all-over sequins (a-la Diana Ross or Cher.) There are a few specific steps to it, but don't stress, its pretty hard to mess up. And once you complete them the results are stunning.

1. You begin by coloring the base of your design. Its important to leave white streaks where you want your highlights. Let it dry a little then add a second coat of your color to areas in shadow (see example #1.)
2. Outline the design, draw any seams, and add any extra shadowing with a dark pencil. I use the Prismacolor cool gray 90% pencil. (#2)
3. With your black Sharpie stipple dots all over the garment (#3). Load up on dots in areas that are white and are going to be a highlight.
4. With your whiteout pen place a dot on top of each black one. Get a rhythm going and it will be over before you know it. (#4)
5. This is not a necessary step, but I like to add a few faint "X's" with my finest tip black pen to create subtle streaks of light. (I use a Micron pen, tip size 005)

The white dots will absorb the color you put down first, especially if you used a very wet marker. The dots will turn into a lighter shade of your color. This is why if you look at my examples, they don't look like white sequins on colored fabrics. It looks as though I've actually painted all these little colored sequins! And the tip of the Sharpie, being almost the same width as the whiteout pen, creates the perfect shadow to make each sequin pop.

Above are illustrations from my Etsy shop of Carrie and Samantha (from the first SATC movie), both sporting fabulous sequin pieces. Carrie is available in a print, magnet or bookmark, and Samantha is on a bookmark.