The Men's Fashion Illustration Process for the Marcus Troy portrait by Sunflowerman. The Illustration takes the lifestyle blogger and sets him in a 1930's mugshot.

1. an illustrative process
Marcus!
Troy

2. The illustrative process for the Marcus Troy portrait began with a conversation. We chatted about fashion and
illustration and carved out a plan for the final work. I quickly began sketching.

3. We settled on this vintage mugshot of a gangster in the 1930's. Once I knew the goal and I felt comfortable with
the sketches I began drawing with a Pentel GraphGear 500 mechanical pencil.

4. Fitting Marcus into the image was a bit of a challenge. One of the main challenges was realizing that his
shoulders are thinner than the man from the '30's- and perhaps not quite as long.

5. Since I was fitting more of the legs into my illustration than the original reference photo showed I had to
photograph myself for posture reference. Note to self- take higher res and better lit photos.

6. I render the entire drawing to about 50% of the darkest values. Once the rendering is complete I take it outside
and spray it with Workable Fixatif to seal the graphite and prevent it from smudging or smearing.

7. Once the pencil rendering is complete I take a deep breath and fill the page with a wash of watercolor paint to
start the illustration with an overall sense of continuity. The wash is light but covers everything.

8. I let the wash completely dry then begin layering in flat layers of color to build up the values. Notice the texture
in the background and the faint color in the tie and the colors in the hat. It can be a slow process.

9. The layering process continues. A hint of shadow is placed behind the chair and red is set in the tie. Then
layers are placed over every shape in the illustration. Slowly building the form out from the paper.

10. After the initial layering and modeling I begin adding white to bring out the highlights and during this same
period I add the darkest values to give life to the illustration. It is coming to life.

11. I compare the painting to the reference. I narrowed the collar to look more modern and did the same with the tie.
The background resembles the cracked walls from the photograph. I feel comfortable with the result.

12. To further re-create the photograph I used a sheet of tracing paper to draw in the text like the mugshot. I would
later layer the images in photoshop so that the text looks like a part of the painting.

14. to see more Fashion Illustrations
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