Though I’ve never had much of an eye for fashion, I do have an appreciation for fashion illustration, which sometimes shares some characteristics with comic book illustration, in that it has often been done in line or line filled with tone or color.

Unfortunately, advances in newspaper printing technology, which permitted improved reproduction of photography, largely displaced the most common uses for fashion drawing in newspaper advertising over the last 20 years or so. It’s always good to see that the art is still alive in certain quarters, often with a more modern take on the venerable forms of rendering.

Lidia Luna has an approach that uses a fine or disappearing line, in fine point pen or pencil, with subtle rendering in watercolor.

Her renderings of models wearing haute couture take a minimalist approach to the presentation of faces, with forms suggested by soft gradations at key edges, and focus the detail on the clothing, as is expected in fashion illustration.

She has a website with a selection of renderings (arranged by project, note the “Next Project” links at the top of the pages), and a blog with more images, as well as sketches and other subjects.

There is a brief interview with Luna on Couture Troopers, but it doesn’t delve into technique.

[Via Illustration Mondo]