Sketch-Fu: Men's Footwear

nice!

Ok. Not men’s footwear… but goes with the above. After all, I’ve been told “it’s all about the bride”…

R

a few illustrator sketches, more to get back familiar with illustrator, i been doing too much loose sketching

These are absolutely fantastic. I’ve been doing a bit more directly in illustrator for client projects as well. It does keep things a little more flexible, but I only do it after extensive sketching and approvals based on the sketches.

thanks! yea didn’t do any preliminary sketches, just jumping into it for a refresher, takes a lil more time to do for that reason…illustrator drawings are probably a little too “finished” looking for some early in the on process.

A fun quickie sketch collab using a midsole/outsole kindly provided by user plinus …


R

That is super fun!

How are you able to blend along a spline? Nice work!

Love it!!

Thanks Kershaw… Trying to sketch more for fun…

Here’s a new morning doodle.

XC Spike.

R

a not so quick quickie

When I see them done in illustrator like this my eye is so much more critical of the proportions.

sure, all the little inconsistencies stand out in a way you’d be less likely to care/notice/see in a loose(r) sketch because one can be so precise w/illustrator

In some ways actually just the opposite, it is shellack of variation that makes it feel less real if that makes sense?

For example:

would those flex outs to a stretch material along the top of the forefoot really be straight lines, or would they arc subtly to follow the form of the foot? Would they be at the exact same angle, or would they fan slightly? Would the ends be full rads or would they have a bias? They also don’t seem to talk at all to the triangulated toe cap.

I think these things are rather easy to address in a sketch, but a bit harder to see in a vector program where being efficient with the tool means using some of the stock features. And that is just the details… really the proportion needs to be addressed first.

Some of these things are a bit more forgivable as a pencil sketch (analog or digital) where the focus can be on the core idea.

That said, I did see a few things that I’ll bring into my illustrator work flow :smiley:

i think we’re saying similar tings, hand sketches typically get a little more leeway and i’ve ‘illustratored’ it in such a way that the expectation is that it should be more resolved…had i done a sketch of this 1st i might have come to a more resolved solution(s), admittedly these are light on amount of thought and would benefit from more consideration so i see what you mean with the general mish-mash of elements…curious where and to what extent the proportions are off though?

I’ll work up a quick proportion study today. Are you thinking it is a basketball shoe or more fashion based? If fashion then it can be more exaggerated like this (though the throat opening is still really small for a laceless shoe).

I think everyone has their own eye for proportions… Some like to exaggerate the toe length, toespingm or have more narrow collar or higher collar line. Truth be told, unless very off, I think it’s a matter of preference.

When teaching footwear design, I always pushed accurate(ish) proportion, but also showed a series of sketch overlays of from a variety of designers including my own, Michael’s, and a bunch of other footwear pros just to show that there is also some variety and variation…

I’d agree the other details for the sake of speed on the Illustrator art are more an issue and fit with the finished look of the render.

R

neither, was vaguely thinking of a way to make a deconstructed run-able trainer, more supportive but i fell into more conventional hoops look…for the throat, i was going for that sock feel, those shoes can look impossible to get into if not for the ample stretchiness, and even still are tricky for some to put on (so: zipper!)

seeing the overall stiffness is the thing that i’ve noticed the most from doing these…some of that is due to the way i’ve been doing them, but moreso the level of thought doesn’t necessarily match up to the execution

Great discussion here. One of the things I learned (the hard way) is that the level of execution has to balance out the level of thought. A part of the the talk I gave at square one was in the different levels of visual communication and what was appropriate for where you are in the process.

The three levels I identify are:

  1. exploration (conversation with yourself or peers)
  2. communication (multi person conversation outside of the core group)
  3. persuasion (definition and alignment)

And the continuum I place those on are from “What it can be” to “What it will be”

Of course there are an infinite way to articulate and identify these things, but for the sake of a simple framework, go with me here. Your technique level is somewhere between “Communication” and “Persuasion” but your intent level is “What it could be” so the result is cognitive dissonance and people nit picking on stuff where you just want to be like “come on dude, its a sketch!”

any of this make sense or helpful in any way?

^100%, Michael.

Perfect example-

R