How do you use fashion in your comic?

[MissMagicGirl]

Fashion and the way my characters dress is a big thing for me when it comes to planning their personalities. How do you use fashion and different clothing styles when making your characters? i would love to hear about it

As for myself my main character in my comic https://tapastic.com/series/magicadvisor is very bookish and loves to learn thing (much like me) ^^
And she wants to be seen as very professional in her work as an magic advisor. So I was inspired by very strict, business like clothes but I tried to make it a bit more fun with the colors

Then we have my very silly antagonist Prim. She is a self proclaimed super villain with an... eh... uneven success rate haha XD She dresses in some sort of lolita / vintage / disney princess fashion ^:^

Then I have classic goth girl. Batula

And Elliot who is a bit of a laid back punk rocker

In my last two episodes Lizzy and Prim dressed up as each other which was a lot of fun to draw and plan

[alaingrey]

I would say that fashion is 90% of what all my comics are about. Usually the first things people say about anything I draw is "I love the clothes" or "OMG the fashion" which just motivates me to come up with new clothing designs...

This is one of my earlier drawings of my comic cast, so some has changed. Nox on the far left dresses cheaply because he's always broke. He only wears black or white, and his clothes tend to be slightly shredded. His hair color changes a lot but always covers an eye, and usually tops off the look with a ton of smeary makeup. This picture has a really early version of my girl Savoy, where she had a real 80s porn star look. I wasn't happy with the whole bleach blond leopard print thing, so now her look is more rock-chic with lots of shreddy black clothing, bleachy streaked black hair, garters and shredded tights and lots of leather. She and Nox tend to dress alike with hair and clothing, which is why they hate each other (looking in a mirror is hard, haha)

Here they are together- my only color picture of my current design for Savoy, oops.

Fabian (with the pizza) always wears much more expensive clothes. Lots of ruffled shirts and fancy hats. He always has tight, well tailored pants and goes for rich jewel tone colors. He doesn't appear too much in the comic, and usually has obscured feet thanks to playing drums, but he definitely wears expensive leather moto boots. He also wears a lot of fingerless gloves just because he thinks its cool for some reason.

Roy starts off the story with a very effeminate look- lots of teased hair, jewelry and skirts and dresses. But his look changes dramatically and starts going for a military/40s/leather daddy kind of look with lots of tattoos and body mods. It shows his interest in discipline, honor, brotherhood, and kind of represents a lot of looks in the gay club scene of the time. Most people that have seen my sketches of him know him as 'that rubber singlet guy' ... Pretty much he dresses like a gothic Tom of Finland picture. He's the most likely to wear assless chaps. His colors of clothes are olive, gray, white and black, though its more likely to vary with some autumnal 70s colors as well.

My compare-and-contrast Roy, from first chapter to where most people have seen my sketches of him. His fashion choices probably show the most growth throughout the story.

Every chapter I really think about how my characters have changed and where their fashions are going to reflect this, plus I think about what year the chapter is taking place and how the looks should reflect it. My current chapter is still very early gothic/punk inspired, but the next chapter is going to take a turn into early industrial fashions, a bit of bondage inspiration and 80s Asian-inspired cultural appropriation crazes. I could probably talk about clothes FOREVER and I love giving people outfits for their characters- so I've gotta stop here!!

[AnnaLandin]

I use clothing design a LOT in signalling my characters' personalities to my readers.

My main characters are both homeless wanderers, which means they a.) never change their clothes, and b.) wear clothes that are worn and mended and in Masahiro's case, a shirt that is stitched together from two different shirts, using scraps of his own belt.

I've got piles and piles of reference materials when designing characters - I've got a folder called "costume design" that is, like, a dozen subfolders deep, sorted by era of fashion, style, nationality and type (1930s-folder, military folder, Asian folder - with Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian and Mongolian all sorted into different subfolders - the dresses folder vs. the jewelry and props folder, etc), and I dig into it whenever I need. I have a folder dedicated entirely to the fashion I'm using to inspire the costume design in Grassblades.

Clothes might not make the man, but it sure will tell you a lot about them!

[Rabbit]

Fashion actually is rather important in my comic because one of the first things you learn about my female lead is that she spends all of her money on clothes instead of important things XD
For her, though, I usually just design clothes that are bright, and happy, and cute. There usually isn't much hidden meaning in her outfits.

My male lead's clothes kinda tell you more about his character, though. I normally have some kind of hidden meaning in whatever design is currently on his T-shirt, and sometimes they're more simple than others (in the first chapter, his shirt had on it a rabbit with bloody fangs - something cute, but deadly. And since he spent most of that chapter being referred to as attractive.. his shirt tells you that not all cute things are nice, as well).
Also I sometimes do weird things with his clothes where they'll change color depending on what he's doing/thinking. He can use magic, and it appears that he subconsciously effects his clothes; sometimes if he's angry, designs on his clothes will turn black, and in one chapter, the entire design on his shirt (a crown) disappeared after something plot-related happened to change how he views himself.

( I couldn't find any good pictures of him idk)

[Ayomekum]

also dealing with a slightly gothic magic look.
The Inquisitors (ppl in black) generally favor the high collars associated with prestige, yet they're still working agents so they're outfits are simple and semi-formal. I was thinking a mix of The Matrix, Harry Potter, and Final Fantasy Soldier.
And for the city police I just went with grey - they're neutral, not as bold as the Inquisitors. I like big colonial looking helmets - gives an imperious, sort of state-drone look.

[Kayke]

Most of my characters are in high school so their fashion choices are pretty basic. A lot of jeans, flannels, tshirts, jerseys, and sweatshirts going on with most of the main cast. Some of them dress a little more jock or grunge or whatever, but their civilian clothes aren't super complex.

Their super hero costumes are like... traditional super hero costumes, so a lot of spandex and masks and capes haha. Though I do try to make them look a little more home made, so like real shoes and not the ones that directly go into the costume like a lot of mainstream comics have. I don't like when you can't see the layers of clothing and the costumes just end up looking like paint.

The character most concerned with fashion is Glamourpuss (Glam for short) who's fashion is kind of retro/old hollywood inspired and heavy on gold and pearls. She's a cat burglar, so she's got a cat theme going on as well.

[WakaXO]

My comic mostly has 'street fashion' I guess, I do put a lot of thought into my characters fashion and try to show off their personalities through their clothing. Though I don't know if it really gets across yet as I am not vary far into my comic and haven't introduced a lot of the characters so far...
For my main character Dakota, I wanted her look to be laid-back and comfy because she is a low maintenance kind of gal. She wears mostly jeans and t-shirts.

And for Ai, I wanted her to have a more innocent look, while still being trendy, as she is a seamstress and makes a lot of her own stuff. Also she love yoga pants and leggings.

[Thesleepypencil]

Oh boy fashion let me tell you! I love fashion i love designing. I'm probably repeating myself because i've talked about this and posted these stuff everywhere all the time.

so for my story storytale each of my characters have specific designs to their characters involving their colours and and clothings style to fit their personality, characterm and their actual story. Examples


Lock's designs for cloths have changes slightly between pictures. but she wears layers, pastels, always have her arms and legs covered, and her cloths usually have a garden type motive.

those this does change in chapters where she is sad. because one: when she is sad she usually takes her friends cloths/ sweaters to snuggle in. and two. she tries to not be herself and therefor tries to not look like herself

so unifinished but the other main hero Tuk. His cloths are darker, deep browns and blues with the motif of books from left to right it's pride and prejudice, the scarlet pimpernel, the three musketeers, and sherlock holmes.
other character fashions i have


Lots of reds and warm colours

lots of silvers and light colours

m favourite fashion designs, this character is a queen who just wears new dresses all the time and they are georgous and fun and lovely and she wears her hair up she is so much fun to design.

FASHION

[jessicasurline]

I'm not very confident about designing fashion but it is fun to come up with something new and different. I came up with lots of concepts for fashion ideas for the main 2 characters of Whetstone. I knew the clothing and weapons had to functionally make sense and consist of things you could make or find in a post apocalyptic setting with no electricity.

Tavia needed a sexy assassin look without being too flashy. I found some weird inspiration for her design. Most notably her shoulder pauldron and mini cape. Those came from the image below:

Probably the weirdest inspiration was for Tavia's throwing knives sheathing. It looks like a corset but the original idea came from a medical device to support broken ribs.

Tilly is more of a mysterious man. He was difficult to find the right level of creepy without going corny. In a post apocalyptic environment I figured he would be practical and use common items you could obtain easily. Surplus military gear is always available. Plus it gave him an old school look which I haven't really seen for future fashion. The writer wanted to play off Tilly's animalistic presence so I needed to make him more threatening. After I saw the image below I found my missing piece to complete Tilly's look, a mask.

[jennula]

Eep, this is a very interesting topic! I've put pretty much thought behind every character's clothes, I think =)
Let's start off with Ragna and gav, since they're the ones doing their thing in SPEJS right now ;D
As for Ragna, she likes her clothes simple. A pair of jeans and some shirt of any kind (preferrably grey) will do her just fine! I'm not sure if she just doesn't want to stand out and get a lot of looks or if she just feels uncomfortable in colors. She's not really a skirt/dress person either, but she'd probably wear one if she had to for a mission or something =P



As for Gav, he's a simple person too and does a lot of light coloured jeans and beige or dark shirts/tank tops. He's hanging around fixing cars most of his time, so no need to be too fancilly dressed. He's obviously also very proud of his guns (and chest hair?), so enjoys showing them to the world XD

Even though they haven't been seen in the comic yet, here are Ragna and Gav's battle suits. Both are pretty simplistic and slim. In Ragna's case, she wants something that's easy to move in and that doesn't get stuck in other stuff, and in gav's case, it's mostly for protection, and as easy to move in as possible since he's not really a fighter ^^;

As a bonus, let's show how Swagata and Morwen (who will make an entrance in my comic VERY soon!) dress =)

This image is VERY old, but the sense of fashion of the two is pretty spot on. Swagata likes teal and works with that and light grey/whites a lot, and I guess she likes it cozy but stylish? Morwen is a fan of purple and likes it more "gothy" with pencil skirts and poofy armed bloses and skull accessories :3

And here are their battle suits. Since these two uses more magic (or technomancing, in Swagata's case) and enjoys being in the spotlight, being a bit flashy and cool, they have a bit more extravagant outfits ;D Swagata's still working with teal/white and Morwen's all purple. I had a lot of trouble getting Morwen's battle suit right (as in, getting a design I was content with), but I think this one's a winner =)

[Shanny8]

For Ray Thunder, I do a lot of research in regards to the clothes that they wear. With Ray & Melanye being teens, of course they wear the styles that most teens wear...with Ray's mother, I'm looking at fashions for women in their early to mid 30s. As the rest of the cast eventually pops up the story, I'll plan their fashion style accordingly.

[Michelle]

Aaa those are amazing! I've never seen such a variety of outfits for each character where they all look so stylish and well thought-out.
Like holy moly I want to wear all of Lock's outfits. Especially that strawberry red coat one hrnnggg

[KSlinger]

I have no sense of fashion so neither do my characters. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

On the other hand, I'm highly practical and so are they.

[heterodont]

Skipping over my first story since none of the characters are particularly fashionistas and frankly I designed their outfits on the fly without any reference what so ever >>...

For my second story, I set down guidelines as to how clothes designate their status. They're all, obviously, based off / inspired by biblical angels.

The above are all archangels (one used to be one at least before he rebelled) so I decided that if I was going to design an archangel, they all had to share something going around their neck and a 'crown'. The rest of their outfits is honestly 60% "does this seem like something they would wear" based off their personalities I gave them and 40% inspired by interpretations based off biblical descriptions. And I'm also keeping in mind '''character design rules''' - so paying attention to their silhouettes as well.

1st is Metatron, 2nd is Michael, and 3rd is Uriel. Metatron was a human turned angel so granted he has to at least look relatively younger compared to the others - and his tunic has the symbol for metatron's cube just bc I thought It'd Be Neat. Not to mention because he's considered as a lesser God, plenty of descriptions say he was given a cloak by God iirc so. It should be easy to guess why Michael wears armor and then honestly, quite frankly, my entire design thought process for Uriel was "weird dad" - though my friend has told me he looks like he's wearing a space suit which I guess I could use to my advantage because of people who think that the old accounts of interaction with angels were really just aliens :3c

Then for the mc - he's not an archangel but he's part of a subsection which really doesn't have any outfit requirements beyond having glowing body marks because they're supposed to commemorate the archangel that rebelled (michael's twin) but the MC's clothing is supposed to reflect/mimic that said archangel's clothing because of the role that his inspo plays in the bible itself

then his human form is honestly just based off an outfit I found on a candid photo website for street fashion (in the story its just clothing he got from a donation pile but I need to make them look more scuffed up...)

[camillabluejay]

AHHHH YOUR CHARACTERS ARE SO CUTE. I"M GOING TO SUB RIGHT NOW.

[jennula]

@MissMagicGirl I really like the fashion sense for your characters, especially Lizzy and Prim =)

@AnnaLandin you always have such great sense of fashion for your characters and Grassblades is awesome as ever!

@jessicasurline wooow, I really like Tavia's outfit, especially the shoulder pauldron and cape <3

[glennsong]

I wanted to make my main character, Kamiko, standout, so I dressed her in Lolita. She's a female version of Doctor Who and he always dressed in a way that made him stand out (I'm thinking of Pertwee or Tom Baker's Doctors). Here's what she looks like in the comic I finished with her:

Her Lolita style has evolved over the years...

I'm playing with different lolita styles for the next story.

I similarly want to explore fashion when we meet some of Kamiko's contemporaries. Nothing outlandish like, say, what you see the aristocrats in the Hunger Games wear, but something that makes a statement for each character. Of course the mortals they encounter would wear whatever is appropriate for their time period and part of the world.

[ashriott]

Designing the clothes is one of my favourite part hehe. Since Malleus Maleficarum starts off in the 21st century, you'll see my characters dress a bit casually.

But for the most part, they look a bit more like this, which is a blend between historical and fantasy influences:

[popsiclestick]

SARGENTUM's set in an alternate Britain in some indeterminate past, and I drew inspiration from late Georgian and early Victorian fashions with a HUGE dollop of artistic liberty for the everyday clothes of the characters. Alternate realities allow me to experiment further and try my own designs that would probably be seen as pretty outlandish at the actual time.

i also looked at a lot of images of traditional farm labourer's wear -

and also a lot of old English folk costume! there are some wild looks out there

I sort of built off this, and tried to include elements of old saxon dress for my witch character. I wanted her to look lost in time (her character being stuck wandering the moors for a few centuries), and not entirely sure what period she belongs to.

[igneriss]

For 6,75 fashion, I took what I liked from different XIII-XVII fashion styles and mixed together, adding some of my designs to the mix ( :
For guys, there are two basic styles that are currently in fashion in 6,75:

though one on the left is more popular in western part of the country, and one on the right- eastern.
Clothes' colours and amount of details depend on character's wealth and personality, but most of those outfits have at least some decorations on buttons and lower part of a top
.
As for girls, in fashion are high-waisted dresses with sleeves like these:

There are also other types of dresses, but they are most likely older, or say something about character's personality c:
Also, in fashion is hair jewelery with flowers, ribbons and pearls~

Dresses are always very long- shorter ones are only for kids. So technically, main character shouldn't wear a short dress in her thief's outfit... but she doesn't really care.