INTRODUCTION:

This project was all about creating our own unique Hawaiian shirt with a pattern that we create ourselves from scratch. The theme for this project is Hawaiian shirts, therefor when designing the pattern for the fabric we had to keep that in mind. We had an original shirt that we used to trace for the outline and then came up with our own clothing tag and customized some 3D buttons!

MATERIALS:

For this project the main program used was Adobe Illustrator. The original Hawaiian shirt picture was used as a reference as well. Everything else was made one by one in Illustrator.

CREATIVE PROCESS:

When I think of Hawaii I instantly think of fun bold summer colours alongside flowers and the sun. As inspiration I took a look at other shirts and saw great use of fun bright colours so I also decided to keep my colour scheme blues, yellows, purples, and pinks. When it came to creating a pattern I took a good look at the available paint brush strokes in adobe illustrator as id be using them to create texture and achieve the image I want. I came across a specific brush stroke and played with the opacity and once it was layered it looked like a beautiful flower so I decided to make 3 colourful textured flowers my pattern. 

WORKFLOW:

I started with importuning the original Hawaiian shirt reference image into a layer and then locking it down so it doesn't move. I then added a new layer and started tracing bit by bit with the pen tool.

I then started doing the base layer and then set it as a nice summer blue as I wanted that colour to be the base of the fabric. I then piece by piece duplicated and added my pattern on top of the blue for each section.

When it came to the collar Instead of the regular two duplicates I did three, the bottom one being black. I lowered the opacity and changed it to multiply so it can blend with the fabric and the added a blur to make it even more realistic. Furthermore I made a second pattern by moving around the flowers placements so the whole garment wouldn't be the same exact pattern.

I made sure to pay extra attention to any overlapping fabrics and shadows. I also made sure my corners and lines were all lined up and neat.

After finishing the outlines for the shirt I then started working on the tag. I imported a linen fabric image from online, and decided to name my company Cactus Textile. As I mentioned previously I was experimenting with different brush strokes and found this flower under the image column and decided to use it on the tag as it matched my overall theme. I played with the opacity and blend modes to make it all look adhesive and then added some stitching for detail and realism.

My next step in this project was making 3D realistic buttons for the shirt. I used the radial gradient effect and played around with it to capture all the different tones. I then cut out four holes using shape builder tool and added a shadow behind the button. For the thread I layered a purple and light pink stroke on top of each other and then duplicated and pasted multiple times. 

My last step was to add the tag and the buttons to the shirt and make sure that they are aligned and in their right positions.

FINAL WORK:

CONCLUSION:

As someone who is complete beginner to using adobe illustrator this project really taught me allot. I learned so well how layers all work together and how I can use them to make my work more organized and easier for myself. Before this project I wasn't aware of all the tools we had available to us to make our work more realistic and 3D like the blurring and opacity effects. I discovered many different brush strokes and played around with gradient colouring swell. Overall this was a very rewarding project as it taught me many things I didn't know prior. If I were to do this project again maybe id pick a more variety of colours and make my pattern a bit more complex. Nonetheless I'm very content with the final product!