Haori Designing Process

I've been working on some haori designs the past few days, and I didn't record my drawings - 'cause I literally drew for 12+ hours, and it would have killed my computer~ but I do have drawings and sketches! I thought it would be fun to show you guys how I worked through everything.

I started with a really shoddy sketch. Shoddy meaning: I drew on a shipping label, with a mechanical pencil that doesn't transfer well onto thermal paper, and on top of my game mat, which is soft and squishy. And the result is this:

• Top: how I want the sleeves to look and for left and right to be symmetrical.
• Middle: a totally different idea, that's not relevant at all to the one I'm talking about now. 😅 
• Bottom Left: the back piece of the haori.
• Bottom Right: Kistune mask

The shipping label sketch took about 10 minutes? I also sketched it at 3 or 4am. I didn't want to forget my idea for the next morning!

I figured I would start with the mask. Quick and simple. (Still took 2ish hours.)

For the purpose of the haori design, because everything was pretty much lineless, I, ultimately, chose to go lineless with the mask as well:

But like, okay, off topic: I really wanna make this mask into a pin.

Once the mask was finished, I tackled the hardest part of the haori: the back piece. Background design is one of my weakest subject as an artist. I was never good with open space and coming up with a concept for placement and balance, but this one worked out pretty well. That being said, the bulk of my time on this design project was on the background~

I had 2 versions of the background done, and I ended up going with the second version:

I omitted the kistune because the piece didn't feel balanced. There was just too much white. So, I decided to add an abstract piece that centers the focus since we have a cloud at the top right and a mask at the bottom left. 

From digital sketch to colored sketch of the background, it all took about 2-ish hours? A lot of it was figuring out what I wanted and staring at the piece wondering what more I could do with it.

The finished version of the haori took the longest. Mainly because the file is just so big and there's so many layer components that photoshop kept lagging and would slow down, so I had to restart the program a lot. But! A lot of time also went into making sure I had the right waves (weirdly enough). I went through maybe 3 or 4 different versions of it before I gave the thumbs up to the one in the final piece. 

And that's it! 

I'm sure there are other ways to streamline concepts like this a lot faster, but it all comes down to me not being experienced enough in more graphical design pieces versus singular pieces with a primary subject.

I'm sure you want to see the haori design, too! 

Once the background was finished, I moved onto assembling the template. At this point, it's probably 2am? I was pretty tired, and when I got to putting them together, I realize I didn't think about how I wanted the front to look like. x__x 

I knew what I wanted the sleeves to look like, because I had that sketched out, but I forgot the front of the haori. So I went through several iterations before I finalized with what I have now~ 

The red strip you see is the collar trim - which, as an afterthought at 4am was: shit, maybe my mask and shrine are too big and it might get clipped. Oh well, that's for tomorrow Vivian to worry about.

So, now today Vivian is worrying about whether the mask and shrine are too big. But that's for me to ponder on and for you to enjoy the finalized version when it comes out on apparel! I'm designing a few more haori, and hopefully we'll get a some awesome samples to show off. 

A long post, but I hope you guys enjoy seeing all of this~ 

Have a wonderful weekend! 

♥