Costume Design for Fantasy Worlds. Fashion Design Camp

*Note: some courses are CAMPS 4x in one week - and some run as COURSES 1x over four weeks. Choose which works best for your schedule! Click on "Show all 4 meetings" for detailed times.

If you love the costumes in fairy tales, fantasy films, historic dramas or science-fiction then this is an opportunity for you to create your own fantasy fashion collection. In four classes you will design costumes for several characters in your own fantasy setting. We are inspired by the creation of costumes in fantasy films such as Narnia, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and many others, in order to come up with our own fantasy costume designs ideas. This class is ideal for worldbuilding and for developing characters in a fantasy fiction story or game.

Note: we will use fashion figure templates for our designs. If you prefer to draw your own figures you are very welcome to do so. We will not learn figure drawing on this course, but I do have another course to learn that skill - see link below. 

Course Structure
Week 1: the Rulers
To start you will establish what kind of fantasy world you will be designing for: it might be for a kingdom in the past, for wood elves or for a futuristic space station. We look at historic royal costumes as well as fictional kings and queens in films and TV series. I show many colourful examples of costumes worn by fantasy characters, such as the elven king or woodland fairy queen, so we are ready to design our own costumes.  As you are working on your drawings you will pick up skills of a costume designer in fantasy productions, such as creating a colour palette and symbols of royalty and power. Throughout the class we will share our designs ideas and discuss different interpretations of queens and kings through their clothing. You will complete your king and queen's costume in your own time. 

Week 2: the guards/warriors
We will look at your royal designs and share feedback. You will then design the clothes for the kingdom's guards or warriors. You will learn how to create a symbol or crest to go on the uniforms. We will look at costume examples of characters in such supporting roles and discuss their significance in establishing a believable world. You will complete your guard and warrior design in your own time. 

Week 3: the wise advisor/wizard
We will share and discuss our previous designs at the beginning of class. Then we will design the wardrobe for the wise advisor, mage or wizard. We will discuss how to design for specific character traits and how your outfit can portray character information. For example, how can you make your sage look powerful, wicked or wise? You will complete your advisor design in your own time. 

Week 4: the merchant/scientist/farmer
We start by designing and drawing our last costumes, for an ordinary citizen of our kingdom. We choose the occupation for our fantasy character - for example a merchant, farmer or scientist. Everyone has the opportunity to present all their designs and discuss the level of consistency achieved to create a strong fashion collection. With a great sense of achievement we will reflect on everything we have learned. 

You will learn about:
- historic inspiration in fantasy worlds
- colour palettes for creating a cohesive collection
- symbol and crest design
- character design: design to signify power, wisdom or evil
- the role of the costume designer who creates the fashion look for theatre, film or TV drama series. 


*You might also enjoy my ONGOING costume design class. Each week we design costumes inspired by different fairy tale or fantasy characters. Follow this link for more info:

https://outschool.com/classes/fashion-design-for-fairy-tales-and-grim-fantasy-creatures-1tRryJ1t?usid=dkfnVoml&signup=true&utm_campaign=share_activity_link

**If you enjoy fantasy and want to do more worldbuilding I have a 4-week and a 5-week worldbuilding course where you can develop further the characters you created in this course. Follow this link for more info:

https://outschool.com/classes/imagined-kingdoms-invent-your-fantasy-kingdom-writing-course-LnqOvtQy?usid=dkfnVoml&signup=true&utm_campaign=share_activity_link