Your complete guide to animal character design, with picture book illustrator Nina Rycroft
This self-paced program, offers video lessons, demos, expert interviews, and a comprehensive workbook that walk you through everything that you need to know about designing animal characters. If you have an interest in character design, you can apply what you learn in this course to book illustration, concept art, surface pattern design, games, cards, stationary, cartooning and animation.
By the end of this course, you will have gained the confidence to design and illustrate animals of any kind, exploring concept sketching, visual storytelling, caricature design, anthropomorphism with skill and straight-to-the-heart accuracy.
Nina's picture book illustration background offers another layer of tuition. As well as learning the fundamentals of animal character design, this program dips into the history of animal characters in children's literature, inspiring tasks and projects designed to fill your portfolio with fun, memorable and engaging animal characters.
The course will cover;
- The ingredients needed for successful character design
- How to move from observation to imagination
- Storytelling – and the animal characters that brought them to life
- Anthropomorphism – moving parts, blending human and animal characteristics
- Concept sketching – construction and volume
- Caricature design – animal archetypes, breakdown drawings
- Personas – fables, villains
- Group – silhouette, character interaction, designing a dream team
- How to design and illustrate successful portfolio pieces
Join the hundreds of students who have gone through the Animal Character Design Masterclass and have come out the other side with more confidence and skill as well as a number of portfolio pieces and project ideas.
What to expect
This program has been designed as self-paced program across 4 ‘weeks’. Being self-paced means that you have the flexibility to fit the course into your schedule. You can weave in the ‘daily’ tasks and projects around your other priorities. If you have the opportunity to cram, you can fast-track and gain competency quickly. If you prefer working at a slower pace, assimilate the information without feeling rushed, and with lifetime access, you have the opportunity to revisit the course content whenever you need to.
Each ‘week’ has 4 tasks, each designed to build your skill level and prepare you for the larger push project. You will also have access to ‘weekly’ demos, expert interviews and a comprehensive workbook designed to work alongside the tasks and push projects. The Push Projects have been designed as potential portfolio pieces that you can spend more time completing.
Skill level
A basic knowledge in drawing is advisable. As you move through the program completing all of the tasks and projects, you will progress from a beginner to an intermediate level of knowledge and skill in character design. The fundamentals that you learn on this program will enhance your illustration skills across the board.