Character Creation for Animation: Shapes, Color, and Expression

Character Creation for Animation: Shapes, Color, and Expression

“We have reached the end of the course, I hope you have found the lessons useful. Drawing is a process and no matter what level you are in, we all need reminders of our progress. We are all still learning and the fact that you took a course shows you want to keep improving forward. These lessons are a combination of things I have picked up along the way and have helped me immensely. Now, there is nothing better than doing it to learn it so, your final project will be to create a character based on your brief. Remember the important info you need in your brief: Human or Animal? Gender? Core audience? Is it for TV, comic, cinema? Period time? Age of character? Body Build? Personality? I would love to see the different periods. Let’s try to stay away from current times. There are so many great options in history. Try to find references for everything. If we draw on autopilot we never grow. You may think you know a baseball bat but still, make the effort to look one up. It helps. For your final project: I would like to see a character turnaround with your character in a standing pose in ¾, front, back, and profile. This is I what I came up with:

Also, a study of that character in at least one dynamic pose, try making it in ¾ pose. Think about the line of action, your balance, and all of the things we have learned on the course. If you do the tasks in the lessons I would love to see them in the forum. An expression sheet with at least 4 different expressions showing your character reacts. Let's see if your drawing resembles this: And the cherry on top: a character interaction drawing. However, try only if you are feeling brave try drawing an extra character to interact with. If not, use one that already exists from your favorite shows, just to help your original character interact with someone. Good luck! I can’t wait to see what you come up with! Please remember that I cannot correct things straight away. You may need to have some patience but I will try and keep an eye out for incoming projects and get to them as soon as possible. I would love to see different students pitch in and help each other. Feedback is really important for all of us. Just remember to be helpful and kind. See you in the forum!”

Partial transcription of the video

“FINAL PROJECT Hi, guys. You reached the end of the course. It's been a pleasure showing you my story and my creative process. I hope you enjoyed yourself. In this lesson we will review step by step how I got to the final project, so then you can get to yours with energy and confidence. I chose to develop Haldor, a tall and wiry Viking with a gentle heart. I started by developing a brief but I really focused on age group, personality and universe. I also made sure I added some references that I'd found previously. Then what I did was research the topic, created a mood board and found things ...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Character Creation for Animation: Shapes, Color, and Expression

• Level: Beginner
• 100% positive reviews (297)
• 8519 students
• 5 units
• 22 lessons (4h 39m)
• 16 downloads

• Category

  3D & Animation, Illustration

• Software

  Adobe Photoshop

• Areas

  Animation, Character Animation, Character Design, Drawing