Character Creation for Animation: Shapes, Color, and Expression
Researching References
A course by Laura Ewing Ferrer , Character Designer and Storyboarder
About the video: Researching References
Overview
“In this lesson, we will explore the world of references. Research is your best friend. Try to spend a couple of hours finding different images that inspire you and spark ideas. We will go over this together, let’s go!”
In this video lesson Laura Ewing Ferrer addresses the topic: Researching References, which is part of the Domestika online course: Character Creation for Animation: Shapes, Color, and Expression. Reveal your character’s personality by working on a concept and illustrate it using Photoshop.
Partial transcription of the video
“RESEARCHING REFERENCES In this lesson, we'll look at references. Research is your best friend, so try and spend a couple of hours looking for things that will spark ideas. We're gonna do this together. Let's go. Now we have a brief. We'll keep checking it to make sure we don't forget anything important and make sure that it's always according to the brief. What I'm gonna to look for now is the basic one, "Viking". Let's start with that. Let's see what comes up. Of course, we're gonna have a lot from the "Vikings" show coming up. That's to be expected and actually there's a really good cloth...”
This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.
Course summary for: Character Creation for Animation: Shapes, Color, and Expression
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Category
3D & Animation, Illustration -
Software
Adobe Photoshop -
Areas
Animation, Character Animation, Character Design, Drawing

Laura Ewing Ferrer
A course by Laura Ewing Ferrer
Laura Ewing is a freelance illustrator and storyboarder with a passion for animation. As a young girl, she would spend hours watching documentaries and DVD extras of her favorite animated films, in disbelief that creating these stories was a real job.
She went on to study Graphic Design, with a specialization in illustration, to then study Fine Art at The Florence Academy of Art in Italy, and obtained her Master’s degree in storyboarding at Lightbox Academy.
Her diverse experience in the industry includes working in-house at Smile and Learn, as well as working as a freelance artist for documentaries, pilot series, and publishing houses. She most recently worked on a storyboarding project for a live-action movie, which will be released in 2021 and for Madrid 2120 as a storyboard artist, which received this year’s Goya award for best short animation.
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