Dynamic Animal Illustration for Children’s Stories
The Sketch
A course by Julie Mellan , Illustrator
About the video: The Sketch
Overview
“Now I will choose the posture of my animal and start sketching the illustration. Some artists will prefer to observe carefully and then trace in one (almost) perfect line the global shape. Personally, I feel more comfortable working on a quick sketch and getting close to the natural shapes that I will later redefine gradually. You will see here how I do this!”
In this video lesson Julie Mellan addresses the topic: The Sketch, which is part of the Domestika online course: Dynamic Animal Illustration for Children’s Stories. Learn to draw anthropomorphic characters that bring joy to young readers by exploring the fundamentals of animal anatomy, posing, and stylization.
Partial transcription of the video
“In this lesson, we will define the position of our animal and start our sketch. It is really important not to stick to the photo references. you have to understand the volumes and not just copying the outlines of the subject. You have to compose with what you have already seen and really build your own. I'm always amazed by some artists who achieve to find almost the perfect line directly. Personally, I like to doodle lightly to find the perfect shape. It's almost like modelling with clay, you can add or take off some mass here and there. This is why I like to doodle lightly at this point. ...”
This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.
Course summary for: Dynamic Animal Illustration for Children’s Stories
-
Category
Illustration -
Areas
Character Design, Children's Illustration, Drawing, Pencil Drawing
Julie Mellan
A course by Julie Mellan
Julie Mellan is a French illustrator and self-confessed watercolor addict who specializes in illustrations for children’s books. She spent her childhood reading Beatrix Potter’s books and drawing animal characters from Disney movies, before going on to study classic drawing, painting, illustration, and animation at the French art school École Émile Cohl. After graduating, she continued to combine sketching and watercolors to create expressive animal characters, and eventually published her first book in 2013.
Julie uses traditional mediums to tell stories through her illustrations and create connections between characters. Her work has appeared in children’s books published by the likes of Penguin Random House, Clavis, and Fleurus.
- 97% positive reviews (314)
- 14,454 students
- 14 lessons (1h 58m)
- 14 additional resources (5 files)
- Online and at your own pace
- Available on the app
- Audio: English, Italian
- English · Spanish · Portuguese · German · French · Italian · Polish · Dutch
- Level: Beginner
- Unlimited access forever
