Children’s Character Creation: Techniques and Styles
A course by María Antonella FantGraphic Designer and Illustrator
A course by María Antonella Fant, Graphic Designer and Illustrator
Learn to illustrate characters for children’s stories that reflect your own personality using digital techniques to bring them to life through shapes, colors, and textures
Can you imagine what your favorite characters would look like if they were modeled after you? In this online course, discover how illustrator and graphic designer Antonella Fant recreates the protagonists from children's stories in her unique style.
She teaches you how to design and illustrate characters for stories who embody your own personality. Learn to play with colors and textures and create compelling illustrations.
What will you learn in this online course?
13 lessons & 22 downloads
Meet the Character
13 minutes, 50 seconds
The Character and His Various Interpretations
4 minutes, 35 seconds
The Character in You
3 minutes, 40 seconds
The Base Structure of the Character
18 minutes, 17 seconds
Shape the Character
16 minutes, 56 seconds
Strengthen the Personality
9 minutes, 3 seconds
What's included in this course?
Begin by getting to know Antonella Fant and her professional career as an illustrator. She tells you about her biggest influences and how she's crafted an expressive style that reflects her personality.
Learn the fundamental concepts of character design and how to make one that resembles you by incorporating your personal traits, tastes, interests, and fears. Then discover the building blocks for character structures and different ways to stylize them.
Now it's time to design your character. Start by sketching an outline and play with proportions until you're satisfied with the look. Add clothing and accessories to emphasize their personality and bring them to life with dynamic postures and expressive features.
Finally, experiment with color palettes, textures, light, and shadows to give your illustration more depth. Once you've finished, Antonella teaches you how to wrap your character in context with a background that reinforces their personal story.
What is this course's project?
Redesign a character from a classic literary work to reflect your personality and give them an original look.
Projects by course students
Who is this online course for?
Anyone who wants to explore illustration for children's literature.
Requirements and materials
Basic notions of illustration are needed to follow this course.
Antonella uses Procreate, but you can work with whatever tool you'd like, whether digital or analog.
Reviews
- 5 months ago
Al inicio uno tiene muchas dudas pero anto lo explica perfectamente, nos da claridad y confianza para crear lo que sea que deseamos.
- 7 months ago
It is a very understandable course, clear, bout important things in character design and colouring and lighting the illustration, no water, only main useful information. Thank you, Maria.
- 9 months ago
Un curso muy lindo y completo que me ha ayudado mucho aprender sobre el manejo de los colores y creación de personajes
- 10 months ago
много полезна информация
- 1 year ago
Buen curso introductorio.
She currently works as an illustrator for children's literature and educational platforms, collaborating with publishers like Mavericks, Igloobooks, Capstone, SM, Edelvives, and more. She has also participated in a variety of contests and was selected as the Dibujante Destacada 2020 at the ADA Awards (Asociación de Dibujantes de la Argentina).
Content
- U1
Introduction
- About Me
- Influences
- U2
From Idea to Character
- Meet the Character
- The Character and His Various Interpretations
- The Character in You
- The Base Structure of the Character
- U3
Sketch the Character
- Shape the Character
- Strengthen the Personality
- Dynamism and Expressiveness
- U4
The Character Comes to Life
- Choose a Character and Base Color
- Textures, Details, and Retouches
- Context
- Shadows, Lights, and Setting
- FP
Final project
- Children's Character Creation: Techniques and Styles
What to expect from a Domestika course
Learn at your own pace
Enjoy learning from home without a set schedule and with an easy-to-follow method. You set your own pace.
Learn from the best professionals
Learn valuable methods and techniques explained by top experts in the creative sector.
Meet expert teachers
Each expert teaches what they do best, with clear guidelines, true passion, and professional insight in every lesson.
Certificates
PLUSIf you're a Plus member, get a custom certificate signed by your teacher for every course. Share it on your portfolio, social media, or wherever you like.
Get front-row seats
Videos of the highest quality, so you don't miss a single detail. With unlimited access, you can watch them as many times as you need to perfect your technique.
Share knowledge and ideas
Ask questions, request feedback, or offer solutions. Share your learning experience with other students in the community who are as passionate about creativity as you are.
Connect with a global creative community
The community is home to millions of people from around the world who are curious and passionate about exploring and expressing their creativity.
Watch professionally produced courses
Domestika curates its teacher roster and produces every course in-house to ensure a high-quality online learning experience.
FAQs
You’ll learn how to design original characters, develop your own styles, create facial and body expressions, use digital techniques in Procreate, build costumes and accessories, and present projects to publishers in the field of children’s and anime illustration.
The course is aimed at an intermediate level, with basic drawing knowledge recommended. You don’t need to be an expert, but you should be familiar with digital or traditional illustration tools.
The course mainly uses Procreate, but you can adapt the concepts and techniques to other digital illustration programs like Photoshop, Clip Studio, or Krita, as long as you’re comfortable with basic layer and brush functions.
You’ll need a digital tablet (an iPad is recommended), Procreate or another digital editor, a stylus, internet access, and visual references. You can also use traditional materials for initial sketches if you prefer.
Yes, the course includes exercises and analysis to help you identify influences, experiment with techniques, and solidify a personal style in character creation.
Yes, you’ll learn to create black-and-white illustrations as well as how to choose color palettes, apply lighting and shadows, and achieve appealing textures in your characters.
Yes, the syllabus covers creating chibi, anime, and cartoon characters, including proportions, expressiveness, and style adaptation for children’s and youth projects.