Designing Cute Characters for Children's Books
A course by Desiree Gneco , Illustrator
Joined March 2018
Design cute children’s book characters with Clip Studio Paint using proportions, expressions, color, poses, narrative costume, character sheet
Joined March 2018
Learn how to design characters for children’s books and build a kid protagonist who actually feels alive on the page. In this course, you start from a blank canvas and work through proportions, expression, silhouette, color and the little details that make a character feel like they belong in a story.
You’ll break the body down into simple shapes, play with cute facial features, draw emotions that read instantly, and pose your character in ways that show who they are before they say anything. Using Clip Studio Paint or any digital illustration tool you like, you’ll sketch, refine your linework and paint while keeping the character consistent from one drawing to the next.
By the end, you’ll have a full character sheet—structure, expressions, outfits and poses—that you can use in your portfolio, picture‑book ideas or personal projects.
What will you learn in this online course?
7 lessons & 5 downloads
- 42 students
- 7 lessons (47m)
- 5 additional resources (1 files)
- Online and at your own pace
- Available on the app
- Audio: Spanish, German, English, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish
- Spanish · English · Portuguese · German · French · Italian · Polish · Dutch · Turkish · Romanian · Indonesian
- Level: Beginner
- Unlimited access forever
Recommended software & tools for this course
Clip Studio PaintWho is this online course for?
For illustrators, art students, designers, and anyone dipping their toes into children’s books. It’s also a good fit if you’re putting together your first kidlit portfolio or want your characters to feel clearer, warmer, and more emotionally grounded in your projects.
Requirements and materials
You don’t need advanced training for this. If you can sketch simple shapes and lines, you’re set. Using Clip Studio Paint or similar software with a tablet makes things easier, but paper, a pencil, and an eraser work just fine too.
Desiree Gneco
A course by Desiree Gneco
Desiree Gneco, Drawsiree, is an illustrator specializing in character creation with a vibrant, expressive, and recognizable aesthetic. Her work focuses on building characters with strong personalities, combining simplified forms, emotional color, and a clear narrative sensibility. Through her presence on social media and YouTube, she shares her sketching process, visual development, and stylistic exploration, demonstrating a structured methodology from initial idea to final illustration.
Her creative approach emphasizes visual identity and character coherence, working with gesture, silhouette, and palette as key tools to convey personality. With an accessible yet technically solid style, she connects especially with emerging illustrators seeking to develop their own visual language and strengthen their character design process.
Content
-
Designing Cute Characters for Children's Books
-
Presentation and objectives
-
How to Make Characters Look Soft and Tender
-
Childlike Proportions
-
Expressions and Gestures
-
Narrative Wardrobe
-
Expressive Poses
-
Final Character Sheet
-
Final project
-
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
What are Domestika's online courses?
Domestika courses are online classes that allow you to learn new skills and create incredible projects. All our courses include the opportunity to share your work with other students and/or teachers, creating an active learning community. We offer different formats:
Original Courses: Complete classes that combine videos, texts, and educational materials to complete a specific project from start to finish.
Basics Courses: Specialized training where you master specific software tools step by step.
Specialization Courses: Learning paths with various expert teachers on the same topic, perfect for becoming a specialist by learning from different approaches.
Guided Courses: Practical experiences ideal for directly acquiring specific skills.
Intensive Courses (Deep Dives): New creative processes based on artificial intelligence tools in an accessible format for in-depth and dynamic understanding.
When do the deep dive courses start and when do they finish?
All deep dive courses are 100% online, so once they're published, deep dive courses start and finish whenever you want. You set the pace of the class. You can go back to review what interests you most and skip what you already know, ask questions, answer questions, share your projects, and more.
What do Domestika's deep dive courses include?
The deep dive courses are divided into different modules. Each one includes lessons, informational text, tasks, and practice exercises to help you carry out your project step by step, with additional complementary resources and downloads. You'll also have access to an exclusive forum where you can interact with other students, as well as share your work and your final project, creating a community around the deep dive courses.
Have you been given a deep dive courses?
You can redeem the deep dive courses you received by accessing the redeeming page and entering your gift code.
Clip Studio Paint