Illustration Gym: Find Your Style
A course by Santiago Solís Montes de OcaIllustrator and Designer
A course by Santiago Solís Montes de Oca, Illustrator and Designer
Explore different illustration paths, learn new techniques, and exercise your imagination
How can I develop my own illustration style? All illustrators have asked themselves this question, and it is perhaps one of the biggest challenges they face as artists. Illustrator, designer, and director of the Mano de Papel studio, Santiago Solís, is the perfect person to put your way of seeing reality to the test in order to transform it.
In this online course, explore different ways to find your own illustration style through techniques, exercises, and a ton of imagination.
What will you learn in this online course?
14 lessons & 11 downloads
What will we do in the course?
47 seconds
A stroll along the line
9 minutes, 12 seconds
The gym equipment
13 minutes, 50 seconds
Limits
5 minutes, 9 seconds
The references
12 minutes, 30 seconds
Blur and repeat
12 minutes, 10 seconds
What's included in this course?
Start by getting to know Santiago, where he comes from, how he got into illustration through self-teaching, his professional collaborations, and some of his main references.
Analyze the work of some line artists to understand their styles, because if words are the basic unit of language, lines are the essence of drawing. Next, review the different drawing tools that you can work with and the different line thicknesses they offer, among other details.
Focus on the illustrated portrait, discovering everything you need to take into account in terms of precision, and start to familiarize yourself with composition. Now use your completed portraits as a base to create others, by making subtle alterations to the face: eyes, eyebrows, angles, etc. Choose one of these alterations and repeat it on new portraits to help you better understand your drawing through blurring, and reconfigure it.
Move on to work with animals as an exercise in locating peculiar shapes outside your usual environment. Discover how to define a limited color palette, before analyzing the perfect simplicity of Picasso's Bull scheme. Then, draw a group of animals starting from the same shape as a common denominator.
To wrap up the course, apply everything you have learned in a final exercise, combining each of the exercises and techniques learned. In addition, Santiago teaches you to catalog all your exercises in a portfolio or file, to which you can always return for endless resources.
What is this course's project?
Reinterpret a real image through a new style that you develop during the course.
Projects by course students
Who is this online course for?
Illustrators, whether beginners or professionals, looking for inspiration to enhance their projects.
Requirements and materials
You don't need any previous drawing experience, as Santiago teaches you to draw from scratch.
For materials, you need: blank paper and pencils, a conventional 2H pencil, a Tortoise and Graphgear pen, colored pencils, disposable Molotow Chisels in 0.1, 0.3, 0.7, a refillable brush, and felt-tips.
Reviews
- 2 months ago
Un curso muy interesante con un profesor muy bueno, de gran riqueza expresiva, que ayuda y orienta, recomendable.
- 3 months ago
Muy valiosa la manera en la que Santiago nos invita a hacer de la práctica de la ilustración una rutina diaria y a explorar los materiales e ideas de manera amplia y creativa. Muy recomendado, me encantó.
- 3 months ago
Corso molto interessante, la parte sui ritratti è veramente interessante, mentre il resto fornisce ottimi spunti su esercizi di creatività. Lo consiglio
- 4 months ago
Muy Recomendado!
- royavazPLUS4 months ago
Muy buen curso para soltarte y perder el miedo al dibujo, lo recomiendo
He is currently director of the Mano de Papel design studio, coordinator of CASA Ilustración Narrativa, and associate editor at Malpaís Ediciones and Libros de Mano (in the Los Indelibles collection in collaboration with Oink Ediciones).
Content
- U1
Introduction
- Presentation
- Influences
- What will we do in the course?
- U2
The line and the heating
- A stroll along the line
- The gym equipment
- U3
The portrait: an isolated exercise
- Limits
- The references
- Blur and repeat
- U4
The animals: taking shape
- Expanding boundaries with borders
- Bull body
- Simple is complex
- U5
The complete routine
- The actions
- The combinations
- The file
- FP
Final project
- Illustration gym: find your style
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 observation techniques, visual transformation, composition, line and color usage, and how to develop your own illustration style, including hands-on exercises for drawing people, animals, and creating illustrated books.
This course is aimed at intermediate learners who already have basic drawing skills and want to deepen their illustration techniques and develop a personal style.
You’ll need paper, pencils, fineliners, brushes, graphite, colored pencils, and markers. It’s also recommended to have mixed media materials for experimenting, plus your own or photographic visual references.
Yes, you can follow the course using only pencil, but experimenting with different materials is encouraged to get the most out of the techniques taught.
The course covers techniques like limited color palettes, hatching, collage, composing with everyday objects, quick sketching, removing outlines in color, and using format and borders in illustration.
Yes, the course includes illustrating children’s books, sequencing images, creating illustrated posters, and editorial design, with tips on self-publishing.
It offers practical exercises and self-assessment methods to help you discover, strengthen, and define your own illustrative style through repetition, observation, and experimentation.