2D Character Design Magician Information

2D Character Design Magician by Ana Perez & Jordi Villaverde is designed to guide you through the entire process of character design for an animation project.

Learn the way to face a Character Design commission from scratch to the final art! Briefing, Documentation, Mood boarding, Rough Concepts, Color Tests, Clean Up!

What is this 2D character course about?

Have you ever wondered how somebody works on a commissioned project since the first email received? This course will teach you how to face a Character Design for an animation project.

We will start since the client briefing and we will guide you through every step, since you start looking for references, building a mood board that will inspire you to face the project and start with the first rough sketches, the style research based on cartoon basics and finding and doing the final art style that will define the whole project. We also will refresh a bit of basic drawing and color theory, taking references from very known characters of the animation world.

We will apply all of this to our fancy characters, giving them a colorful and modern look and seeing how they evolve from scratch to the final art.

What You’ll Learn In 2D Character Design Magician

LESSON #0: Let’s talk about us!

A quick introduction about ourselves. We talk about our professional background and show our personal artwork

LESSON #1: Briefing and Brainstorming

1.1.General overview and character’s definition

What is the general tone of the character’s context? We define where those characters will live, always thinking in the client requests, defining the mood and attitude of every character before starting drawing

1.2. Moodboarding

GO CRAZY! Inspiration and graphic research. Moodboard and concept creation

LESSON #2: Drawing with a concept

2.1 Shapes and first sketches

We explain how to start with basic shapes, poses and acting, refreshing a bit of shapes theory and going for the first rough sketches

2.2 Defining the characters

Adding some elements to the design to add personality, attitude, and crazy stuff to our characters in the sketch phase

2.3 Lineart and Color Theory

Brushes and line style search, color palette definition and general look & feel to find the final art style for our designs. Also a bit of color theory to refresh our memories

2.4 Clean-up and Final Art: LET’S NAIL IT!

Line art, color tests and final clean-up of our precious, magnificent and perfect Unicorn character. Showcase of our final horses proposals for the client

LESSON #3: Humans. Extra Characters

3.1. How are humans?

We will talk about human proportions, sketching, cartoon exaggeration, adding style and identity to our designs. KISS! Clean up and showcase our human characters.

3.2 Adding human behavior to animals

Let’s talk a bit about how to add human behavior to the animals. We will design a Sexy Gorilla playing with cartoon basics: Expressions, make-up, acting, etc…

LESSON #4: Merging characters and style frames (bonus track!)

4.1. Creating a new character merging 2 different concepts

We’ll show how we can create a new character from one already created (unicorn) by merging it with a new concept (fly) and transforming our beautiful unicorn into a fly!

4.2. Style frames

Showcase of the style frames we created for our client, trying to define the project the visual style and comparing them to the final video made by our client

About Authors

Ana Perez

Hey! I’m a 2d artist based in Barcelona. I’ve been working during my professional career as a multidisciplinary artist, especially in the technology field. Right now my current work is in the gaming industry as a 2d artist and UI Artist, also working on more illustration and cartoon freelances related.

As I said, I love comics and cartoons and my personal artwork is very influenced by that and the colorful and badass style.

Jordi Villaverde

Hello! I am Jordi, known as villaisdrawing in social networks. Illustrator and character designer from sunny Barcelona that loves video games, comics, animation, and all kinds of design and arts.

I usually work in character design, video games, advertising, and editorial with a cartoony and personal style, strongly influenced by Japanese and pop culture: drawings about feelings, emotions, music.

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