Intro to Character Design

This short course is an introduction to learning the basics of creating characters, and drawing digitally. You will learn different types of drawing and rendering techniques that you can use to create compelling character designs. This cours­e is aimed at begin­ner to intermediate artists and will give you the per­fect foun­da­tion for your art career.

A Char­ac­ter Design­er cre­ates the look and feel of characters for video games, film, ani­ma­tion and illus­tra­tions. Strong draw­ing skills and the fun­da­men­tals are required to cre­ate any type of real­is­tic or stylised char­ac­ters.

At CDW Stu­dios many of the workshops use the principles taught in character design. This includes per­spec­tive, anato­my, draw­ing con­struc­tion, draw­ing sim­ple forms in 3D space, colour, design prin­ci­ples, sto­ry­telling and draw­ing in Photoshop.

This 12 week online course runs concurrently with Flinders University semesters. Including the two-week mid-semester break, it runs for 14 weeks in total. The course will consist of:

• 12 weekly pre-recorded lectures & demonstrations that will guide you step by step through your projects
• 6 assignments over the course of 12 weeks (one submitted each fortnight, prior to feedback session)
  
• Live fortnightly 3hr feedback webinars where you will receive feedback on your progress. (see below)

Topics covered over the 12 week course include:

• Construction & drawing forms
• Drawing poses, faces & hands
• Communicating feeling through gesture
• Shape design & style
• Archetypes
• Basic rendering with colour to create a finished character

Tuition Price: $950 AUD.

Hardware requirements for the course are:

• Laptop or Desktop PC or MAC (MacBook Pro or i7 PC/laptop with 16GB RAM are recommended).
• Wacom tablet is recommended not required. Any size is good.
• Headset/Microphone so that you can chat with the instructor in fortnightly webinars.
• Notepad and pens/pencils for note-taking.

Software requirements:

• Adobe Photoshop

*As part of the course you have the option to participate in Live Streamed Feedback Sessions. These are live feedback webinars with your industry instructor will provide you with direct feedback on your work. If you can't attend the session via webcam when it's live, you will still be able to watch the recorded sessions in your own time. Times listed are ACST (UTC +9:30).