Lessons in Character Design

As some of you may know I am a big fan of character design and try to keep an eye on what is going on online. I discovered Cedric Hohnstadt’s website and blog a little while ago and thought it was worth a mention. What I like about Cedric’s site is the way he has been sharing his experience of some online character design training he has been taking with Schoolism. Schoolism features online training in digital design and character design. The character design training is done interactively where the student follows a supplied brief each week uploads their drawings which the tutor will then draw over digitally in video form to show how they think the drawing could be improved. You can see an artcast by Stephen Silver about the course on his website. The course looks very tempting but is fairly expensive at $998 dollars for nine lessons, but that includes personal critiques.

Anyway back to Cedric and his website and blog, take a look at some of the lessons he has taken part in. I especially like the portrait studies exercise which shows how starting with different face shapes – a circle, square and triangle can really change the look of a character. Take a look and see if you can get any inspiration for your character designs.