How to find your style in drawing characters

“You're an artist! Can you draw me?!”. Do your friends and acquaintances often want to get a portrait of your authorship? It's time to turn this to your advantage: take their photos (or look in social networks) and create a character based on it — such an exercise pumps up your skills well and helps find your style of drawing people.

We asked those who have already found their style how to work with the silhouette and details to convey the uniqueness and character of the character. We share their life hacks with you.

Graduate of the Skills Up School course “Character Design in Animation” Lyudmila Skalon:

— In working on the stylization of the image, I use two basic principles — simplification of forms and deformation of proportions. I try not to copy everything as it is, but to change some details to improve the work.

For example, in this work I wanted to focus on the model appearance and grace, so I stretched the whole silhouette. I also brought one arm forward to avoid symmetry. I did not use bright colors, but decided to do the work in restrained tones to create a certain feeling of mystery, and put part of the face in the shadow, which added mystery to the image.

Graduate of the Skills Up School course “Character Design in Animation” Anastasia Zheltyakova:

— While working on the task, I first looked at the silhouette, what “guides” the body movement — I put red lines right on top of the photo, and then tried to enhance this effect to make the pose look more interesting.

The next stage was looking at the proportions: for example, in the photo her trousers and jacket divide the figure exactly in the middle, which is not very successful. Therefore, I specially made the waist higher and the hips wider to make her look more feminine. I also enhanced some moments that I found interesting — the thickness of the collar, the texture of the jacket.

In the course Character Design in Animation, styling work is one of the additional tasks. During three months of online training, you can not only search for your own style of drawing characters and круто interpret, but also create your own characters from scratch in a single style with a focus on graphics for games, work out emotions, hairstyles, props and costumes.

Two full-fledged works in the portfolio, weekly feedback from the curator on homework — rich and very useful for everyone who dreams of becoming or is already working as a concept artist.

You can find out the details and sign up here.