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

We asked those who have already found their style how to work with silhouette and detail to convey the uniqueness and character of the character. Делимся с вами их лайфхаками.

Ludmila Skalon, a graduate of the Skills Up School Character Design in Animation course:

– In my work on image stylization 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 piece I wanted to emphasize model looks and gracefulness, so I elongated the entire silhouette. Also brought one arm forward to avoid symmetry. I did not take bright colors, and decided to do the work in restrained tones to get a sense of mystery, and took away in the shadow part of the face, which added mystery to the image.

Anastasia Zheltyakova, a graduate of the Skills Up School Character Design in Animation course:

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

The next step was to look at the proportions: for example, in the photo, her pants and jacket divide the figure exactly in the middle, which is not very successful. So I purposely made the waist higher and the hips wider to make her look more feminine. I also reinforced some points that I thought were interesting – the thickness of the collar, the texture of the jacket.

In the course
Character design in animation
Stylization work is one of the optional assignments. During the three months of online learning you can not only search for your character drawing style and cool interpretation, but also create your own characters from scratch in a uniform style with a focus on graphics for games, work out emotions, hairstyles, props and costumes.

Two full portfolio pieces, weekly feedback from a mentor on homework assignments – intense and very rewarding for anyone who dreams of becoming or is already working as a concept artist.

The closest start date is November 7.

Find out more details and sign up here.