Character Illustration from Philipp Kruse

Characters are the heart and soul of any movie, comic or video game. In this Course, illustrator Philipp Kruse shares his secrets to populating projects with compelling humanoid designs. Strap in for an interactive tour all the way from artistic first principles to the most advanced tricks, each tailored to make your characters not only look amazing, but feel like living, breathing parts of their worlds. With these new techniques, you’ll be creating beautiful work to showcase your unique skills in ways you never thought possible before.

Art Fundamentals In this first Lesson, Philipp will show you how to turn the basic building blocks of art into powerful creative decisions. Line, anatomy and lighting all help to convey emotion and meaning in a piece, and you will learn Philipp’s particular style of harnessing these elements to fuel his creations. He will then take you through several of his past artworks, to break down exactly what makes them tick.

Generating Ideas In this Lesson, you will start creating your own character. You’ll begin by visiting the Brief Builder to create a set of guidelines for your illustration, giving you the same kinds of constraints you might have when working with a real-world client. After this, you’ll gather reference material, organize it, and dive into Photoshop to start sketching. This is where the basis of your character will be formed, so keep an open mind, be ready to iterate on your ideas, and have fun!

Design Now that you have a concept for your character formed, Philipp will take you more in-depth into the design process. You’ll focus on details like the linework, clothing, and major focal areas. Then, you’ll look back to the design theory of the past two Lessons and assess your project based on those principles. Finally, you will prepare for the painting phase by filling in the linework, adding ambient occlusion and blocking in colors.

Illustration In this Lesson, Philipp will take you through the process of finishing your illustration and presenting it to a client. You will light your character, render the details, and tie all the visual elements together. Next comes the critical process of re-evaluating your work and making any last-minute changes. And finally, you’ll create an attractive beauty shot for your character, which will help to sell the image in client presentations and look great in your portfolio.

1. fundamentals 01. art fundamentals overview 02. line shape and form 02. understanding anatomy 03. construction 04. gesture study 05. establishing a character 06. body language 06. light and shadow 07. form follows function 08. everything is a remix 09. idea hierarchies 10. visual composition 11. character designs 12. illustration 13. complex scenes general overview of course homework Meet phil

2. generating ideas 01. lesson overview 02. Visual library 03. brief builder 04. bridge 05. pureref 06. photoshop 07. contextualized design 08. A; experimenting with designs unedited 08. experimenting with designs 09. C; posing our character unedited 09. posing our character 10. applying the design 10. B; applying the design unedited homework

3. design 00. overview 01. A; Adding details unedited 01. initial details pass 02. refining hero shapes 03. applying design theory 04. B; Creating value unedited 04. creating value 05. adding color 06. adjusting linework 07. assessment homework

4. illustration 01. lighting 02. organic materials 03. armor materials 04. creating focal points 05. style 06. tying things together 07. surrounding effects 08. quality control 09. balancing details 10. adjustment layers homework making choices unedited overview rendering unedited

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