Transcripts
1. Class Intro: [MUSIC] Having an artistic style is such a coveted achievement
in the young artist's mind. What is my style
and how do I get one that feels right to
me and appeals to others, are the questions that
everyone seems to be asking. My name is Emma
Gillette and I am a full-time professional
children's book and chapter book illustrator. I have a BFA in
animation and art directed the student Emmy
nominated short film Taijitu. I have been working in the
illustration industry for five years and my
clients include Disney, American Girl and Random Penguin
House among many others. While my career has taken
me into illustration, I have always had a passion
for character design. Characters are always the focus
of my illustrative works. I've spent years studying other artists and
developing my own style, which tends to be
playful and girlish, using bright
saturated colors and textures that often have a gouache or painterly
look to them. In this class, I will be teaching you one of
the tried and true methods that I
learned in art school to grow as an artist
stylistically. This method is called emulation, and it's like doing
a raster copy, but takes it to a
whole new level of complexity and depth. In many ways, doing an emulation can solidify
the things that you learned from studying
an artist much better than doing
your master copy can. Whether you're an
amateur artist looking to develop your craft or you're a more experienced
designer who needs a way to refreshen
your design skills, learning how to emulate
master character designers will not only guarantee your growth as an
artist and designer, but will forever change
the way that you approach character
design from now on. In this class, I
will discuss all of the design elements that
make up your artistic style, explain why settling
on a style too soon in your artistic
journey isn't recommended, and how copying and emulating master designers is the best way to improve your artistic style. I'll break down all the
steps of completing an emulation and give
you some tips and tricks that will help you knock your first emulation
project out of the park. This class will be
helpful to character designers of all skill levels. Learning how to emulate was a huge game changer
for me in art school. I'm so excited to share this little known
exercise with you. Let's get started.
2. Your Project: [MUSIC] Your project for this
class will be to create an emulation of one of the three master
designers that I have pre-selected for
this class or from an artist that you really
admire and want to learn from. In the Resources you will find a blank grid template for you to fill with character
designs done by your selected artist leaving the middle square
blank as that is where you will put your completed
character design. These templates will
help you critique your emulation during and
at the end of your class. You can choose whether
you want to use the JPEG, PNG, or PSD file. You will also find links in the project
description section of this class to Pinterest boards for each of the
pre-selected artists, or you will have to make your
own Pinterest board if you are choosing a different
artist not from my list. Your finished project which
I highly encourage you to share in the class
project gallery below will include one completed
character design in the style of your chosen artist and one completed grid template. For my sketch studies I
will be using pen on paper, and for my completed
design I will be using Procreate on the iPad Pro, but you are free to choose
any medium or format that you wish so long as you
can effectively match the style if
you're choosing artist. For example, Nico Morley
can be completed using either traditional or
digital mediums as digital pencils
are often just as believable as
traditional pencils, but a [inaudible] emulation might be a little
more difficult to achieve traditionally as he has a very digital look
to his designs. When you have finished
your project, I would love for
you to share it in the class project gallery below, and to ask for critique
if you want it. Receiving critique
graciously is one of the best and fastest ways
to improve as an artist, so don't be shy
in asking for it. Also, if you end up sharing your project on social media, here's my art handle
on Instagram. Please tag me in it. I would love to see your
designs there as well. [MUSIC]
3. Why is emulation so powerful?: [MUSIC] Let's begin this class by discussing how emulation is probably one of the most
powerful tools that you can use to develop your personal style and
skill as a designer. First, let's talk
a little bit about what makes up an artistic style. Your artistic style is your
use and manipulation of your hand-one knowledge
of the basics of design to express your ideas in a
way that is unique to you. For example, your art style
consists of your knowledge of and manipulation of anatomy, perspective
and structure. Use of shapes and
shape language, use of line weight, use of a variety
of compositions. Use of color, light and texture, use of and mastery of your chosen mediums and lastly,
your unique shorthands. You may be familiar with
most of these things. For the most part, they're
the basics of design that you are currently studying or
have studied in the past. But you may be wondering
what I mean when I say the use of shorthands. What is a shorthand you ask? I want to demonstrate
what a shorthand is with you by doing a
little demonstration, you can join me
with pen and paper, or you can just
watch if you prefer. That's all right too. If you are joining me, I'd like you to draw a simple shoulder up drawing
of a girl with curly hair. This is not supposed
to be your best work. Just do it in a couple minutes. As you can see with mine, I'm not being
particularly careful. I'm falling back on
my go-to methods for drawing a face, [MUSIC] I'm not paying too
much thought into it. [MUSIC] Here's my drawing. The first thing I want to
point out is that this is in fact not a real girl
with curly hair. This is merely a
piece of white paper with a bunch of black
lines and squiggles placed on it with my pen
that you and I are interpreting as an image
of a girl with curly hair. I know that seems kind of a silly thing for me to
make a big deal out of. But the really cool thing about humans is that we are capable of interpreting and making meaning out of
squiggles and lines. For example, you see how I use this curved line with the hook on the end
to express the nose. Or how I used a dome with
little dots to represent eyes. Or these curly cues
here all around the head that I've used
to represent curly hair. Look at your own
drawing if you did one, how would you describe the
combinations of lines, squiggles and dots
used in your drawing. Notice how the combination
of those lines are probably much different
than the ones that I used. Those are called shorthands. The way you use lines and
dots to draw your nose is the shorthand you have learned for expressing a
nose through art. There are many different ways to express noses with drawings and the cool thing is that no matter what the nose
or drawing looks like, when put in the right context, they can almost always be interpreted as a
nose by any viewer. Why am I making such a big point to talk about shorthands? Well, often as
artists we can get stuck by using the same
shorthands over and over again. This is where I
strongly discouraged new artists and artists
who are looking to improve their craft
from settling on a style too early at this
point in their art journey. Why? Because the best art
styles are created from a deep and wide knowledge of all the fundamentals of design. If you are still learning
the fundamentals, picking an art style and sticking to it
stubbornly will only stunt your growth as an artist and also betray your novice. I can think of dozens of artists who haven't improved
in years just because they have never ventured away from their
chosen shorthands. If you're feeling
like your style is stale or that you have
stopped growing as an artist, gaining new shorthands
is essential to your breaking the barrier
of your artistic rut. You can gain new shorthands
from a number of ways. One of the ways is
to draw from life, abandoning preconceived ideas or shorthands as you observe and
draw exactly what you see. The other way is to
do an emulation. What exactly is an emulation? Have you heard of a master copy? Around the world, you'll often see students in art galleries with their paints and
their sketchbooks sitting in front of
famous art pieces, making painstaking
and meticulous copies of the works in front of them. This is a powerful
tool in learning and mastering the basics
of Art and Design. Why? Well, who better to learn from than the
masters themselves, they have already learned and mastered the
fundamentals of design. When an art student
copies a master artist, she is learning very valuable
and important lessons from that exercise that
just looking and observing the painting
alone cannot do. Emulating takes master
copying to a whole new level. While master copying is making an exact copy of a drawing, painting, or design, creating an emulation
is creating an entirely new and
unique design of your invention in the style of the master artists that you
are trying to learn from. The goal of an
emulation is to be able to place your
design in a line above other designs done by that artist and be able
to fool anyone into believing that that artist created that drawing
and not you. Emulation is a powerful tool for designers to use when
trying to master the foundations
of design or when trying to add new shorthands
to their library. It forces you to get into the
mind of the other designer and truly try to understand
how they think and work. While doing an honest
and true emulation, you will attempt
to forget all of your preconceived
ideas about design, all in the pursuit of
truly understanding the process and decision-making
of the master artist. The more emulations that you do, the more that you will see
your own designs improve. The techniques and shorthands that you use will become more refined as your library expands
and your knowledge grows. As a word of warning copying and emulating
should only be done with the intent of learning and growing and for no other reason. You should never attempt
to pass a copy or an emulation as
your work entirely. Give credit where credit is due. With an emulation,
you may of course claim your original design, but you should always credit
the artist from whom you studied to create
the emulation from. [MUSIC]
4. Picking the Right Artist: [MUSIC] Now that we've discussed
how important emulation is and you're excited to
jump into your project, we first have to pick an artist. This is key as I don't want
you to pick just any artist, I want you to pick a master. Since this class is on
emulation for character design, I want you to pick a
master character designer. This typically means
that the artists that you choose should have extensive knowledge
and experience in the industries of animation, video games or comic books. The reason being that
these are the artists that have risen to the top
of their industries, and thus have the most to teach. While of course you can find value from doing
emulations of any artists, whether they're
professional or not, the most effective
emulations are going to come from studying artists
who are masters. The most effective emulations that will teach you
the most and help you grow the fastest will
come from artists who are masters of their craft and are widely known in
their industries. Imagine the difference in the amount of skill or
knowledge you would gain from doing a master copy
of a Momeni or Da Vinci, as opposed to an
amateur artist who maybe hasn't broken
into their career yet. The same rule applies for
character design emulations. If you are having a hard
time selecting an artist, I have pre-selected three
character designers for you to choose from. I have included links to Pinterest boards for you
to use as reference. For this project, I will be emulating one of my
pre-selected artists, Deanna Marsigliese, who
at the time of making is currently an art character
director at Pixar Studios. I chose her because her style is very different from mine, and I have the most to gain
and learn by studying her. Oftentimes, people are scared
of failure and they'll choose an artist that has a style already
similar to their own. Do not do this. Choose to challenge yourself. Choosing to challenge
yourself is choosing to grow. Once you've picked an artist, go ahead and download
the grid template from the project resources and drop eight designs from that
artists into the grid, leaving the middle space open. When you have completed
your project, you will drop your design
into the middle of the grid and then use that
to critique your project. [MUSIC]
5. Preparing for Emulation: [MUSIC] Now it's time to jump
into the first step of our emulation. Doing an emulation takes a
little bit of prep work. Remember that the key difference
between a master copy and an emulation is that at
the end of a master copy, you will have a complete
and dutiful copy of the piece that
you are studying. Whereas an emulation is a completely new design done in the style of the
artist that you're emulating. Because you will create your own character
design for this project, you will really need to
study the artists you've chosen before you jump into
designing your character. You will accomplish this by
doing lots of study drawings. In a way, they're doing
little mini master copies, but they're sketches in an attempt to learn and study
from your master artist. In the project
description below, I've included links to
Pinterest boards for each of my pre-selected artists. Or if you've chosen
a different artist, you'll need to create
your own Pinterest board. For this step in the project, I want you to do five pages of study drawings
of your artist. You can do these in a sketchbook or you
can do them digitally, whichever one you prefer. This is not the time to
rush through these copies. I want you to be really
intentional with each drawing. With each sketch, try
to learn something new about how this character
designer thinks and works. What kind of shapes do they use? How do they do their line work? How do they draw
noses, hands, feet? You can do a full page of eyes
or a page where you really focus on trying to make the linework look and
feel exactly like theirs. Here I have some reference for this sketch that
I'm going to do. As you can see up here, I spent a little bit of time
looking at hands and feet. She's very loose [LAUGHTER]
with how she does them, but they're really fun and
gestural and expressive. But down here I want to study
how she did this character. I'm using a Micron PN pen. It's a felt nib. It just has a lot
of good variety. I'm going to go ahead
and start sketching. I'm paying attention to
how she does her lines, so she's very loose
and gestural. She breaks her lines
quite often I'm noticing, but she's very decisive still, even if they're sketchy. She doesn't noodle too much. She just decides the lines that she wants in
just a few strokes. That's what I'm
trying to accomplish here while copying this sketch. I'm noticing that
sometimes she'll even scribble a little bit to show shadow or form
in this sketch. Here at the neck to make it seem like it's under the
chin and it's darker she's added some sketches or I should say,
more sketchy lines. Her characters are very round. She rarely uses sharp angles or even triangles or squares. If you notice down
here on the teeth, they are still rounded even
though it's a sea monster and you would assume they
would have pointy teeth, her characters almost
always use rounds. Here I'm trying to be very decisive with these
long strokes. She likes to use a
lot of curly cues, I'm noticing as well for organic materials
like this dress is made out of
seaweed of some kind. She uses a lot of curls, same with up here in
the scale-like hair. [NOISE] Here again, there's
some scribbles where the form curves
under the character. What I've learned
from this drawing is to be very loose and to use my shoulder as I'm drawing
to get those decisive lines. I have learned doing all
of these drawings that she is just very free-flowing
with her drawings. She doesn't care too much
about making mistakes. She often utilizes her mistakes to her advantage in
fleshing out the form. I will have to carry that
with me into my design. I'm going to need to
really be careful to be free-flowing and open and loose with my arm movements and to
not get super cramped in. It can be easy to just really get stiff when you're
copying someone else. That's what I'm going to take
with me into the next step. You don't have to stop
at five pages either. Keep drawing and studying until you feel like you
really understand how this artist works
and thinks and you feel like you know everything about your chosen
artist's style. You want to feel so
confident that you'll be able to duplicate
this artist's style, that once you've
completed your design, it will fool anyone
into thinking that that artist created your
design and not you. [MUSIC]
6. The Power of Iteration: [MUSIC] Once you have spent
a sufficient amount of time studying your artist, you will be ready
to start designing your own character design
for this emulation. Hopefully, as you've copied the many drawings and designs done by your character designer, you'll have an idea
for the kind of characters that they
like to design. For example, you could design a chibi princess if you were emulating the designer
Mike Mignola, but you might have more
success if you were to choose something
that he tends to draw, which tend to be
edgier dark fantasy and sci-fi characters. But if you're up for that
challenge and want to design a Mike Mignola
chibi princess, I say go for it. Just as I asked you
to take time in the study section of this class, I want you to take your time while designing this character. I want you to do
three iterations of your character design
before moving forward. Iteration is an essential part of the character design process. Your first pass at a design is usually not your
best and approaching a character design with
many different ideas and poses often results
in a stronger, more powerful design in the end. With each iteration, you might try to
exaggerate the shapes more or try different
costumes or different poses. Whatever you can think of
that might make your design a little better each time
you'd start a new iteration. Try to really think at each
iteration how you might improve or push on the last
iteration you just did. Perhaps you'll push too far in one iteration and then need
to pull back in another. Really let your imagination and storytelling shine in this
phase of the design process. Work out all the kinks you can before you take your
design to finish. Don't worry too much about making your designs
perfectly rendered. As you can see when I'm
first designing a character, I like to work
loosely and try not to get bogged down
by cleanliness. You will have time to clean up your design in the
finishing phase. This is also the
perfect time to ask others for feedback
on your sketches. Ask if your preliminary
sketches are looking similar to the designs
of your chosen artist. Ask for suggestions
and be open to making changes based
on what you hear back. Receiving critique can
be hard sometimes, but sometimes as
artists we can be blind to our own mistakes
or shortcomings, and receiving an outside opinion is one of the most
valuable things you can receive as an artist if you're willing to take
it with an open-mind. The best artists are
the ones who are willing to make changes
when they're offered. Don't be afraid to
share your iterations in the discussions tab
in the gallery below. Here are my three iterations for this grammy fairy character and I actually went and
asked my husband Conor, who's also a designer
and illustrator, what his thoughts were
on these characters and he and I both decided that we liked this character the most. However, he did say that even though he liked
this character the most that there was a quality of
this one that was really fun. He liked her hat better, he also liked the more
of country bumpkin feel that she has
and so I agreed. I think what I would
like to do is take this character and maybe
alter her hat and her costume a little bit to add some of the hillbilly country bumpkin
feel that this one has, but mainly stick
to the design and shapes that I have
going on in here. I'm going to go ahead and melt
the two of them together. [MUSIC]
7. How to Nail Your Emulation: [MUSIC] All that preparation and hard work has
now prepared you to make a killer character design. You are now ready to take
your design to final. This is when you will take
your chosen final design from your iteration phase
and then really get into the nitty-gritty
of cleaning it up, adding the line work,
and coloring it. Some tips that I have
for you in this phase are to nail the linework. Make sure that as
you are putting the finishing touches on the
linework for the design, that you are using
a similar brush to what your chosen artist uses. If they use textured brush
pens or round digital pens, try to use something
similar to that. Also pay attention to
their line weight. That means how thick or
thin they do their lines. Some designers use
really thick line art, others really thin. Pay attention to how
their lines may get thicker in some areas
and thinner in others. Linework is extremely
unique to each artist, so getting it right in
your design will be key to creating a successful emulation
of your chosen artist. Use reference for everything. Don't let yourself fall back into using your old shorthands. You just studied how your chosen artist draws
everything from eyes to toes, so when you're putting
the final touches on the hands of your
character, use reference. Make sure that you are
drawing each part of your design in the way that
your chosen artist would. Repeat after me, reference,
reference, reference. Use similar color palettes, brushes, and textures. This is just another
reminder to choose colors that appear often in the
work of your chosen artist. When you are coloring
your design, pay attention to how your
artist colors those designs. Do they use lots of gradients or do they use textured brushes? These little details
will go a long way in making your emulation
look authentic. Ask for critique. Put your designs in
the Discussions tab and ask for critique. I would love to help you
finesse your design. Like I said earlier, asking and receiving
critique graciously is the fastest way to improve
and grow as an artist. Use your grid. Using your grid throughout the design phase can
be super-helpful. Periodically throw your
design into the grid and see if it matches up to the
other designs around it. Maybe the lines are too thick or you're using the wrong colors or the character just doesn't seem to fit in with the
characters around it. Make the necessary
tweaks and put it back in and take it back out and keep doing that over
and over again until you feel like your design
really matches up. Here is my final design. I ended up doing a cute little country mushroom grandma fairy
baking some cookies, and I had a lot
of fun with this. For the line art, I used the fine tip pen in the inking section of just
the basic Procreate brushes. I liked it. I felt like it almost matched the brushes
that Deana uses. However, I did find that
the fact that it doesn't have any pressure sensitivity
was a little limiting, so maybe if I were to go back, I would try and find
a better brush. For the coloring, I used the max
pack gouache flow. I felt like that
achieved the marker feel that she has in
a lot of her designs, so I was quite happy
with that brush. I would use that
again if I were to do another emulation of her. I decided to do this character because she tends to
draw a lot of old women, and I haven't drawn an old grandma character
in a long time, so I wanted to try my
hand at that as well, and I really enjoyed myself. If we can head back
out to our grid, I'm going to go ahead
and pop her in. Now I'm going to look at all of these pieces and
decide how I did. I'm thinking that I
didn't do too bad. If we're going to
go look around, I don't think I did too bad. I think I managed to match
her style fairly closely. If I were to give
myself critique, I would maybe simplify
my shapes even more. She is so good at just
using basic shapes. If you see right here, this character is just a
box with a circle on top, and looking at my character, I maybe got a
little too complex. I have a round circle
here and then a box, and I don't think
I quite achieved that simplicity that she is so good at creating in her designs. Another thing I'm noticing
is that in my attempt to achieve her sketchiness, I went too sketchy. I don't think I have enough
simple straight lines. In here you see, she's got just really bold lines that she's drawn and I didn't
do that as much in mine, so that's something I
would do next time. But other than that, I am quite happy with it. I did learn a lot from doing this emulation and I hope
that you did as well. [MUSIC]
8. When am I good enough to have a style?: [MUSIC] It's okay if your design never gets
100 percent there. Of course, you should strive to really match your artist style, but the real goal here is to
learn from the artists and grow and to gain new shorthands
to add to your library. You will not suddenly become as good as this master artist, but I promise you
that you will see the improvement gained from this exercise in
your next design. Emulating will break
old habits and add new shorthands and skills
that you haven't had before. Watches your designs improve
and grow from here on out. You may be wondering
when you will be ready to settle on your style. I can't really
answer that for you as it's different
for every artist, but I will tell you this. I have been drawing all my life, went to art school
for four years, and have been working as a
professional illustrator for five years and I'm still developing my style,
to be honest. I still benefit
greatly from doing exercises like this to hone my craft and to remind myself that I still have a
lot left to learn. They say that even
the best artists sometimes don't even settle on their final styles up until
10 years into their careers. Even the titans in
the industry will say that they're still learning. While I can't tell you when
you'll be ready for a style, I can tell you that the
best thing for you to do right now is to continue
to study the basics, do emulations, and continue to practice
until you eventually reach a point when
you feel it just happens naturally for
you to have a style. I can also tell you that
having a love of learning and a passion for art
will help you in your pursuit of
growing as an artist. Never stop being curious and being open to
learning new things. That means living your life with an open heart and mind and that will reflect positively
in your craft [MUSIC]
9. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] I want to give you a big
congratulations on finishing your project
for this class, you have earned an
amazing new tool that you can come
back to time and time again to improve your character design skills
efficiently and quickly. I hope that you feel
like you have learned some really valuable things from the artists that you
chose to emulate. I hope that you're proud of the character design that
you created for this class. I know that you'll begin
to see the fruits of your hard work in this class
in your future designs. Please share your completed
character design and your completed grid in
the project gallery below so that I can
see your amazing work. If you post it to Instagram, please tag me in it. If you like this class, please leave a review. Reviews help my classes get in front of other
potential students, and follow me here
on Skillshare, so that you can stay up-to-date
on any future classes. Also, don't forget to follow
me on Instagram if you're interested in seeing my
professional and personal work. Thanks again, and I'll be
seeing you again soon.
Emma Gillette, Freelance Illustrator
