Draw Characters 101 Intro to Character Drawing

1. Introduction: Hi and welcome to the course. My name is Scott Harris and I thought I'd just do this introductory video just to kind of introduce you guys to myself, who I am, and tell you about the course, tell you how you should do the course. I should move through the course. And also that we can, even though I don't get to know you guys very well that you get to know me and that hopefully it will be beneficial experience for you moving through this course. So first things first, I really feel like this course has my masterwork, probably of all the course content that I've ever done. It's got so many valuable elements to it that have to do with character design and drawing characters comprehensively, I'm drawing characters, well drawn characters, appealing. Then as you move through the course, I think you're going to find that this isn't a course that you, you do the whole course and maybe you've had experience before you do a course and you feel like, you know, there were one or two good nuggets of information in that course. I'm hoping that you'll feel like, Wow, this course really, really took me maybe from someone when you didn't know how to draw characters at all to like now, now I really feel like I know what I'm doing. Or if you have started drawing a bit or your, your, your intermediate a drawing, you feel like, wow, this is amped up my skills so much. And that also that these concepts is very cool concepts as they become part of how you draw. You feel like, wow, this course was worth it for me. That is my hope. And I really do hope that you guys really become great character artists and are able to draw in a multitude of styles in any kinds of characters you want with appeal, with feeling, with story, with emotion, and what have you. So yeah, so that's kind of how I feel about the course and how I want to present the course to you. And also that the course presentation, while the theories and the concepts are going to be pretty serious. In turn, i'm, I'm gonna be presenting the course of very much in a casual way as if I were teaching you in a class. So I don't think you need to stress about hectic theoretical studies or anything like that. But definitely I'll do my best to be as clear and concise as possible so that you're grasping the theories quickly and that you can then proceed to practice them and do exercises to kind of get them into your system and get used to them. So how I envision you guys doing the course is you watch all the videos first. One time. You go through every single video, you watched them, you don't do any exercise, just, you just watch, you learn, you try to absorb, right? And then on your second run through, you go through the course and you do all the exercises. It's extremely crucial that you put in the time and the dedication to drawing out all the exercises, doing the drawings required in each of the sections. And the reason is, whilst odd is definitely extremely more theoretical than people think it is, I would like, and it's perhaps let's say to playing a musical instrument, you may know everything there is to know about a guitar or a particular instrument. You may know all the theory, all the music theory. But if you don't pick up a guitar and play it, the theory is kind of useless at the same time, using the same kind of analogy. You can realize that a lot of people will say, well, how do you get better at art? And they'll reply and there'll be like, you just practice, just practice more. Well, if you could imagine yourself picking up a guitar and you just think, well, the more I keep strumming, I'm going to learn to become a bit of guitars. Obviously that's not going to happen, right? That's not the case. You're going to need the theory. So there isn't a duality if you wish. Equilibrium between theory and practical when it comes to art. And hopefully this course will have you engaging comprehensively in both things. Alright, I guess that's about it for the introduction to the course. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you have a good time. I hope that you definitely keep in touch with me, keep in contact with me, send me your artworks in your exercises as you're doing the course. And I wish you all the best. I'm very optimistic and hopeful that this course is going to be absolutely awesome for you. So yeah, let's get started enough to chat. Let's get started. 2. Knowing (theory) vs Doing (Practical): Awesome, welcome to theory versus practical. The video in theory versus practical, then you might be thinking, well, dude, you just talked about this in the intro. You used the guitar example, guitar music, instrument, music theory. Well, I want to really reinforce how you think about art theory and odd practical, there is a big, big, big kind of conception in art that to be better as an honest you have to put in the time and you have to just draw, draw, draw, draws role in practice, practice, practice every day, and somehow figure out things over time and you're gonna get better. Sure. That can work over maybe ten or 15 years. Do you want to spend ten or 15 years learning to draw characters? I didn't think so, right? So the reason I wanted to add this video to the course and really push the point is how I want you guys to think about art theory and ought practical, right? You need both. Both are very important and both are equally important. So that's the first main thing that both are equally important. But the way I want you to think about it is that you want to get to a destination. Let's say you're looking for treasure. Arguments like your part. You're looking for treasure. What did pirates have to get to the Trisha? They have a treasure map, right? They have directions that have directions that show them sort of step-by-step, have some kind of chronology or logical flow of how they're going to get to that treasure hunt, gonna get to that goal. Our theory is very much the same thing in a way. You need the onthe theory, not just the theory itself. You know, that they're just all floating little bubbles, you know, anatomies up their perspectives here and there and everything is flooding levels. Not you need the theory in the correct order with everything in its right place, that you can follow step-by-step and learn step-by-step structurally from the foundations up to the advanced stuff. So that once you've building these kind of Foundation's, building sort of the pyramid, which we'll go into just now. That you understand that, that you know, that you have a clear direction and that you can get to your goal easily by thinking about your map. How do I do this? What is the structure of these various elements of art? So I just wanted to make this video just to reinforce that point. Don't think aren't theory is minimal and practical is everything you really need both. You really need to become fluent in both. And definitely, definitely you need to focus on ingesting, absorbing, learning the theories, and being very strong in your theory. So then when it comes to practical, even if maybe your practical ability is a little bit weak, you know that you can rely on the theory. Look at what you need to fix, check the boxes of the theory, and come out at the end of the day with a good drawing. So once again, OT theory very, very important, as important as our practical. 3. Let's Get Messy: Welcome to, Let's get messy. And what is Let's get messy, right? Why am I adding this random video into the introduction section? And let's get messy is really an encouragement to you to be Macy, to be untidy, to be loose, to be rough when you're drawing, right? I've done this course in a way where I don't want you to feel like, Wow, I could never achieve the drawings that I'm seeing in these videos. No, I haven't done the course in a way where you've got these refined, perfectly drawn examples, perfectly drawn exercises, perfectly drawn things that you feel like, Well, I can achieve this level of perfection, right? No, I've done the course in a way that is loose, that is messy, that is rough, yet the elements of the theory are correct. The elements in the theory of strong. And I'll show you how to move from rough and messy, too refined and neat and beautiful and tidied up and clean and professional work, right? But I want to encourage you as you're starting the course, start letting go of trying to make perfect drawings, right? Start letting go of it. Be rough when you're doing exercises. Be rough when you're trying to work things out. Be rough, be loose, let yourself be wild and free and fast. Okay, Let's get messy. Let's get really messy. Think about this. A construction site is full fee, yet it's building houses, it's building buildings. It's messy. It's not full thing, isn't it? It's just full thing is messy. It's chaos. Construction equipment everywhere, workers everywhere, things on painted finishings on put in. You've got to think like that. Same thing with the kitchen. A good baker, a good cook. They do not operate in these pristine kitchens like you see on TV shows. They're messy and they're throwing flavors around in food around and they're getting messy and they're getting into, and they're getting their hands dirty. And when you're building something great, you've gotta get your hands dirty. And then you can use the refinement stage to make those things neat and clear and nice and beautiful and professional. Because really professional look and professional feeling comes from solid construction and construction is messy. So let me encourage you. Let's get messy. Let's get rough. Let's get to the courtrooms of art. And then once we've got the stuff down and the solid foundation stone, then we can focus on needing it up, tightening it up, painting those buildings, arcing those cakes for a metaphor. Alright, let's get messy. Let's move on. 4. Always Remember One Thing : Before we begin, there is something very critical and need to talk to you about. And that is this. Anybody can take a pencil or a paintbrush brace stylus and make marks. They can move their arm and they can make lines that can make strokes. The thing here is that mastery and really achieving a high level of professionalism has a lot more to do with theory than it does with practical. Because of course, we can all make these marks right? And so what we wanna do is understand the theory to his high level as possible so that we can make every single mark that we make effective. Now you'll be learning a lot of theory in the course, but yet the cost is also packed with practical activities, practical demos, and then lots of drawing to be done. And you can do this drawing traditionally using pencils and paper, where you can use Photoshop, you can use an iPad Pro with the procreate app or any app of your choice. The course has been formed in Photoshop just for ease of recording, but this has no bearing on the medium that you're using. The core thing is that you grasp how critical theory is drawing. Well, it's a common misconception that artists sit in coffee shops sticking out their tongues with their mole skins, sketch books in a cappuccino, just the drawing amazingly in this talent is flowing out of them. Drawing is a skill. It's not a talent, it's a learned skill, just like reading and writing. And we exist in an age today where the bulk of the population lacks this visual literacy. And I do believe than a few 100 years, probably everyone will be able to draw well. But in our current society, we tend to give this holy honor or the sacred honor of drawing two people who were considered to be talented. I want to dispel that myth right now. It is a learned skill. On that note, prepay herself and humble yourself to learning some of the key drawing theories you need to know. And the beauty of it is once you know them, you know them, once you know the truth, you can't really kind of lie to yourself as you draw. So take it as an encouragement that being able to draw well relies on knowing exactly what you're doing. And that requires a lot of theory. And once again, as I've said, despite there being a lot of theory, there is also obviously a ton of practical. So I want you to get out your pencils, I want you to draw. So keep this stuff in mind as you move forward. And let's totally get you to where you want to be in terms of your drawing skills. 5. Basic Art Structure: Hey guys and welcome to the Art Basics video. This is the very first video in the course, and we're just going to talk about three basic things in a very simple way at first, and in the next video is going to really expand your thinking of these things. So the first thing we want to talk about is shape and what we mean when we're talking about shape. All right? Shape ready refers to 2D or I, kind of graphic shapes, right? Icon or graphic, right? Iconographic. Really something like this, top of circle or a square. Anything that's kinda 2D, flat on the page, something like that, That's a shape. All of these things can be shapes. These are shapes, the shape of things, the basic fundamental shape of something, even something that is 3D. Let's say for example, it's just do kind of a more of a 3D HD design here. It's just a basic head loud. Even the design of this has a basic shape to it that the viewer will see. Alright? So really just that basic shape, if you shaded it in, that it was flat and no longer 3D. It has that kind of shape to it. So that's what shape is 2D shapes or iconographic shapes. And even perhaps 2D is too much. They're very floods almost like 1D because you really only see one side of a shape. Like a shape is just a one-sided type of thing, right? The next thing we want to look at is form, right? And what we mean by forms. Form is really three 3D shapes, multiple sides. So we can see multiple sides of the object. So then we start using words like sphere, right? So we can imagine that as a ball is a sphere or a cube. So these are forms and so forth in anything. We can try to turn anything into a form by giving it multiple sides. So now I've added an ellipse to the end of this thing and maybe it looks like some kind of horn, right? So it's kind of got more form to it. So we can see that there are multiple sides and these of homes and things that generally form part of Form Theory is stuff like perspective, which helps us understand a virtual spatial area, right? So it gives us space to build things in things like lighting, right? When we add light and shadow to things, we kind of indicating form. For example, if we keep the satellites and we put this side and shadow, the viewer can then proceed by, via these two planes, these two different lit planes, that this is one side and this is another side. So that is form. Then last but not least, we have this category called detail. In detail. For the most part. Things like textures, Textures, and material types, which basically informed the textures. Material types and things like color, right? So these things form the textures, the material types, the color. And for example, if this were our form, and we can see that this form has this shape to it, which is really something like that. We could then say, Well, let's make this a stone block and I'll add some textures to it and maybe mess up its edges a little bit so it looks more stony and rock-like. And obviously if I added a color to gray or what have you, that would be the details section. Alright, so the next video, we're going to discuss this in depth. But basically, this is the structure of art. In many ways. We have shape at the bottom. They inform the in detail. Take note of how much space each of these categories occupies on this sort of theoretical pyramid here. And it will really help you understand what the most important parts of your art are. Alright, let's deep dive this. In the next video, I'll see you there. 6. What is Shape Form and Detail?: Alright, As we start the art fundamentals section, we're going to take a look at shape, form, and detail. And this is really just to kind of solidify how you understand the structure of art. And to kind of a supposed to give you some perspectives on how to see art perhaps in three different ways, right? So the first thing that I'm going to kind of illustrate here is this, this triangle. And the triangle is made of three parts. It's kind of like in order of importance. Right? At the bottom, we have shape, in the middle we have formed. And at the top we have details. Alright? And when we're talking about each of these categories, what we really want to think of is all the art theory that's related to these three major categories of art. Shaped, for example, is about composition. It's about your 2D iconographic shapes. It's about the dynamism of your shapes. It's about the reader of your shapes, about silhouettes and all those various elements, right? And of course, composition is extremely foundational, writes about the shape of your lats and so on. Form basically deals with perspective, light, and drawing in 3D in terms of are you establishing solid forms that makes sense in a space? And that space is defined by perspective, right? And in terms of lighting, lighting objects in a way that you can see their form. So form is related to everything that gives us a perception of three-dimensionality. And then lastly, details refers to sort of your textures. You're literal, smaller details of objects, as well as the color, the color of things. All right, so the way you want to understand on theory, the way our theory is structurally bolt is in this shape form details kind of model where shape is the most important consideration theoretically, then form and then details, right? But let's just take this, move it to the side here, and add another triangle. There's going to be, we're going to have three triangles, three different ways that you guys should think about the structure of art, right? Let's put another triangle here. Actually, let's just make these a little bit smaller so we can fit the third one I see. Alright, now, the second way that you want to think about this is the theoretical, let's call it hierarchy. Okay, So when you're, when you're drawing, you want to think, be thinking about shape first, then formed in details in terms of what is structurally important to the piece. However, your implementation theory. Implementation theory. This is how you actually are going to work, right? How are you? Hey, you're practically going to work. So we can just call this practical as well, right? And this is basically shape and form happening simultaneously. Remind you, let's call it form and shape. That's because. And then lastly, this would be details, right? And the reason it's foreman shape is to the viewer and we'll do the viewers triangle just now. But basically we need to be drawing 3D objects as realists, right? So we're doing imaginative realism or representational art as it's called. And so everything we do needs to be three-dimensional, makes sense in time, in space, in a place with lighting and so on, right? And so we always need forms. But we can see from the theoretical hierarchy that shape is extremely important. So we need to draw the forms, but then let shape inform the 2D shapes of the forms. So the silhouettes of those forms, right? Nevertheless, we will get into this a little bit deeper later on in terms of when we're doing practical drawing and things like that. But it's important to know that we want to approach how we draw, like our practical side of drawing as both form and shape happening at the same time. We're thinking about these at the same time. And then once we've got that down, then we do details. And the details in terms of drawing could really be the refund process. And that would be like clean lines and all the details and the nice, beautiful hair lines. And this would be your rough or your plan process. Right here you can see a little picture into the workflow of how we would draw. We do a rough and a plan which would embody form and shape. And then the refund drawing on top would draw on those forms and shapes that we've done, adding the details to them. And then we'd have a nice completed drawing. Just a good way to think about, right? This is a theoretical hierarchy. This is our implementation theory and implementation hierarchy if you wish, we start with form and shape. And then we do details. And actually let me just really clarify this. The details are always a lot simpler to do once you've got a solid foundation. So I think a lot of beginning artists, especially there, we'll worry about the details very much. But this is kind of how we want to kind of wait out work when it comes to actually doing the practical side of drawing, right? Lots of work on the forms and the shapes. And then you don't need that much work in the details to finish up. Although ironically, as a side note, this, this is the really the 8020 rule. They say 80 per cent of the work takes 20% of the time to do so, you can see 80% of the work Yes, form and shape. It's only going to take 20% of the time to do. And conversely, the details, even though they're sort of 20% of the thought and the theory, they're going to take 80% of the time to do because you'll end up spending much more time refining the drawing. But you can only do that on a very solid foundation, right? Which is form and shape. Right? Then the last triangle, which is nice and finished, straightforward to understand, is how the viewer sees. So let's just say the viewer's perspective. And this is important to know just so that you have a good, well-rounded understanding of the sort of the theoretical structure of art theory or practical and also how the viewer C60, the viewer really sees things, I would say in a combined way. But generally speaking, they'll see things as forms. And this would be harmed like that. I would say forms and then details. And viewers, typically they're not looking at shape, composition and composition. I'm talking about your typical average viewer. Even when you yourself are looking at artworks. You have this mode of art appreciation. And that mode is much different from audit analysis. Because when you're looking at a piece that you really like or you've got artwork, a little artwork folder or whatever collection of something. Well, maybe it's a big folder. Who knows where you've got collected artworks. When you look at stuff that you'd like, you are enamored by two of you are sold. It's managing to persuade you of its believability. And so you really noticing the forms first and then the details second. And you can see here in this third triangle, Let's just label these 123 Exit. Perhaps that's not a good idea. Let's just call it a, b, and c, right? You'll notice in this third triangle, why? Excuse me, why beginners struggle so much when they're starting to draw, right? Because they're going on what they've seen and what they've only seen and believe to be true about the world is basically the forms and the details. And they're generally equally weighted. So they'll kind of try and draw something that looks like a head and then fill it with them and then details. That's kind of a common beginner problem. But nevertheless, how we see things is different from how we make things. And it's different from the theory of things. So another way to understand this is kind of the recipe of a cake is quite substantially different from how you actually make the cake, right? And quite substantially different. That is too high. You taste the cake, right? So there's an edge in there and hopefully that's helpful to you. So this is essentially the structure of art. And all artworks ready fit into this, not just drawing, drawings, paintings, landscapes, portraits and so on. Character designs, vehicle designs. Everything really kind of falls into this kind of structure when we're looking at how ADH is made. Nevertheless, that is pretty much the end of this lesson. We're going to move on to technicalities versus emotional impact, which is kind of a high-level topic in some senses. But hopefully this has helped you understand the structures and really constantly revisit this video and especially focus on 0.2 as to how we needed to implement a form and shape at the same time, then details. And please know that we will get into detail on the shape elements as we move through the course. So you will know what shape it really means, what forms really mean, what details really mean as we move through the course. Cool. Catch you in the next lesson. 7. See Like an Artist : In learning to see as an artist, we want to use our theoretical model of shape, form, and detail when we're observing the world and try and view things that we see in reality in this way, which will help us grab the details, grab the structure, grabbed the designs of what it is that we're looking for and get it into our minds and have us really understand things in a more complex way and less of a simplistic way when we're observing the world around us. And the first way we really want to look at things is looking at things in purely a shape away. We're, we're kind of ignoring into details and ignoring lighting and three-dimensionality. And we're really just kinda looking primarily first at the overall silhouette of objects. Then I'll draw out her silhouette here. In a general sense. We're looking at the shapes formed by the silhouette and the asymmetry of that silhouette. And then also going into the features and then looking at the basic flat 2D shapes that are being made on a particular object that we're observing. In kind of starting to recognize just these flat shapes and look at things in this flat way. That's not to say that you want to learn things in this flat way. Rather, we want to use what we understand of these flat shapes to help us understand proportions very well. Here I'm just putting lines around the big shapes, the big inner shapes, and just getting these very flat two-dimensional objects out of them, particularly on the face, and we will cover facial proportions later on. Just grasping these basic flat shapes that helps us position them, SaaS them in space them correctly on the face so that we can have appealing looking faces and proportionately pleasing faces. So really all of these shapes, for example, this really random asymmetrical shape here, the shape here, the shape here, this red shape at the top. This is just the way we want to look at objects. A perspective or a lens if you wish that we want to look at objects in the real world first, we want to look at just the general shapes that are being formed. First. Moving on from that, we want to then start looking at the forms. The forms are really the 3D elements defined by perspective and lighting. And start really trying to grasp what are the basic forms that are underlying these elements. So for example, in the hand we might say, all right, well, there's a sort of a spherical form here. And these forms come down here. There's kind of a jaw shape form. And there's the form of the ears. And imagining what the back sides of objects would look like in the sides of objects and getting a sense of the plane. So for example, in her head here, this is the front plane, this is the side plane. Kind of filling out the forms here, here. And kind of imagining what is the mass and the volume of the structure of just the basic form structure of her, her back and her chest here. And drawing through things in your mind and imagining, for example, the arm, maybe the arm is really just a cylinder. Alright? Just a cylinder. And then the hand itself may be some kind of block. And looking at objects in reality and imagining what are their basic forms. So here we have perhaps another cylinder again, and the forearm as well is another cylinder. And I'm drawing through here to fill out these cylindrical shapes of the arms. So we want to have a form since when we're looking at things in the world. And then finally, once we've observed the shapes and the forms and we're getting a feel for the forms and the three-dimensional forms, three-dimensionality of the objects. We then, we then can take a look at the details, the color of the shirt, the texture of the skin, the color of the lips, the detailing of the teeth. For example, the details in her eyes, the details of her hair, the hair strands and all the little fine details. Really looking at things like texture and things like color and kind of getting a feel for those things. And really they're the last things that we really want to be concerned with when we're working. This is how we want to learn to see objects. We want to look at the shapes, then the forms, and then the details, and constantly be observing and studying things in this way, breaking down these complex elements into these basic categories and helping us to really observe the world more like artists and really capture and be inspired by the things that we see in reality. Let's move on. 8. Technical Skill vs Emotional Impact: In this lesson, we're going to look at technicalities versus emotional impact. Now, right off the bat, emotional impact, that is a piece that has a lot of emotion to it. It has a mood and has a story, and it has feeling. A piece with these emotional elements will always win out over a piece that is more technically correct, but lacking in these emotional elements. Technicalities often occur, for example, when someone critiques your work where you've seen with being critiqued, where someone will say, Hey, that arm is drawn incorrectly or that hit is on skew or something like that. However, if the piece has enough of an emotive element to it, enough feeling in it. A lot of the time this causes a blindness in the viewers, so to speak. Perhaps even a willing blindness that they're willing to disregard the technical correctness just because of the joy that they're feeling or the emotive, emotive be, or the emotions that they're feeling from that particular piece, right? The feelings that they're getting from the piece. Now, that's not to say that we should abandon all technical rules and things like that, but rather that. But understanding how weighty the emotive elements of a piece are, that we can use this knowledge to leverage it in a very similar way to the way that poets leverage poetic losses, right? Where they're making up words and things that don't exist. The words are not technically correct yet the poet's use it in such a way that it really just adds to the poem. And we don't really look at, and people didn't go well, look at this fool making up these random words. This doesn't exist as this guy educated. No, we go, wow, that's pretty cool, made-up word and that's awesome. So we kind of want to leverage the emotional impact of our pieces. And of course definitely instill as much story, feeling, and emotion and I work as possible before freeing us. In some respects, it's not being so hard on ourselves about the technical aspects of a particular piece. So the last thing that I want to say as well is that you're going to find, as we discuss this later on, that this relates a lot to believability and realism and the difference between these two things and which one is more important in an artwork. So let's go to the next lesson. 9. The Story is Everything: In this lesson, we're gonna be talking about the story is everything. Now I know that perhaps at this stage of the course you're thinking like, wow man, this is where DO ever gonna do some drawing? Trust me, most of the course is drawing related, but this is stuff is very, very important to know, to have in your minds to learn, to digest. So really take this seriously and conservative, very, very important. Alright, so the story, right? The first big point is vision. If you've done the art fundamentals course, or even if you haven't, it doesn't really matter. Vision is your preconception or you're conceptualizing of the character that you're drawing. Thinking about who the character is. Where is the character, perhaps in the prison scene, what roles do they live in? What is their personality? What is the story of the piece that you're currently drawing? What is the feeling? What is the mood? What is the expression on their face? What is the piece communicating the story is extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely important to creating a piece that is emotive. And as we've learned in the technicalities versus emotional impact, Mason, emotional impact is Rachel, in creating a piece that is appealing. Ultimately, we really want to create works that are appealing. We want our work to have appeal. That is the ability to persuade someone to look at it and to maintain them looking at it and give them some joy. Or fully communicate the message of the piece to them in an effective way that they fund satisfying. Now one of the most important things I could ever tell you about art, and I'm gonna do my best to make this as clear as possible, is to have you realized that the artwork itself is just the medium, right? It seems obvious, right? But let me give you some examples of book is a medium, movies a medium and newspapers a medium and magazine as a medium, right on is a medium. Music as a medium, right? These are just mediums. The artwork that you end up with in many ways is just the medium, right? The message, however, is that thing that you're communicating through the medium. And the message is very, very, very important. As I tell, students constantly, make some thing cool. Don't make a cool artwork, right? Don't think about the artwork. Think about the thing. Have you thoughts on the thing itself that you're creating? In our case, characters. Think deeply about the character, who the character is, what the character is wearing, where the characters at, what their personality is and so on and so forth, right? Making some thing cool is much more important than making a cool artwork, right? The concept in itself should be good. It should be able to be described with a 100 keywords. You know, you have a poor message. If there are only a few keywords that could be attributed to what is communicated through the medium. If you do a, if you design a great character, it should be able to be communicated effectively and appealing me through any medium. Its arguments say, say, let's say for argument's sake, a 3D model, or in a book, or in a comic book, or in a painting and beautiful painting, the characters concept itself should hold most of the appeal and your implementation of that should be sufficient enough to adequately describe and do justice to the concept that you've come up with. So once again, artwork is a medium. It's not the message, and the message is extremely, extremely important. And in our case, the message is the story and the story is everything, right? The story is everything, especially when we're talking about character artwork. Hope that was really clear. Let's move on. 10. Believability vs Realism: In this lesson, we're gonna be talking about drawing for appeal. Now have mentioned the word appeal before. I've mentioned that I work needs to be appealing. But where this really comes from is between contrasting two different ideas. The first idea is believability. The second is realism. Do we try to draw for the sake of realism? Or do we try to draw for the sake of believability and which is more important. While hopefully the answer is obvious, something can be very real, very realistic, be drawn very accurately, very technically correct. But if it lacks believability, something that is worse off in those categories but is more believable, will always win out. We want to remember this when we're creating our characters that believability in perhaps their clothing, their pose, what they're doing, who they are, is much more of a meaningful factor. Then Vim looking realistic. The reason I wanted to talk about this as I find that a lot of students tend to get caught up on this idea of realism. Is this thing realistic is what I'm drawing realistic. I'm trying to make it so realistic or I'm struggling to make it realistic. And that is not really the problem. The problem is that you need to find out how to make what you're drawing believable. This goes again to poetic license in a sense where you could draw anatomy a little off, but if it's a little off yet believable or completely accurate, you'd unbelievable. People are always going to find the more believable drawing more appealing, right? So really think about this, contemplated yourself. It's just some small little section I wanted to pop in there, considered to yourself that differences between believability and realism. Think on it, digest a little bit more. 11. Maturity as An Artist: In this lesson, I'd like to just touch on a few points about maturity as an artist that I hope will be encouraging to you and also just really help you on your journey of becoming quite characterised. The first is that I want to encourage you to be very selfish about your autumn. I say selfish. I don't mean not loving to others. What I mean is really do the work you wanna do and focus on your own work. Don't worry about other people's work. Don't worry about comparing yourself to other people's art. You could never be them. You could never do what they do simply because you want them focused on your own work, focused on your own style, focuses on your own audit goals. That is very, very important. When you look at someone else's work perhaps, and audits you feel might be better than you look at it in an appreciative saints and also see what you can learn. But if there's something I want to caution you against, never, ever, ever, ever compare yourself to another honest. Once again, you are not. That person is very likely that it is impossible for you to do work in the exact same way that they do it. It's just not possible. You're not them. You want, you focus on your own work and your own self in a sense, in terms of how you create art, create art that you want to do. And in doing so, you're not pandering to the aunt that you think people want to see. Well, that might impress others, do OT that impresses you. I think that's primarily what I want you to get from when I say, be very selfish with your own work, create artwork that impresses you and that meets the standards that you would want of yourself. Next, I'd like to talk about fear. Now, I'm no stranger to fear an art, although I have to say these days, I don't really worry about it that much. Of course, we will all experience fear in art and art making To some extent. The first thing I want to say is that if you have the TM, if you have the inclination and if you have the funds to do it, definitely buy a book called unfair. It will be very, very helpful to you and your art journey. And it's definitely an excellent read and it covers many of the fears that audit risks typically feel, right. So definitely consider buying or inferior is a great resources, is a very valuable resource for you. The second thing is you're going to have to learn as you're drawing and painting that failure isn't something to be feared. Failure is actually wonderful. Think about a kid who burns himself on the stove for the first time, right? At that moment. Sure. It does suck. I mean, he's burned himself and that's horrible. But he has learned something pretty valuable from that experience. And it's unlikely this is going to make that mistake again, right? So what I want to encourage you to do is start becoming fellas. Be courageous, be brave. Don't stare at a blank page and trepidation. Don't worry about drawing. I'll put it off for procrastinate because you're worried it might not be good. Who cares about good? What is good? I mean, do we have various ideals and standards of what we feel good is, may vary from person to person. As long as you're learning the theory, practicing daily, based on the theory, you will gain skill in art. So you don't need to worry about being good or they're creating a good piece. Just create the work you want to create. And overtime, you will reach a place where you realize that you've gotten to where you wanted to be in your art. Ultimately, that's what it's going to come down to. You're going to want to be somewhere and you're going to have to take a journey to get there. So let go of your fear. Maybe it's too easy to say that to you to let go of your fear. But I want to encourage you, you need to be courageous. You need to be brave. And more importantly, you need to be willing to fail. You need to be willing to fail a lot. If you're unwilling to fail and you don't like the taste of failure, perhaps odd isn't for you. Lastly, I want to talk about the fear-related to technical ability. That is your ability to draw good lines, to understand foams, to implement the theory correctly. Technical ability is very much a learned thing. It is very much a learned thing. You learn the theory, you implement exercises you grounded into your brain, and eventually it becomes a part of you. When it becomes a part of you, you start doing drawings. People look at your work and they think it's magic coming out of that pencil. But really it's just repetition of the theory constantly hammering it into your brain that you're able to eventually make it a part of you. So I want you to not be afraid of doing art because you're worried about your technical ability. It really is a technical thing. Once again, remember, ADH is a medium. So when you're learning how to implement in this medium, it really is just a process of, well, this is, this works and this doesn't work. Also want to add that when we're talking about character drawing or two, when anything that's kinda realist, right? We're differentiating ourselves substantially from people who do abstract, odd and postmodern art and those other types of art forms, we really are realists. And the beauty about realism. Realism is rules. You learn the rules, you implement the rules. You get better at art. So really don't fear drawing and creating art and perhaps even completing this course because you're worried about your technical ability, you'll see often causes complete that you'll have the tools you need, the theoretical tools you need to start practicing and refining of technical ability into it. Just a beautifully crafted, Let's say, weapon of art, if you wish. You'll find that the course will provide you with plenty of tools that you can use to really refine your technical ability to something really beautiful and sending that really works for you. 12. Art Studies and Art Creation: In this lesson, we're going to talk about our studies versus off creation, perhaps not even versus what is the difference between these two things. Now, it's actually really important that we have a very clear idea in our mind what art studies are and what ought creation is. Because this is actually going to tie in to our fear levels about art and make no mistake. There is plenty of fear in creating art, right? Art studies is all work that we do to learn. Exercises, sketches, and our sketchbooks, gesture drawings when you're at a coffee shop. Concept sketches and roughs before we do the proper concept design sheets for a character and so on. That's what ought studies are done for, that done for our own selves. Generally speaking, they're done to learn. They're done to observe things, to kind of make visual notes. That's what aren't studies all. Especially when you're doing onstage and exercise. I want encourage you. Please don't be afraid to draw or worry about what it looks like. It doesn't really matter what it looks like. What matters is that you're making good observational and visual notes on what you're doing. So that's what all the studies on creation on the other end, of course, is the creation of the main artwork, right? It's not created for learning, though. You will learn things when you're creating stuff. But all creation is the process of creating a beautiful piece of art, hopefully an appealing piece of art with a good, strong story. So just a quick note, just a quick video on making sure in your mind you've got it very clearly divided. Ot studies is one thing. Art creation is another thing. And when you're working, make sure you know what you're doing. Am I doing a study from I'm making art. Making art. You want to be in one month sit. And if you're doing studies, you want to be in a totally fearless of the mindset. 13. Imaginative and Observational Art: Let's take a quick look at observational art and imaginative OT, what the differences are, and also how they linked together. So observational art is basically artwork that is done by observing something, recreating it on the page and then kind of possibly adding your own twist to it, dramatizing it a little bit. But mainly the artwork was created by referencing something directly. Imagine if on the other hand, is done primarily out of your head, right? You're imagining things, ideas, places, characters, and so forth, and then trying to implement them onto the page. Now, imagine if odd requires a lot of theory, you need to really have a firm grip on theory so that you know how to implement and also fix the reimagined of artworks that you're creating. Observational audits, extremely useful for imagined artists. And in this course is really about imaginative art, imaginative character art. That is, because we use observation in our studies when we're studying clothing, when we're studying posing, when we're studying anatomy, we're studying hairstyles, observational audits, a massive study tool for us. However, the observational art isn't the actual art for us. And that is a very key points. In this course. We are firmly imaginative artists, but both imaginative and observational artists make use of references, whether the references visual information in your mind or visual information in front of you. And of course, there are definitely artists who use both with a mixing elements of reality, with elements of imagination. 14. Draw Characters 101 Summary: Hey guys, and welcome to the summary video for module one. And it was a very talky module, but you don't have to worry. The rest of the course is really about old drawing practical things and not the mental kind of theoretical things that you need to be thinking about. But nevertheless, let's summarize module one. Please take notes if you haven't started taking notes already and let's get right into it. So the first thing we want to just take a quick look at is SFD or shaped form detail. And summarize that in three triangles, structure and shape being the biggest section form and then detail. And this first triangle is kind of OT, theory, right? How we want to think about the theory of the structure of images or theory. And also a good way to think about this is how we think, right? And by we, I mean artists, how we think. The second triangle is how we create art, right? So this is Implementation Theory. Implementation on my handwriting theory. And really this is that we want to engage in sort of shape. Let's put form here first, form and shape thinking at the same time and then doing the details later. And this is basically how we draw. Alright? And then last but not least, this is the, how the viewer sees, how the viewer sees pieces and how we look at art when we're in our appreciative mindset, mindset when we're looking at art that we admire. And it's kind of a 5050 split between detail and form. V0 doesn't really notice shape, right? And as we know, shape is extremely, extremely important. I'll re-emphasize and as we go through the course, you'll realize why, Because shape has everything to do with composition. And it's sort of the hidden reason why artwork looks good, feels good and communicates certain things, right? And it even permeates into the form section in terms of landscapes and things like that. And so this is really how people see, alright? How people see or view art. Okay? Probably things in life as well, but I don't want to get into that. So that is really our shape form in detail theory and it really structures everything also implies a workflow which we'll look at later. So that's, that's that. Let's move this to the side. The next thing is technical skill versus emotional impact, right? So let's put a bubble here, and let's call this one emotional impact. And we'll put another bubble, slightly smaller here. Technical skill. The summary of this really is that whilst in an ideal world, you'll want to have a 5050 split. Emotional impact will always be weightier than technical skill. And you definitely see this in a lot of children's books and a lot of popular cartoons and things. They're very flat, often lacking, but they have a huge emotional impact in the appeal of the structure of the artwork, which often outweighs any kind of technical criteria that they're not meeting. So let's always remember the emotional impact is very important. We want to make an emotional impact first when we're thinking in conceptualizing our characters. And then we want to technical skill to try to communicate that to the viewer in the most effective way. But if 5050 would be ideal, that or a 100100 even but 5050 split that. You are getting the emotional impact and you're getting the technical skill. And then you should have a really great, well-balanced piece in that regard. Right? Let's move on to the story. Is everything, right? I'm just going to write this really big here. Story is everything. Alright? So once again, the story being everything is really that the story, the feeling and the emotion and envy, the thing itself of the art, right? The concept of the Arthur story of that concept and how it makes people feel when communicates to people. The mood, the expression, and all of those things are everything when it comes to the artwork, this obviously does tie into emotional impact. And really the story is everything. If you have a great story, but it's got poor implementation. It's still a great story. Yes, maybe the implementation isn't great, but the story is still great. You have a very poor story. Poor feeding, poor mood, poor emotion, and great implementation. It seems like a dead piece. It seems like a good piece in a technical way, but it's dead and it's not going to enamine. Anybody will compel them to look longer. And it just wouldn't really be a head turn or a popular piece of work. Crowded Lechs appeal because it doesn't have an appealing story. Alright, let's talk about believability versus realism. Now this is not to say that we don't do realist art, or that we're trying to make artworks appear to be in time, in space, in three-dimensionality. Know, really this section is just about having you understand that having a piece of art that is believable outweighs having a piece of art that is extremely realistic. Realistic doesn't equal good, believability equals good. And the more believable the workers and the more believable the story is in the bit of the story is and the feeling and the emotional impact. This all aids in the believability of a piece of artwork being super hopper real. And you've probably seen super hopper rendered 3D models of something, but the model just looks dead. It looks static. Yes, it looks very real, but it doesn't look alive. And all of that stuff comes from the story of the feeling, the emotion, the believability that has been put into the piece of work. And so that's really what that section is about. Right? Let's move on to art studies and art creation, right? So once again, art studies is really just drawings that we do with completely, without fear, completely with FEF for learning. We do these aren't studies for learning. They are the sketches that we might do at a coffee shop. The observational drawings that we do in visual library development, which you'll learn coming up. But when we're trying to expand our visual library, when we're trying to just understand the world better, observe the world, take reference from the world and understand the designs better. Their art studies, I think I spelled that wrong studies. And really, I don't want you guys to stress about odd studies. Just do the studies doesn't matter what it looks like. All that matters is that you're observing and that you're learning. And then odd creation. And the reason that I'm making this very particular split between the two is that if you feel, if you've got all these feelings of fear of good drawings and stuff when it comes to art studies, you're going to, it's going to hinder your learning. You're not going to learn quickly because you're worried about it looking good. You're worried if you'd be a good artist, you're crushing yourself. If you've got any skill or talent at all, if he should be doing this and so on and so forth. We don't want that it's missing with our learning speed and our learning progress right? Now. Odd creation, yes, there's fear, but odd creation really is making good art, right? Making Good, good art. We do want it to look good. We do want it to have appeal rights, and we do want it to have a professional finish. So it is different from art studies and you want to learn how to, whoops, I was thinking about the word fair. You want to learn how to avoid being fearful in this stage. And one of the ways we avoid being fearful in art creation is having a solid workflow, right? Having a solid map, knowing what to do when we're creating art. So when we do make mistakes or we are confused about what to do next, we have the map and we realize, okay, I need to do this, this, this, or this can be fixed in this way, right? And then that removes the fear. I mean, a lot of the time fear comes from not knowing, right? And so with odd question, we have workflows that help you to know exactly what you need to do. Alright? And then last but not least, imaginative and observational art. So I'll use this little space at the top here. Imaginative art or imaginative realism, right? Let's call it imaginative realism is art work that we do from our imaginations. And observational art is pretty much a lot of the time. The artwork that you see guys doing on street stores on the street, copying photos, people copying photos of their family, people doing paintings with a family in little kids and people and things like that. And people just painting landscapes from the real-world planet paintings as they call them, that's observational. Observational odd is in many ways significantly easier than imaginative realism. Because in imaginative realism, we need tons of theory. Tons of theories so that we can actually understand how to paint these things just without any references if we need to write. And generally speaking, depending on self audit you are, you might work like that. And observational artist can really, to a large extent, they can just copy what's in front of them. And also that I think normal people, I say normal people and non-artists don't realize that observational audits actually fairly straightforward. All you really have to do is observe and recreate exactly what you've observed, recreate the measurements, recreate the values, recreate the colors, the tones, or whatever the case may be. All the lines are, the edges, are the shapes that you're seeing. Just recreate them in the correct measurements from each other, in the right proportions from each other. And generally, anybody can do this with a little bit of practice of just copying things, right? And we will be doing some observational audit visual average developments in module two to help us learn and grow visual libraries. Nevertheless, you can also get a hybrid of imaginative realism and observational mode where you know all the art theory and all the rules. And then you use n observed thing like a person or a landscape. And you use the imaginative theory to add drama to amp up and boost the observed world. And you really going to dramatize what you're seeing. Nevertheless, this course is solidly in the imaginative realism territory. And obviously things like art for animation previsualization, concept art for characters, stylized character designs, manga art, comic art and stuff like that. So imaginative, real isn't right? And we're gonna be learning this tons of theory, at least in terms of character design. Alright, that's about it for the summary video, Let's move on to module two. I hope you're excited. It's gonna be a really awesome module. Let's get started.