Transcripts
1. Introduction: I know what it's like to have a lot of self-doubt and self-criticism when you draw. I used to draw a lot as a child, and then I stopped. I just didn't think my drawings were good enough. Then in my late 30s, I start to draw again, and I rediscover the joy of drawing. I'm going to share with you the secret to creating successful character design and also quiet the inner critic. Hi, I'm Jenny Messerle. I'm a mixed media artist and also Procreate digital artist. Drawings are the foundation of my paintings, and my drawing process is the reason why I was able to create 1,000 paintings in three years. Here is a secret to a joyful drawing process and to create unique characters. Stop aiming to create a good drawing. Instead, aim to create a character with an interesting silhouette. Once you understand the concept of interesting silhouette, it will transform how you view and make art. In class, I'm delighted to share with you my five easy steps to create a unique character. One, choose an inspiration image. Two, sketch your character. Three, reshape the body. Four, add the face. Five, embellish and refine your character. If the idea of sketching from inspiration image intimidates you, don't worry, I will share with you my easy drawing approach and also how to reframe any perceived drawing weakness into a strength. This class is also perfect for anyone who finds a blank page intimidating, wants an easy approach to drawing original art, or is feeling stuck and wants a way to reinvigorate their creative process. What are you waiting for? Grab a marker and paper and join me in class. Let's create unique characters that have never existed before. [MUSIC]
2. Class Project: Welcome to class. I'm so excited that you're joining me on this drawing journey. For your class project, I will show you how to create two original drawings from one inspiration image. Your main materials are a marker and paper. I draw on a printer paper. I feel like the less precious the paper is, the more freer I feel when I draw. You can use any marker. Many people have a Sharpie or Crayola marker in their homes. My favorite markers are the Sakura Permpapaque fine point 1.0. It's like a Sharpie, but it doesn't smell. I also love the favorite Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen with letter B on it for brush. In class, I also use these other option materials. I use a Tombow adhesive roller, but you can use a glue stick, or clear scotch tape, or masking tape, or you don't have to use adhesive at all. I like to use a whiteout correction tape to cover up any black marker lines that I find distracting to help me think a little bit differently about my piece. For the refining stage, in step 5, I use a Uni-ball Signo broad gel pen, a white one. Any white gel pen or white paint pen that you happen to have at hand will work nicely. In class, I will first explain to you the three traits of an interesting silhouette versus a boring silhouette. Once you understand the concept of an interesting silhouette, it would transform how you view and make art. Then I will demonstrate my five easy steps to character design by drawing two original characters from one cat's inspiration image. If you want to follow along, I created a review worksheet that highlights my five-step character design process. You can find the review worksheet and the projects and resources section of class. Okay. Let's draw.
3. What Is An Interesting Silhouette?: What is an interesting silhouette? Well, I am very excited to explain this concept to you because it is the secret to creating unique characters and also quite the inner critic. In this lesson, I'm going to explain to my old drawing goal and why it was still self-judgment. Then I'm going to reveal to you the three traits of an interesting silhouette versus a boring silhouette. My old drawing goal, this is when I would aim to create a drawing that was good. But trying to create a good drawing often filled my mind with self-doubt and self-criticism. It would make me feel like I wasn't an artist and that I had no talent, no potential. But then I realized this, there is nothing wrong with me. What is wrong is my actual drawing goal. Because if I aim to create a good drawing, this is a binary goal, either my drawing is bad or my drawing is good. As a result, if my drawing was "bad," then I thought I'm not an artist. If my drawing was good, I felt like yes, I'm an artist. But then my mind was like a pendulum, I'm not an artist, I am an artist. I'm not an artist, I am an artist. With my current goal, my aim is to create a drawing with an interesting silhouette. As a result, a lot of my self-doubt disappeared. This is because I now had an objective measure to evaluate my drawings, instead of assessing my drawings as a personal reflection of me. What is an interesting silhouette? A silhouette is a dark shape on a light background. When I talk about interesting silhouette, I mean a silhouette that has asymmetry items sticking out of it, irregular outline, haphazard, look to the arrangement of shapes. To illustrate the concept of the interesting silhouettes, I have two images I'm going to show you. You can find both of these images in a downloadable item in the resources section of your class. Imagine that you've created two characters and these are the silhouettes of your two characters. Which silhouette or image do you find more visually appealing? I choose image A. I'm going to explain insight about why image A is more visually appealing than image B. This insight is going to come in the form of the three traits of an interesting silhouette versus the three traits of a boring silhouette. The three traits of interesting silhouette, one, asymmetry, two, items sticking out of the body and variety in the shapes and sizes of those items sticking out of the body, which creates an irregular outline to the silhouette. Three, haphazard or unexpected look to the arrangement of shapes. Now the three traits of boring silhouettes. If you look at image B, why discuss these concepts? It will help solidify these ideas. Boring trait number one, symmetry. The left and the right mirror each other, or the top and the bottom mirror each other. Two, there are no items sticking out of the body. As a result, there is this uniformity or consistency in the outline in the silhouette. Three, there's orderly and control look to the arrangement of shapes that make up this image. There are subconscious reasons why our eyes linger a little bit longer when we're looking at image with an interesting silhouette versus an image with a boring silhouette, here they are. When you're looking at an image with the interesting silhouette, an image with asymmetry items sticking out the body, irregular outline, haphazard look, this all looks complex and unusual. Our brains want to decipher it, and this makes us a little bit uneasy, but also treats as at the same time. Also with an image with a interesting silhouette, with an asymmetry, the haphazard look to the arrangement of shapes, there is this feeling of dynamic energy and movement. It's as if we've caught a split-second glimpse of this object moving. Subconsciously, we want to see where it's going to move next. This creates an act of viewing experience for us. On the other hand, when you're looking image with a boring silhouette, an image with symmetry, uniformity and consistency in the outline, no items sticking out, an orderly look, our brains recognizes immediately and just want to move on to something else. Also, image with a boring silhouette, it looks stagnant as if it's been in that same position forever. Let's recap, an item with a interesting silhouette has one or more of these three traits, One, asymmetry, two, items sticking out of the body and variety in the shapes and sizes of those items sticking out of the body, which creates an irregular outline to the silhouette. Three, a haphazard unexpected look to the arrangement of shapes. Now you understand what an interesting silhouette is. In the next lesson, we're going to choose an inspiration image. The concept of an interesting silhouette will help us choose inspiration image that will make our drawing process easier. See you in the next lesson.
4. Choose an Inspiration Image: In this lesson, we'll choose an inspiration image. An inspiration image is an image that we as artists look at for ideas, information, and inspiration. Common examples of inspiration images are photographs or other artists' paintings and drawings. Inspiration images are the heart of why people love Pinterest boards. For an inspiration image, I often choose a line drawing because line drawings are simpler to look at and draw and they really emphasis a silhouette. Remember if our objective is to create a character with an interesting silhouette, then it makes our process easier if we choose an inspiration image that also has an interesting silhouette. This is why animal line drawings are perfect for this process. Animals have interesting silhouettes and they also have body parts that stick out of their bodies, like tails and legs, and horns and ears. First, you're going to choose an animal, any animal. Second, do a simple Google image search to look for line drawings of your chosen animal. I'm going to choose a cat, but you can choose anything you want. For your reference, I created a list of animals that I have in the resources section of class. The resources section of class also has a line drawing of a cat and a line drawing of an elephant. In case it makes your process easier and if you feel called to those animals. I have these two line drawings of cats. I like image A more than image B. Image A has a much more interesting silhouette and I feel like it'll be more useful to look at this particular image when we do our sketch. To help with analysis, these line drawings here at a coordinating silhouettes for them. In this particular document is in the resources section of your class. This we have as a reference in the future. Image A has two of the three traits of an interesting silhouette. Trait number 1, asymmetry. You can see that the left side looks different from the right side. The bottom looks different from the top. Trait number 2 of an interesting silhouette, there are items sticking out of the body of the animal. There's the tail and also three parts sticking out, which are the four legs. If we analyze image B to see and understand it, you'll see that it's two front legs and also its tail are tucked within the body and as a result, they're within the silhouette. Image B has two of the three traits of a boring silhouette. Has symmetry, where we have a vertical line down the center, the left mirrors the right. Also boring trait number 2, there aren't very many items sticking out of the center of the body, it mainly just has the ears. That's it. That is why this line drawing has a much more interesting silhouette than this line drawing and if we look at this line drawing to create our initial starting sketches, it will make our processes much easier for later on. Because if you start with an inspiration image with interesting silhouette, then your sketch is more likely to have interesting silhouette, which makes it much easier to reach overall objective of having a character with interesting silhouette.
5. Sketch Your Character: [MUSIC] Once you have your inspiration image, it's time to start drawing. If the idea of sketching from inspiration image intimidates you, this lesson will explain to you my modified contour drawing approach that involves drawing the contour or outline of an inspiration image. I love contour drawing because it allows me to be inspired by my inspiration image instead of feeling compelled to create something that resembles the inspiration image. Contour drawing also allow me to re-frame my perceive drawing weakness into a strength. I used to tell myself this weakness all the time, ''Jenny, your drawings look nothing like your inspiration images.'' Then I re-framed it into a strength. ''Jenny, your drawings look nothing like your inspiration images.'' This is fantastic. This means you can look at one inspiration image and create five different drawings which is five potential different characters. How fantastic is that? In this lesson, I will create for sketches based upon the cat line drawing selected in the previous lesson. Before we start sketching, we'll study the inspiration image to familiarize ourselves with its outline and shapes. In red I've outlined the body of the cat. In blue I've outlined the head of the cat. I did not outline this leg line or the paw details or the face. When I start drawing, I'm going to be drawing and starting at one of the ears and then following the outline of the cat. Then I'll reposition my marker and I'm going to follow the outline of the head. I'm not going to draw the face because I'll save that for a future step. I also won't draw the details such as this leg line or the paws. This examination helps us to focus in on the bigger shapes of the inspiration image. This focusing will make the sketching process easier. For sketching, we're going to use my modified partial blind contour drawing process. With traditional partial blind contour drawing, the goal is to train your eyes to see, to really see the outline, the lines, the shapes in your inspiration image. This often means drawing intentionally and often slowly as you're really looking at those items in your inspiration image. With my drawing process, the goal is to be inspired by the inspiration image. To be inspired by the contours, outlines, lines, and shapes in your inspiration image. This means you don't need to be overly focused with what you see in the inspiration image. They're just there to help you create new different kinds of lines and shapes. I'll demonstrate by using the cat inspiration image that we selected in the previous lesson. For the modified partial blind contour process, the process involves looking at the inspiration image and not looking at the paper. But periodically we'll look at the paper if we want to readjust our marker to different position on the paper. I'm going to start drawing. I'm going to start right here at the tip of the ears and then go around and draw the contour of this cat. I'm not going to worry about this internal line here, I'm not going to worry about these details for the pause and I'm also not going to draw the actual face because we'll save their face for a future lesson. I'm drawing the tip of the ear now and the other ear, drawing around the head, down the leg, around the paw, up, around, other paw and this overlapping paw. The whole time I'm just looking at the inspiration image, not looking at the paper that I'm drawing on, not worrying what it's going to look like. I am doing the tail now, doing that contour and going down. I want to add the bottom of the head. I'm going to reposition my marker here and I'm going to look at the inspiration image and not look at my paper and then draw something. That is my first sketch. Here are three more sketches I made looking the same cat line drawing. [MUSIC] When you're sketching your character, please remember these things. Before you start to sketch, take a moment and examine the major shapes in your inspiration image. With contour drawing, we're sketching the outline. We're aiming to be inspired by the lines and shapes and outline of inspiration image. We're not aiming to create a recognizable replica of the inspiration image. If your sketch looks nothing like your inspiration image, then you're much closer to creating something unique. Here is a mindset tip. My inner critic starts to judge the potential of my character based upon how the starting sketch looks. I tell my inner critic, hey, be patient. This is just the beginning. We're going to reshape the body and add interesting details. It's going to look better. Or I tell my inner critic, this is like a story, the messy middle, and we don't know how the end will work out. But the end always turns out fine. Let's see how this unfolds. If you created one sketch, I'll see you in the next lesson where we'll reshape the body and you start to see the character design develop. [MUSIC] If you created multiple sketches and you're having a hard time deciding which one you want to choose to create your character, join me in the bonus lesson and I will share tips with you of how to choose which sketch to develop. [MUSIC]
6. Choose Which Sketch to Develop: When I draw, I create lots of sketches. Then I choose the one that I feel as if it looks the most unusual or I'm the most curious about. It's a gut feeling that takes a few seconds. In this lesson, I'll dissect my decision-making process and offer you suggestions for how to choose which sketch to develop. Here are the four sketches created in the previous lesson. I see potential in each of them. Since my goal is to create an original character versus a character that looks like a unique cat, I'll choose one of these first two sketches to develop. This is because these first two sketches don't resemble cats like these two later sketches do. For example, these bottom shapes here don't look like slender cat legs, like these shapes do. Also, when I look at these shapes here, my brain doesn't automatically think, hey, that's a cat's tail, like it does when I look at those two shapes. I'm designing between these two sketches to develop. I'm going to choose this first sketch over the second sketch because my goal is to create a character with an interesting silhouette. This first sketch has more asymmetry in it, which is the first trait of interesting silhouette. For example, if I draw a line around the outermost parts of both drawings, excluding the tail parts. You'll see that there's asymmetry in this shape, and there's more symmetry in this shape because the left mirrors are right, and there's not as much variation between the bottom and the top as there is with this first sketch. If your sketches look more like one of these sketches, you can definitely create a unique character with my character design steps that I'll explain in the upcoming lessons. Here's a tip. If your goal is to create an original character versus a character that looks like it is a unique cat or a character that is recognizably inspired by cats, do your best to forget that your sketches inspiration was a cat. An easy way to do this is to rotate your sketch or turned upside down. This way when you look at it and you work with a sketch, you'll be focusing on its shapes, lines, silhouettes. Since the sketch looks less recognizable as a cat, your brain will not try to keep turning your character into a cat. Even if you feel lukewarm about a sketch, don't worry. You will be able to create a unique character by following my steps of reshaped the body, add the face, and embellish refine the character. See you in the next lesson where we will reshape the body and you'll start to see the character design development. [MUSIC]
7. Reshape the Body: Let's reshape the body of our sketch. It'll make this silhouette much more interesting. Here are the four sketches created in a sketching lesson. I'm going to choose this first sketch to develop into our character. Here are the two ways that we'll reshape the body. We'll tear up, tape up, and lengthen. We'll exaggerate, enlarge, and shrink. The first process I'm going to use is called tear up, tape up, and lengthen. What I'm going to do is I'm going to tear this up, then I'm going to tape it up. I'm going to use a Tombow double stick roller, but you can use scotch tape, you can use a glue stick, you can use masking tape, and then we're going to lengthen it. The part I'm going to tear up is right around here. I'm going to divide the body up in this part here. [NOISE] Now here are the two parts of the body. Now I'm going to tape him down, I'm going to use a Tombow double stick roller [NOISE] not worrying too much about where I'm placing him. Just far enough away that I can do some lengthening of his body. [NOISE] I'm going to connect from this point somewhere around here, and this point to that point. I'm going give him him longer body. Right in this straight line I'm going to create in a curve. A curve gives it a much more interesting silhouette. Here's how our character looks after I tore it up, taped it up, and lengthen it. But I want to go a step further and I want to make the silhouette more interesting. What I'm going to do is some tear it up again, and then I'm going to curve it around more, and then I'm going to also make this width of this body more irregular. Because here it's almost as if it's the same amount of the width. If I make it a little bit, see already that makes it much more interesting. I'm going to use some white out tape so I'm not as distracted. Now I'm going to tear him up and then tape him up again. I'm tearing two spots here and here. [NOISE] Here are the three pieces of our character so far. I'm going to arrange it, so it's much more intriguing. More of a wonky asymmetrical silhouette. I like that arrangement more than the other one. I'm going to tape him down. Now I'm going to connect the lines. Another way that I like to reshape the body, I call exaggerate, enlarge, and shrink. The goal is to create more asymmetry in the silhouette of the character. For example, I usually like characters with oversize heads and tiny bodies. I feel like they look much cuter that way. I'll probably make this head very big and make this body smaller. I'm going to shrink the body. As a result, by exaggerating or enlarging the head, and then shrinking in exaggerating in a reduction way for the body. What I'll do is I'll take a look at my drawing. Similar to the modified partial blind contour process, I will look at this inspiration image and then with that certain intention, and then draw here. I'm going to look at the head and I'm going to make a very big head. Then I'm going to look at the body and reposition my marker here. I'm going to look at that body on my photocopied image, and I'm going to make and draw and follow the contours of the cat copy. Here he is. I feel it looks much cuter. I'm actually going to go one step further and I'm going to make this body even smaller. I'll move this to the side. We're going to try this again. I'm going to look at this image, then I'm going to draw here, but not looking here, this way, there's a bit more of wonkiness and expressiveness and less control to the lines, which makes it look much more interesting. I'm going to look at the head and draw the head, and then I'm going to try to not move my hand very much this way, so the body would be tighter, so I'm following the contours of this item on the right. You might have noticed when I was drawing, it's almost as if this part of my hand was not moving at all. I was only moving my fingers. This way it was a much tighter movement for the drawling. This lesson, focus on reshaping the body of our character to give it a more interesting silhouette. In the next lesson we're going to add a face to our character. [MUSIC]
8. Add the Face: In this lesson, we'll add a face to our character. We'll cover these two topics. Which eyes, nose, and mouth do you choose? Where do you place the eyes for a cuter look for your character? It's time to choose facial features. Which eyes, nose, and mouth do you choose? For your reference here is my inspiration library of facial features from the class resources section. Here are the questions to ask yourself. What kind of eyes do I want? What mood or personality do I want my character to have? To give your character a more reflective mood, you might choose closed eyes. If you want an alert character, you might choose big eyes with big eyelashes. For the nose, do you want a circle, oval, triangle, or a square. For the mouth, notice a difference in emotion when the mouth line is a horizontal line versus a curve-like smile. If the choice is still overwhelming, you can close your eyes and point somewhere on the inspiration library. Then draw whatever your finger is closest to. Sometimes I wait to draw the face until after I've embellished the character. I may choose a simple face with dot eyes if the rest of the character has lots of details or embellishments. If the character's body is simple and I want the viewer to focus in on the face, I may choose eyes with a very decorative border. Where do you place the eyes if you want a cuter look? Going to discuss some ideas if you want to cuter, to look to your character. We're going to place the eyes very low on the face. Then place the nose very low in the face also. Here the eyes are very far apart versus closest center line. Here is your other drawing. Going to discuss the ways to make a cuter look to our character. We're going to place the eyes low on the face, very far apart from each other. I may give this character eyelashes. Going to give a nose that's very low in the face. I think I'll put a mouth in too then give it a smile. I'm going to thicken the eyelashes to accentuate them a bit more and more to the cuteness of it. These suggestions give it a cuter look because they differ from a classical adult face. Where here. This is a classical adult face. Where if we divide the face of a classical adult proportioned face into five lines with the top line is at the hairline and the bottom line is that the jawline. Then three more lines equal distance between the first and fifth line. You'll see that the eyes are between the second third line. The nose is between the third and fourth, and then the mouth is right below the fourth line. Here here, this is a cuter face where this has the same eyes and the same nose. You'll see that the eyes are placed very low on the face. They're also further apart from each other, how it's over a finger with the part. Then the nose is very low in the face. This makes a cuter face than a classical adult face. You'll see those concepts illustrated here. Eyes are very low. They're very far apart and then the nose, slashed nose, mouth, are very close to the bottom to the chin. In this lesson, I shared suggestions of where to place the head and the facial features for your character. But the most important thing to remember is this. There's no right way and there's no wrong way of doing things. Experiment often and find what you like the most. In the next lesson, we're going to embellish our character by adding items that stick out of the character's body. See you there.
9. Embellish and Refine: Part One: [MUSIC] In this lesson, we're going to embellish and refine our characters. This is a final part of the character design process. It's also my favorite part because you really see the character's personality reveal itself. For the embellishment part, we're going to add items to stick out of the character's body to give it a more interesting silhouette. My two favorite types of embellishments are animal body parts and botanical motifs. I will embellish this character with some animal body parts to make it silhouette much more interesting. I created a list of animal body parts. Here's the inspiration library that is in the resources section of class. What you could do is you can pick out which ones you just connect and resonate with. Or you can close your eyes and you pick items. I usually like to pick one to three animal body parts, this way I have more options. Or maybe I might put something on the head, maybe along the torso. This particular character has a very small short torso and then the third item is I might put something wherever the end of the character is, such as with the tail. But we will see what the options are, what kind of things I connect with. To introduce some randomness you can also cut these items out, put them in a jar, and pick out one to three body parts, and see what happens next. I will go ahead and pick some items out. I've got three. I have moose antlers, anteater's long snout, and bumblebee wings. You can draw from what you think these items look like in your head. Whatever that is, how it comes out. Or you can also do a Google image search and do a partial blind contour drawing, looking at the inspiration image of the animal body part. I connect with the moose antlers the most. I'll put that in the head and then maybe bumblebee wings and maybe an anteater snout. I will just draw my idea of what I think moose antlers look like. Doesn't matter what they look like. The whole idea is to create something unique, interesting silhouette, meaning asymmetry items jutting out, irregularity in the silhouette and haphazard or unexpected arrangement to the items. I might add some little petals [MUSIC]. While I have an idea what wings look like, I don't know what bumblebee wings themselves look like, but I will just draw some wing-like shape. [MUSIC] He already has a nose which I like, but maybe I will introduce this kind of shape inside it, which is what an anteater might have. It's like its long snout but instead of sticking out, it's going to be inside. While I'm here, I will just draw triangles. [MUSIC] Whatever ideas come to you, just go ahead and follow them. Don't worry about what is right or wrong. Because the whole idea is to put marks down on the paper and then you can be inspired by them. This item here is similar to items on the botanical motif inspiration library. Instead of adding it to the actual character, I'm going to add it to this floating structure that the character's on. Just something I just felt moved to do and because I have these leaves on the moose antlers, I'm going to add a couple here. Because this is a second trait of interesting silhouette things sticking out. Not only sticking out of the body, but also sticking out of whatever embellishments items that are part of your drawing. I also like to repeat similar elements elsewhere. Add some more visual continuity to the piece. Adding some items jutting out of the wings. I like him more now. This is what my character looks like after the embellishment stage and I had started doing some of the refining stage and I stopped and did the rest of it off camera. This is my finished character where I did all of the refining stages. I want to explain to you what steps I did. The things I like to do are, I color in some of the shapes. For example, this nose part that was the anteater's long snout, the ears, the body, this botanical type swirl also here. So that's the first thing I like to do in terms of coloring in shapes. I also like to thicken the width, where you'll notice the width between here and here it's thicker and also there's variety in the thickness, it's not all the same thickness all the way around. In the third item I like to do after I put all of my extra black down for contrast, as I add white. I have these row of dots all around the different botanical motifs and around the character itself I actually use dashes. I like the way that looks in terms of the visual contrasts of the extra black and then the white on top. [MUSIC]
10. Embellish and Refine: Part Two: I'm going to embellish this sketch with botanical motifs. Here's my inspiration library of botanical motifs from the resources section of class. Often it's easier for me to introduce randomness to my process than trying to deliberate and choose which of these items I'm going to use for my character. What I'm going to do is I'm going to close my eyes and I'm going to point to three spots on the inspiration library. Then those are the possible motifs I will use. Closing my eyes, pointing to a spot. Pointing here, so I guess I have to decide which of these two motifs I will use. Close my eyes and choose this part. Close my eyes and choose another part, this one. Different areas that I like to embellish my character is the head, along the torso, and then usually the end of a character where a tail might be. This character already has a tail. Let's see. I'm going to use this part here for the head. I'm going to look at this and then I'm not going to look at the drawing or the piece of paper as much and then just draw the item. Now I'm going to add in different marks. Then this part here, or this part here. I'm going to add this as for the body. Now for this, I'm actually looking at my paper. And I just have the memory of what that botanical motif looks like. And I pointed to this one, so I'll see what I want to do for that. I actually think I might put that here. I usually like to make things in odd numbers because I feel like that looks much more interesting. Because odd numbers have an asymmetry to them. After I add the embellishments to this character, now I'm going to look at it and see what else he wants for his body. I feel as if he lacks personality. Maybe it's because his eyes are so simple. What if I turned it around and just pretend that wasn't his face there, I might just go ahead and use white-out. Here I see a bit of a trunk and here it's a head. Maybe I can include an eye right there. If I forgot about that face, what I can do is going to add really big eyes. With eyelashes, this way it accentuates his eye, has a much more interesting silhouette and variety in it. The viewer is going to look at his eye a lot more if it's more decorative. This part here is distracting to me. I'm going to cover that up and trace it over. And one thing we can do during the embellishment part is to make the lines have varying widths. You can see how this line here has the same width. If we make the lines, some parts be thicker. So I'll make that part thicker there and tracing over some of the lines. This is a photocopy on card stock. Part of this embellishment part could also be adding items inside the character. Maybe some items here. For example, that shape is too similar already. Maybe this one here. That is a new shape. I'm stopping here because I don't want to add too much detail or near the face because then I will just make it more busy, I want some quiet space, some white. Here is the elephant dragon-like creature that came about when I turned the cat's inspiration image upside down. This is what he looks like after the embellishment stage. And I had started to thicken that line there and I stopped and I did the rest of the refining stages off-camera. And I want to explain to you what I did and also the main steps I do in my refining stage. The things I do are, I thicken the lines where I started doing that already here. And you notice the difference between this and this, it's thicker. You'll notice also that the width is a little bit different. It's not the same width when I'm thickening it all around. I colored in shapes such as those areas there, for those flowers. Also, that area, that flower, and this space right here, and I colored those and sometimes I use the Sakura Permapaque 1.0 marker, and sometimes I would use the Faber-Castell Pitt brush marker, the letter B for brush. I also added in some detail lines here. You can use any black pigment liner. I like to use the Staedtler Pigment Liner, that's 0.3. Then after all my black parts are done and there's that area there for the detail lines. After all the black areas are done, I like to add some white to it for contrast, I love using the Uni-Ball Signo white gel pen but any white gel pen or white paint pen will work fine. What I did was all these outline lines, I add dots in those. Then I add lots of variety of dots within those flowers there and I add botanical motifs where I add another flower, a white flower within that black flower. And I added some tiny botanical motifs there. Those are the main steps I took to refine this image. He looks cute already as he was but I feel like he looks cuter here and much more interesting, more exquisite, more unique than here. When I was doing the refining parts, the main two objectives I was aiming for were adding more contrast and value between the black and white. You'll see there's a lot more black here, a lot more variety in the contrast. Also adding variety in terms of the types of detail within the piece. That's why it was lots of little details like these lines and dots. Then there's bigger shapes of the white that are leftover in between the marks.
11. Reviewing the Silhouettes: Let's recap. When you draw embellishments, remember, you can draw the embellishment based upon what you think something looks like, such as what you think antlers look like whatever image that is in your mind. Or you can draw the item we're looking at inspiration image that you found through Google image search. Let's look at the major stages of our two characters and their silhouettes. Let's look at the silhouettes of the major stages for my two characters. Here is my first character. Here's a silhouette after the starting sketch. The silhouette after my first attempt to reshape the body by exaggerating, enlarging, and shrinking. I made a second attempt in which I shrunk the body even more, then I embellished the character with antlers, wings, and the spontaneous swirls. Here is my second character. The silhouette after the starting sketch, silhouette after my first attempt to reshape the body by tearing up, taping up, and lengthening the body. Then I made another attempt to reshape the body, this time tearing the body into two parts and then giving it a more curved fetal position, and also making this part of the torso narrower. I turned the character upside down and I added botanical elements. This is the resulting silhouette. When you look at the silhouettes of the two final drawings, notice how the silhouettes embody the three traits of an interesting silhouette. Asymmetry. Items sticking out of the body and variety and the items sticking on the body. Also, the arrangement of shapes has unexpected or haphazard feel versus a very orderly and controlled look. Now that you know how to embellish your [MUSIC] characters, you have seen my full five-step character design process. I've created a bonus lesson if you're interested in getting to know your character, and to go a step deeper into character design. If you're happy where you are in your process, I'll see you in the final thoughts lesson.
12. Bonus: Get to Know Your Character: Welcome to the bonus lesson. Let's get to know our characters. Sometimes when I'm drawing, my character will just jabber away. It'll tell me its name, what it's worried about, who its best friend is but sometimes my character is really quiet. If you or your character are feeling shy, I created a list of questions for you. You can find them in the resources section of class. The questions are written in third person, such as, what is your character's name? What does your character love to eat? But if you're having a hard time answering the questions, you could rephrase the questions in second person and talk directly to your character and say things like hello new friend, what is your name? Where do you live? What do you love to collect? Do you have any superpowers or special skills? If it feels odd to you to be talking to a sheet of paper with marker scribbles on it, then imagine that you are channeling your six-year-old self. Do you remember what it's like to be a kid and you would talk to your stuffed animals? This exercise is like that. Once you learn things about your character, then you have more ideas of things to draw with your characters. For example, if your character dreams of going to Paris, then you could draw your character with the Eiffel Tower. If your character would love to skydive, but it's also very afraid of skydiving, then you could draw your character tandem skydiving with other character friends. Or if your character loves pepperoni pizza and mint chocolate chip ice cream, you could draw your character with a huge pizza slice in a gigantic waffle corn ice cream cone. One thing I love about being an artist is this, I'm never lonely. If I'm missing my in real-life human friends, then I go to my art room and I draw some characters. I hope that you and your new character friends have a wonderful time together. [MUSIC]
13. Final Thoughts: Congratulations on finishing this class. I hope I demystified the process of creating unique characters. For your reference, I created a review worksheet that highlights my five-step character design process. I also created a blank inspiration library grid. This way include your own inspiration libraries. You will find both items in the projects and resources section of class. I hope that you were able to adopt new perspectives, to create a more joyful, less judgmental drawing process. Remember, don't aim to create a good jolly. Instead, aim to create a drawing with an interesting silhouette. If you're starting sketch doesn't look like the inspiration image, then you are closer to creating an original and unique drawing. I'm excited to see your characters, and also to see the initial sketches. I would love to learn how this drawing experience was for you. Please upload your finished drawings and your initial starting sketches, to the projects and resources section of class. If you enjoyed this class, please post a review. It'll mean so much to me, especially as a new teacher. If you have a friend who has told you that they want to draw imaginary characters, or they're feeling stuck, or they want a new way to reinvigorate the creative process, please tell him about this class. Until next time, happy drawing. I can't wait to see your characters. [MUSIC]
Jenny Messerle, Artist + Author
