Prompt
Choose an occupation/title for your character. Draw 6 thumbnail sketches of your character that portray their occupation/title. Be as specific as possible with your character’s occupation.
If your character is a teacher, what subject do they teach? Do they teach elementary school students, or continuing education students? What type of school does your character teach at?
Examples
Artworks by James, Steen, Crissie, Robyn, Tamara
Inspiration
- Kirikou and the Sorceress: Karaba the Sorceress
- Up: Carl & Russell
- Dexter’s Laboratory: Dexter
- The Triplets of Belleville: Rose, Violette, and Blanche + Champion
- Treasure Planet: Captain Amelia
art media
Use any art media.
Recommended traditional art media
ballpoint pen, dip pen, brush pen markers, colored pencil, pencil, India Ink, Drawing Ink, Concentrated Watercolor, Rapidograph pen, alcohol brush pens, Fineliner Pens, Copic markers, Felt tip pen
Recommended software
Procreate, Krita, Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Paint Tool SAI, Adobe Fresco, MediBang Paint, Gimp
Sketching Character Designs
See a demo for how to get started designing and sketching a character design in Procreate, creating character designs of each other.
Explained in this video is how to go about developing a character, addressing their personality traits and how to incorporate those traits into the character design. Demo led by Teaching Artists Cat Huang and Jordan McCracken-Foster.
How to Create Mood Boards
This video walks through the process of creating mood boards for character designs. The process for finding visual inspiration allows you to develop the stories behind the characters, and ultimately to the final character design.
Discussion led by Art Prof Clara Lieu and Jordan McCracken-Foster.
