Character Illustration from Philipp Kruse

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

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

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

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

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