How to Design Stylish and Trendy Characters for Illustration by OKKU

A Step-by-Step Guide To Creating Trendy, Eye-Catching Character Art.

Creating Stylish Character Art: Tips from a Renowned Concept Artist

To create captivating character illustrations that resonate with a broad audience, it’s crucial to establish a strong concept beforehand. Without a clear understanding of the character’s purpose, the artwork risks becoming cluttered with irrelevant details.

Discover the Essentials of Trendy Character Design: Art Fundamentals, Conceptual Planning, Design Elements, and a Specialized Technique for Coloring Intricate Details.

Hi! My name is OKKU (Ryunkyeong Oh), a Concept Artist with extensive experience in creating character art and illustrations for video games. I’ve worked with various art styles, including stylized, Japanese-style, and semi-realistic designs.

Designing a character can be challenging, especially when it comes to deciding what to draw and how to draw it. In this class, I’ll guide you through the process of conceptualizing a character, the overall design process, and the techniques required for drawing and coloring your design. In the final section of the class, you’ll apply advanced techniques such as lighting and composition to create a fully completed illustration of your character.

Whether you’re new to character art and illustration or an aspiring artist struggling to build a portfolio, this class is designed for you. You’ll learn the fundamentals and be able to immediately apply them to create original artwork. I hope to help as many students as possible through this course.

Creating Stylish Character Art Curriculum

Part 1: Art Fundamentals for Character Design

Before creating characters, it’s important to understand the fundamental theories and characteristics of each genre, including realism, semi-realism, moe style, stylized designs, and chibi art style. This section covers:

• Simplifying the human body
• Perspective and angle
• Drawing the human body in different art styles
• Varying degrees of stylized faces

Part 2: Designing Your Character

In this section, you’ll learn how to create a stylish character art by following a step-by-step process that includes concept planning, drawing, lighting, coloring, outfit and accessory design, and adding textures. Topics covered include:

• Character drawing
• How the character’s concept affects the coloring
• Drawing techniques for commonly used materials
• Finalizing the character art

Part 3: Illustrating Your Character in an Awakened Form

To take your character illustration to the next level, this section covers how to add effects and details that align with the character’s concept and create high-quality illustrations. Topics covered include:

• Adding effects based on the concept
• Stylized lighting
• Layer techniques and post-processing
• Finalizing the illustration

Class Highlights:

• Learn the A to Zs of Industry-Level Character Design: This class covers everything from finding references to completing a character design that stands out. With the help of industry-ready reference images provided by the instructor, you will learn unique tips for gathering references and identifying trends that appeal to the public. You will also create your own character by devising a character concept and settings using a sample character design sheet.
• Follow the Step-by-Step Process Behind Game Character Art: OKKU, a concept artist with a 10-year career who has worked on popular games like “Seven Knights” and “Azur Lane,” will guide you through the entire process of concept planning, making a draft, designing concept art, and bringing your designs to life with detailed explanations. You will see the entire process of how concept art and character art get created in the industry from start to finish.
• Highlight Your Character’s Concept with Drawing and Color Choices: This section teaches you how to express your character designs in detail and bring them to life through illustrations. You will learn how to apply figure drawing to line art, stylized lighting, and coloring. This section includes hands-on exercises that will help you complete a stylish character concept art and illustration.

In this course, you will learn:

1. Concept Planning with Effective Reference Analysis

Discover how to select and combine good elements while excluding bad ones through reference analysis. You will also learn how to plan character concepts based on the references collected.

2. Different Stylized Art Styles

Understand the various proportions of the human face and body stylization in realism, semi-realism, moe style, stylized, and chibi art styles. Additionally, you will learn how facial proportions, angles, and expressions change depending on the art genre.

3. Line Art Techniques for Character Design

Master the basic pose drawing methods to effectively convey the planned concept, and learn how to design metallic weapons and outfits by shaping large silhouettes and adding detailed patterns.

4. Colors and Textures that Reveal the Character’s Personality

Learn how to use colors to express a character’s mood, such as darkness, goddess, noble, or warm, and how to depict folds and outfit textures that are frequently used in drawings.

5. Illustration Planning that Maximizes the Character’s Charms

Devise an illustration based on the character concept art utilizing advanced perspective views that draw attention and the understanding of composition. You will also learn how to use lighting, layering, and brush techniques to enhance the illustration’s quality.

6. Preparing a Portfolio that Meets Your Goals

Understand the differences between “illustrators” and “character artists,” two popular career paths for aspiring artists, and learn how to prepare for each career path by creating a portfolio and making popular drawings.