Illustration is the art of conveying an idea or a story moment in a one single image. Without the help of time, dialogue or sound effects like in an animated film, an artist needs to focus on the elements at their disposal to successfully convey their idea.
You will learn exactly how to tackle these elements with Kenneth’s help to create fascinating scenes that make viewers want to dive right in! He will lead you through each stage of his illustration process, break it down clearly for those who are entirely new to character design. You’ll be creating your own fantasy worlds in no time!
In this course, you will learn the essential principles that will transform your art into dynamic illustrations that come alive, as well as discover useful tricks which professional artists use to come up with ideas, save time while drawing and use lighting and color to set the tone and create drama.
If you’d like to have a sneak peek of what’s in store, click on the preview buttons below and watch Kenneth do his magic.
In these tutorials, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at the personal art process of the character design master, Kenneth Anderson (aka Kenny)!
To him, drawing is really all about storytelling — grabbing a specific moment in a story and capturing it in an illustration. How does one do that? Keep watching and find out! 😉
Kenny discusses what things to consider and questions to ask yourself when coming up with ideas for an illustration. All your design choices should aid in communicating the story moment, so having clarity about what that moment actually is will make every else down the line much, much easier!
Research fills in gaps in our knowledge and opens us up to new ideas. It’s the key to starting off right. Learn about Kenny’s checklists to make reference gathering easier, where he goes to find it all and why a mood board is such a great idea!
Why create thumbnails? Crafting the perfect story scene for an idea isn’t easy, even for the pros, but thumbnails help tremendously in exploring an idea on paper and will go a long way in saving you from frustration and wasted time later. Kenny discusses important factors, such as canvas ratios, lighting sources, color options and perspectives for his piece.
Kenny explains his process for creating engaging characters in this tutorial, discussing the 3 main facets: their personalities, current mood and current desire or motivations. He delves into how to make characters unique and keep things interesting with different poses.
Learn in detail how to convey an emotion to the audience through lighting and color and follow along as Kenny explains the decisions he makes regarding these important aspects.
All the major design choices have been made, so now it is time to paint the image and bring to completion! This stage just deals with flat local colors, concentrating on color palattes. You’ll discover tips on canvas size, resolution, what order to do your block-in and how to use layers.
Building on the steps before, Kenny refines the image further with shadows, lighting, detail and some cool effects. He explains the importance of defining key areas, and not over-rendering everything in the illustration.
We are almost done! At this stage, Kenny likes to take a step back and evaluate the
image, tweaking it as necessary. You’ll discover the exact thought process of a pro and get valuable insight on what is or isn’t working and why.
Kenneth is a professional freelance character designer with 14+ years experience. Based in the UK, he has worked with companies like the BBC, Brown Bag Films, Nick Jr. and 3D Total. He also worked as an inbetweener on Sylvain Chomet’s Oscar nominated film “The Illusionist” and as an animator on the French feature “Titeuf: Le film”. His specialties are story-driven character-based illustration and design for a variety of mediums, in particular children’s television. In his spare time, he enjoys creating characters, illustrating magazines and making games.
21 Draw is an online learning community where students of all skill levels can learn how to be a better artist. Our contributing artists and instructors are the best in the world.
Our streaming platform on www.21-draw.com and tv.21-draw.com makes it possible for anyone to watch hundreds of video lessons by industry legends who have worked for Disney, Marvel, DC, Dreamworks, Pixar & more. A membership gives full-access to our streaming platform.
On books.21-draw.com you can buy our popular learn-to-draw ebooks and physical books, seperate from the courses, and they too are also delivered to you by the heavyweights of the art industry.
Membership includes unlimited access to all 17+ courses taught by the world’s best artists PLUS new courses as they are released.
Each class includes 10-20 video lessons that are 10 minutes long on average. Most classes include exercise sheets, assignments and layered PSD or PNG files.
Some classes include the ability to chat with the instructor in a public forum, e.g., if you want feedback on your artwork.
21 Draw courses are on-demand (pre-recorded) video tutorials that you can watch online with any digital devices anytime and for an unlimited number of times! This means you can easily watch (and rewatch) them at your own pace and convenience.
We have classes for all levels, even for those with zero drawing experience. In general, artists at all levels can benefit from these courses—whether beginner, intermediate or advanced.
Many lessons in our courses apply to both digital and traditional art. In a few tutorials, digital drawing software, e.g. Photoshop or Procreate for iPad is required. However, for the majority of lessons it is more about the underlying concepts and all that is needed is a pen and paper.
You can download the course resources (exercise sheets, assignments, PSD files, etc.) from the site, but you cannot download the video lessons to your computer.
Normally it costs $199/year. However, there is a special sale running now for a limited time: Save 75%! This means you can get an annual membership for just $49 USD/year.
Also available is a monthly membership at $9.99 USD/month.
If you purchase the ‘Illustrator’s Masterclass’ annual or monthly membership at a discounted price, it will remain at that price for each consecutive year/month, so long as your membership is not cancelled.
If for any reason at all you are unhappy with our courses or feel it isn’t what you are looking for—then just fill out this form or email us at [email protected]. We’ll be more than happy to give you a full refund within 30 days of your first purchase. No questions asked. Just a guarantee you can trust.
You can easily cancel your membership renewal on your Profile page. Follow the prompts to cancel (Billing > Change Plan > Cancel Membership) and your membership will immediately be terminated. Please note: Refunds ONLY possible within 30 days after date of purchase.
If you have more questions, please check out our Knowledge base or write to us here. We’re happy to assist in any way we can!
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A very detailed and interesting course about character-driven illustrations. The process (from the idea till the finished product) is well explained through many short step-by-step videos and some tasks at the end to try it out yourself.
I enjoyed watching this a lot and I’m not even an illustrator.
I love this style of art, Kenneth has a lovely style and an interesting approach. A very well detailed and engaging tutorial, I loved it and I’m sure I’ll probably go through it a few times.
Very detailed and well explained process of making illustrations. Really the essence of what is needed to develop in such field. I realy enjoyed the course and like the way of explaining the whole process. Thank you for this course.
Love this course! Really inspires me and stimulates my creativity. Thank you for this course!
I enjoyed the step by step though process involved in making an illustration like this. very informative.
Helpful in capturing character’s personality and for story telling
This is really what I needed to bring my drawings to the next level and get noticed by recruiters!
I am a beginner’s level or I can do intermediate art if the course is well explained. However, in this course, I missed explanations regarding steps the artist is taking so it is really unclear for many steps how to do them. In my opinion, if you are a beginner, this is not a course for you. If you are intermediate or advanced level, you already know how to do this kind of art.
Great to see the Process
Fantastic course! Learned a lot about composition, color and lighting.