Character Design for Animation with Photoshop By Caio Martins

Getting to show the expressions of a character in a natural way while combining colors, shapes, and volume can be a great challenge for an illustrator. Character designer and storyboard artist Caio Martins manages to unite several techniques in his creations and in this course, he will teach you how to master them to create unique illustrations. He has worked for renowned studios like DreamWorks, Netflix, and Disney Jr.

During this journey, Caio will guide you through the steps to give life to a character with its own identity, from the first sketches in your sketchbook to the model sheet with the final drawings, with Adobe Photoshop. You will learn how to draw gestures and physiognomies in different positions and you will have material ready to be presented to an animation studio.

About this course

In the first unit, you will meet Caio, who will tell how he became an illustrator and how he started in the animation industry designing characters, working for important national and international studios. Also, you will see what his main references are in the animation field.

You will begin to lay the foundation for your creation, analyzing the briefing, looking for reference images, and seeing what elements you should take into account when designing your character. Finally, you will put your ideas on paper, by creating the first sketches in your sketchbook.

With the sketches ready, comes the production stage: you will draw the character’s silhouette and add color and features to its expression. Explore the different colors and test how they can influence the personality of your character.

Learn how to represent your character in 3D and how to draw expressions from different angles with Adobe Photoshop. Then, you will learn how to make a complete turnaround of your character’s design.

Finally, Caio will help you prepare your portfolio to send it to an animation studio, as well as guiding you on how to organize and share your work on Instagram.

You will create a model sheet of a character for animation from a briefing and carry out exercises to will help you explore shapes, colors, and expressions.