Cartoon smart: Character Design [HF]

Video Training | HF | 753Mb

Guest instrutor Mike Macnerland was brought in to teach this stylized method of drawing because of his background as a professional illustrator, and we felt his portfolio embodies a clever re-ivention of the classic 1960's "Hannah Barbera" look. Mike draws using sweeping curves, unique angles and minimized shapes. The trend in popular TV cartoons favors this look for its looser animation style vs. more rigid character designs which are tedious for animators to work with and more costly for the studio.

Mike begins the lesson by sketching the characters above for 30 minutes, then the rest of the tutorial involves tracing over his designs in Adobe Illustrator. This part covers many of the basics of drawing with vector art in Illustrator. Mike also shares some personal tips to developing a career as a professional artist (in part 3)

Download: