Character Design Workshop

by Julia See, age 16

The Character Design Workshop was a week long class where an instructor (Ron Llanos) from Arts Center College of Design came and taught a group of teens, including myself, about the basics of character design. At the beginning of the week, we were practicing general character structures and by the end, we were creating our own.

First, we learned the basics: how to make key features on the face and body seem proportionately even. Then, we went to work with creating different shapes to give those characters so we’ll be able to draw whatever. We studied how to make a body to encompass a certain personality in both real and imaginary characters, such as making a cute character versus a “bully” character. Next, we went to work with giving those characters movement. It’s a common trend to only know how to draw a stiff character facing towards you. So we had to imagine different poses and try to draw them in a stance rather than facing towards us. Our ultimate goal was to create our own character and to be able to imagine one and actually recreate the mental image on paper.

It was a fun week of creating and meeting new people. Everyone loved drawing and I met different teens who came from different places. Like all art classes, it was less of a typical “class” and more of a group of people coming together to draw. I enjoyed myself and look forward to future activities the library has to offer.

 

characterdesign1
characterdesign characterdesign4

by Victoria Le
Drawn on the first day of the workshop. by Victoria Le
by Levon Arakelyan
Created on the last day of the workshop. by Levon Arakelyan