Another Course Finished

Submitted my final assignment this morning for Stephen Silver's 9-week Character Design course at Schoolism.com. The above image is a 'before and after'. The one on the left is the character assignment from Week 1, and the one on the right is designing the same character after taking the course. The difference is primarily in the structure and design, which I think is dramatically improved, if I do say so myself. Funny thing, I thought the first one was pretty good when I submitted it. Now...not so much. I still have a critique coming for the one on the right, and I'm sure Stephen will tell me ways I can improve it.

There is a BIG difference between cartooning and character design. While I enjoy putting a lot of texture and brush strokes in cartoons, you really can't do that with character design or some animator that has to reproduce that image over and over again in different poses will likely come to your house and beat you senseless.

While I'd love to go into great detail about what I learned on this course, I don't think you want to read that much, and I try to keep my REALLY lengthy entries to a minimum.

In short, I loved this course and I learned a lot. Stephen is an excellent teacher, with a very positive attitude about art and life in general, which makes learning from him that much more enjoyable. While I will always have more to learn, this course gave me a new perspective on characters and cartooning in general. And best of all, I'm sketching from life a lot more now, which is something I've never done enough of.

In a perfect world, I'd take course after course in perpetuity, but I find that one of these a year is about all I can handle right now, while still getting the rest of my work done. As in all things, there is a balance to try and maintain.

As I've said before, whether it's this course or another one, keep educating yourself! If you put away your ego, and approach it with humility, you will be amazed at how much a course like this can push your work forward. You will always have something to learn. Why wouldn't you want to be the best artist you can be?