C O U R S E G U I D E

W E L C O M E !

Congratulations on enrolling in Character Painting. This is one of my favorite courses and I know you will find it incredibly
fun and valuable! The techniques and shortcuts that I will lead you through will have you creating character art at a higher
level than you ever thought possible. My sincere thanks to all students for taking the leap and joining our community and
we wish you a very warm welcome. Once you’ve completed the course, I hope you will post some of your work so that we
can all see what a rock star you have become. If you feel stuck at any point in the course, just let me know! I pride myself
on fast and helpful support.

- Course Creator Hardy Fowler

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS COURSE

Character Painting teaches real world skills and is designed to have students creating professional level work much
faster than they ever might on their own. Here is the general format we will follow and some tips on how to make sure
you’re getting as much out of this course as possible.

• BRUSH UP ON FUNDAMENTALS - If you haven’t already, I strongly encourage you to check out both
Art Fundamentals in 1 Hour and Photoshop Fundamentals in 1 Hour. These courses are free to all students and are
packed with great information about art and the software we’ll be using. Even if you’re an accomplished artist or feel
relatively comfortable with Photoshop, these courses could really help and will guarantee that you’re not missing
anything in Character Painting.

• REVIEW OF ‘BEFORE’ WORK - In order to gauge how far you’ve come, it’s a great idea to find a piece of character
art that you have done already as a baseline. If you’d like, post it for review and I’ll give you my honest thoughts and let
you know which parts of the course you may want to pay special attention to.

• LECTURE / DISCUSSION - Before diving in, we will spend several videos talking about some of the concepts and
best practices to keep in mind when creating creature art. These will include the Course Overview, Shape Language,
Character Archetypes, Designing & Rendering Clothing & Best Practices.

• COURSE PROJECTS! - After viewing all lectures, it’s time to dive in for our real world character projects! I will
creature 3 full artworks and every single step will be explained and discussed in detail. Once you have viewed all 3
projects, it’s time to start one of your own. Feel free to copy my designs as an exercise, but it is my hope that the
design principles that I teach will have you feeling comfortable coming up with your own awesome character concepts!

• PRACTICE / CONTINUED SUPPORT - The course does not end once you’ve reached the end of the videos.
I strongly encourage you to keep creating character art following the steps that we lay out. Practice and repetition is the
best way to see fast improvements, so keep at it! I’ve also created a list of additional character briefs to give you a good
starting point for additional projects. Let’s fill that portfolio up with awesome work! Also, post as many and as often as
you like and I’ll get back to you with my thoughts. No one flies solo in this course!
 C H A R A C T E R P R O J E C T S
The full projects that we’ll do together are the core of the course. I’ve included a wide variety of characters to give you
a broad base of knowledge. The techniques covered over these 3 projects cover many broad characters type that you
might encounter as a student or a professional. Below is a look at each character that we’ll cover and what design and
rendering techniques they were chosen to highlight.

S T E A M P U N K G E N E R A L
A classic military portrait type of character depiction. This character
will give a good sense of how to create masculine, imposing features
and how to use pose, angle and body language to communicate
strength. We’ll also spend some time giving this guy a really nice face
rendering. Tons of cool costuming and rendering techniques will be
discussed in depth here as well.

S P A C E H E R O I N E
We’ll jump from Steampunk to Scifi! The female space hero
is a cornerstone of every great character art portfolio. We’ll
discuss ways to make the pose strong and imposing yet
feminine and we’ll do a great face rendering as well. Detailed
techniques for rendering futuristic armor will be shared here
along with using patterns to create decals and logos to add
embellishment to the armor.

W A R R I O R
A traditional, high fantasy character - this Viking inspired warrior
is a great addition to any portfolio. We’ll focus on creating realistic
musculature, metal and leather armor. We’ll also learn an incredibly
easy and useful technique for adding complex tattoos with just a few
commands. Don’t miss this one!
 P R O C E S S O V E R V I E W
Let’s take a look at a breakdown of the steps that we’ll follow in the course. This will give you a very easy-to-follow road
map for success that will give you consistently great results.

1 . S K E T C H
This is the starting point! We will tackle the blank canvas and start
getting our ideas out there. This part is wide open - be as free
and creative as you want. Don’t worry about nice looking lines or
marks - ideas is all we’re worried about here.

2 . I N K
After your basic idea and pose is defined, we’ll do another line art
pass with much bolder, crisper lines. We’re essentially just tracing
the sketch, but focusing more on nice looking lines. This is also a
good step to refine and polish your idea.

3 . F A C E / S K I N T O N E S
Once the character is inked in and ready to go, we’ll tackle any
areas of skin. Most importantly, we’ll render in the face which is
one of the most important parts of any character!

4 . C L O T H I N G / A R M O R
Next, we’ll address areas of clothing and armor. I have some
really great techniques to share for rendering both!

5 . F I N A L P O L I S H
Here is where we add all kinds of finishing touches to make our
final product shine! Photo textures, secondary light sources and
edge treatment all work together to make our character look
awesome! Be sure to save a version of each project step so that
you can look back and see how far you’ve come. It’s really
rewarding to see your simple rough sketch next to your
brilliantly painting, polished final product!

S P A C E H E R O I N E
FINAL PRODUCT
 K E E P R O C K I N G !
The course doesn’t end here! Keep rocking out character projects and your progress will continue to skyrocket. I’ve put
together a page of additional project briefs and web image references just to give you some ideas. Consider this a
worksheet of character painting homework. If you have aspirations to be a professional concept artist, use these briefs to
get some stellar portfolio pieces!

SCAVENGER
• post-apocalyptic setting (Mad Max, Book of Eli)
• female, late teens
• stern and world-weary
• clothing cobbled together from whatever she can find
• goggles, perhaps a hood
• carrying a bag (trashbag or perhaps rope net) of scavenged items
• show makeshift knife on her belt

CYBERPUNK GUARDIAN
• futuristic, dystopian setting (Ghost in the Shell, Bladerunner)
• male, mid thirties tall, shaven bald, mostly cloak type clothing.
• carries a high tech looking samurai sword
• subtle, minimalist cybernetic implants
• stern, vigilant, almost robotic in personality

UNHOLY PRIEST
• nightmarish alternate reality setting
• horrifying, monstrous, old man
• priestly robes and unholy religious regalia covering him - way over the top
• avoid iconography applying to any real world religion
• have him swinging a censer
• face should be mostly hidden by hood, but clearly twisted and misshapen

VAMPIRE HUNTER
• victorian era setting (Van Helsing, Dracula)
• female in sleek period clothing (pants, boots, corset)
• lots of vampire hunting gear - crosses, wooden stakes, wreathes of garlic
• light armor covering neck
• long, cross shaped scythe as her weapon

FOREST WITCH
• fantasy setting (Lord of the Rings, Witcher)
• extremely old woman
• blind
• clothed in rags with all kinds of fetishes and totems hanging from her clothes
• holding a twisted old wooden staff
• necklace of human teeth

CRIME BOSS
• futuristic setting
• huge, hulking man smoking a cigar
• face tattoos, gold teeth
• seated
• possibly shaven bald
• rings and a gold chain

CHILD KING
• scifi / fantasy setting (Jupiter Ascending, HellBoy)
• 10 year old male
• very pale, white hair, piercing blue eyes
• angular, spiky crown
• grand clothing - military type suit but with cloak overlapping one arm like a toga
• standing at attention
• stern expression - wisdom and intelligence beyond his years

Images included here are for reference and educational use only and are not the copyrighted property of Digital Painting Studio