Character Art Workshop with Teddy Hose @ Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco

Sunday, February 24th, 2013

Start Time: 1:00PM End Time: 4:00PM

In this intermediate level drawing workshop, you'll be shown key elements and accents in the human form, to add life to your character design. I actually wasn't always a fan of life drawing, but these techniques made it simple, fun and intuitive as they did for past attendees.

First, we will take a brief look into the history of character design from different cultures, eras and genres. It is often categorized with cartoons and comics, usually clumped with kitsch pop culture but I will show their actual connection with fine art through history.

Next, I will show a variety of techniques from head to toe for you to try, to really capture the juicy elements that bring your character drawings to life. Examples from existing comic and cartoon characters will be observed, as well as from books on drawing the human form.

Finally, we'll take a look at how different styles of characters portray intention, characteristics, and what accents make a character appear strong, sexy, cute, funny, etc. If there is extra time, we can try drawing characters we know in real life with these accented traits.

Character design is a vast landscape so it's not as much about being good or bad at drawing, as finding your own personal style. Artists like David Shrigley and Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead) have actually made a career off bad character art, so no need to worry about how well you can draw here.