Style Study
Using a reference to mimic a style and understand the artists artistic choice and philosophy. Sage in the style of Nightmare before Christmas.
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Digital
From Sketch
1. Sketch
2. Line Art
3. Base Colour
4. Final Render
Finished Artwork & Visual Development
Digital
Renderings
From rough idea to polished digital artwork.
A showcase of finished character art, environments, concept pieces and digital illustrations that demonstrate how sketches develop into refined final renders.
Characters
Personality, expression & design
Environments
Worldbuilding & atmosphere
Concept Art
Ideas explored visually
Final Renders
Polished digital illustration
What Students Explore
This course is about discovering how personal style develops through design choices, mark-making, colour, rendering and intentional experimentation.
Style Research
Shape Language
Line & Mark-Making
Colour & Composition
Rendering Languages
Style Fusion
Style Prototype
Final Personal Piece
Shape & Line
Notice the black silhouettes! What do the shapes within say about the piece? The Triangular sword tip might convey danger, where the round belly of the TeaCup Elephant (Elecup) might convey soft, and friendly.
Colour & Mood
Warm vs. Cool Tones. Notice how the right side feels cold and how the left side feels hot to the touch.
Rendering Language
Soft Brush vs. Hard Brush. Learning Edge Control will make the difference between a blurry piece and a crisp one.
Style Fusion
Here is Kid Cypher painted in this style using hard brush strokes, and heavy blacks for shadows, and a very vibrant highlight.
Personal Style Piece
Coming to understand your style, and mastering other styles and skills allows for creating polished pieces!
Different Ways To Render
There isn’t one “correct” way to finish a character. Rendering style changes how shapes, lighting and personality come across in the final artwork.
Graphic + Clean
Cel Shading
Uses crisp shadow shapes, controlled edges and clear value separation . It works especially well for stylized characters, animation-inspired artwork and designs where a strong silhouette matters.
Graphic + Mysterious
Hard Black Comic Rendering
Builds form through casted light creating deep shadows leaving a sense of mystery behind the black shadow . This approach not only brings about mysery and style, but it also allows for strong silhouetting. Remove your line work and ask yourself-"does the image still read without the lines?"- If yes , you know you've got yourself something well designed, and inked.
Painterly + Charming
Mixed Media (Painterly)
Uses a mix of different techniques to create shadows and light. Usually using both Soft and hard brush techniques. . Using this technique can at times up make a piece look "muddy" but a well balanced piece will look perfectly rendered and stylized as intended. A piece like this would be a much more challenging style to approach for animation or comic purposes.
The Rendering Process
From Sketch
To Final Render
Rendering is the process of taking an idea from loose shapes and line work into a finished digital piece with colour, lighting, texture and detail.
Ready To Start Creating?
Explore available Pen & Tablet classes and find a program that works for your young artist.
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