The Character Course
Character Course
A character starts with an idea. Who are they? What have they been through? What can you tell about them before they say a word? In this course, I’ll show you how I work through those questions and turn them into drawings with personality, clear design, and a story behind them.
Traditional to Digital Workflow
A big part of my philosophy with drawing is that traditional sketching is still useful for finished portfolio work. One of the more common questions I get is "How does this relate to my finished work".
This course is meant to show how the skills in my previous two courses (The Ultimate Sketching Course, and Practical Perspective) can be used to create professional, finished art that can be used in a portfolio.
Finished character artwork: the Fire Mage and the Flower Knight.
Together, we’ll build an adventuring party of warriors, priests, hunters, mages, and druids. Some of the projects come from actual character briefs for Warchief Gaming’s Auroboros, giving you a look at how I approach a design with a specific world and purpose in mind.
Warrior and priest studies from the archetypes demonstration.
We’ll work on gesture, construction, proportions, and silhouettes, then use expressions, costumes, and props to give each character their own identity. From there, we’ll develop values, color, lighting, and materials to bring the design together.
If you’ve been sketching characters but aren’t sure how to take them further, this course is about connecting those steps. You’ll see how I move from an early idea to a finished piece, and use the assignments to develop characters of your own.
Gesture and silhouette studies from the lessons: finding personality through movement, proportion, and shape.
This course includes:
Character-design demonstrations that take you from the initial brief and paper sketches through digital development and finishing.
A traditional-to-digital workflow for refining your drawings without losing their personality and energy.
Assignments to help you apply the lessons and build your own characters.
A look at real character briefs, including projects for Warchief Gaming’s Auroboros.
An interview and drawing session with Moby Francke.
An accompanying e-book to support your learning alongside the course.
Interview with Moby Francke
In this course, I interviewed Moby Francke. If you don't know him, you definitely know his work. He's responsible for bringing J.C. Leyendecker to games with his work on Team Fortress 2, DOTA 2, Valorant, and Portal just to name a few of the projects he's had a hand in.
He was kind enough to sit down with me to give me feedback on my designs done for this course, and talk a bit about his philosophy on drawing and painting.
Some of Moby's work:
Character Course E-Book Sample Pages
A look inside the accompanying e-book, from finding a character’s gesture to developing the color stage.
About Me
I’m Rembert Montald, a Belgian artist and former Riot Games illustrator. Drawing on paper is still an important part of how I work. It gives me room to explore, make mistakes, and find ideas before I start developing them digitally.
In this course, I’m sharing how I connect those two parts of the process. From the first sketch to the final design, I’ll walk you through the decisions that help a character feel believable, expressive, and part of a larger world.
