Illustration Class Room
hosted by Tang Ho (with the assistance of lovable Diana)

This class room is mainly for people who already have basic skills of drawing. I will not teach any technique. I believe every one have their own style. I will concentrate on composition, balance,emphasis and grammar of a drawing, In short, how well the pictures are telling a story.

 

Lesson five: Design

 

In the previous lesson, I mentioned that you have to make the main characters as unique as possible. For example, a sitting character will stand out in a group of standing characters -- like the example below. It is mainly a directional difference. If you want the character or object stand out more, you will have to work on the characters appearance. In the design below, I have painted the lone fish in black to make it stand out more.

 

However, there is a limit to your freedom in designing. Now you should learn the second rule of illustration: Any design based on real life must have a degree of believability. For example, the design of Lisa's appearance is very stylized and exaggerated. Still, I followed the basic human design guide lines. She has all the human parts in the right place. If you vertically divide Lisa in two, the left and right side should mirror each other. If you do not follow these basic rules, your design will seem careless or simply a bad drawing. So you should do some research before you design something that has a real basis.

Important: Important: Drawing research is not just taking a photo of something and drawing it on paper exactly the same as in the picture. The purpose of drawing research is to understand the structure of the object you are going to draw.

Believablitily
The human figures you designed, should make people believe it is a humane. his or her locomotions and gestures have to be correct.

practicality
If you are designing something that is functional; make it practical.

Cause and effect
Your character should be able to interact with the elements like gravity, light and wind to make her existence more convincing

Design in three dimensions.

You should know your characters from all angles. Remember, even on 2D media (pen and ink on paper) you still have to know an object three dimensionally.

 

An illustrator or a manga artist is also a designer. If you do not know how something looked like and no way to find it out, for example; a dragon. You have to make it up yourself and following these rules is essential


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