Narrative Illustration with Pascal Campion
Details
This in-depth course covers my creative process, from inspiration to completed work. Students will gain a full understanding of the work and creativity that go into creating an original narrative illustration.
Live Class Schedule (Zoom): June 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th and July 13th, 20th, 27th, and August 3rd and 10th from 12:00 – 2:00 pm EST
Topics Covered
Drawing Fundamentals: We will use a series of unique exercises, which I use every single time, to create my illustrations. Students are likely not to have come across these exercises before.
Characters: Primarily through “blocking,” we look at what makes the audience see a mark on a page as a character. We examine the essential elements required for us to understand that this is a character and not something else, what makes them emote, and how we relate to them.
Story: We will focus on time as an element of the story, just like depth, space, and color, which must be controlled and directed to tell a story.
Story Development: Starting with simple sketches, poorly drawn, we will discover characters, settings, context, and emotional beats. Then, we redraw, write, redraw again, write again, back and forth, until a story is set.
Production: Using the tools and skills learned in the development stage earlier, we will redraw our image and prepare it for painting.
Painting: We will cover all the beautiful little color keys, sketches, and production design work you see in ART OF books. We use these color sketches to associate emotional anchors to scenes and turning points, creating anticipation or calming down the tone.
Lighting and Comp:
We will cover base lighting and narrative lighting and how these can affect mood, but they are not the only elements that can do so.
One More Thing: Producing the style guide. How to prepare your work for others to produce for animation or illustration.
Putting it all together: The most crucial part is how to use all of these skills and techniques in a free and non-limiting way.
Videos will be available to replay the day after class. Homework is due at midnight PST each Wednesday. Critiques will be posted before class on Saturday morning. Zoom links are emailed the night before each live class.