Storytelling Through Details

Building a Stylized Character in Adobe Illustrator

Course Trailer

$25.00
One time

Sick of boring characters with straight blue pants and a white shirt with some dumb haircut? A character is all about the details! You don’t need to be a master (or really even that great) at drawing to create a believable, lovable character.

✓ Over an hour of video content
✓ Unlimited access
✓ Vector source files to download
✓ Photoshop brushes and color palettes
✓ Full process breakdown
Illustration of four stylized characters wearing fashion-forward outfits with unique accessories, including a dog. Bold colors and patterns are featured.

We’re gonna draw a selfie!

But let’s stop worrying about the perfect jawline, or drawing every strand of hair on our head.

This course is all about using details and telling a story through our choices we make each day. Things like our glasses, a tear in our pants, a favorite shirt, etc. These are the things that we get to choose to portrait out to the world each day!

Write out ideas for a unique character

  • Learn what makes a character unique and interesting

  • Use references and details to tell a story

  • Draw a basic body that we will “decorate” with details

  • Merge in the details to the character (clothing, accessories, etc)

  • Finalize the character in Adobe Illustrator

  • Add texture and warmth in Adobe Photoshop

  • Export the illustration to share on social media or an avatar

Person with glasses and purple hair in a colorful indoor setting with plants and neon lights.
Animated illustration of a bearded man riding a bicycle with a cigarette, wearing a hat and sunglasses, blue sky background.
Illustration of a skeleton figure sitting on a swing made of bones, wearing a pink robe, holding a flower, surrounded by a bone structure.

MEET KIRK

I’ve been making characters as a full time illustrator for the last 10+ years for clients like Google, Facebook, Welch’s, Mailchimp, etc. We’ll go through the full process together of creating a character, from ideas to final execution.

We’ll focus on what makes you, YOU; the special way you fold your hat twice, the way you layer your shirts in the winter, untied boots, purple hair, etc. These decisions we make each day are what help us communicate our uniqueness to the world. All of this will be made through a simple, stylized way of drawing.

Illustration of a character design process with sketches and colored artwork, featuring a person wearing a cap, vest, and pants, along with Adobe Illustrator logo and text 'CHARACTER DESIGN.'
Storytelling Through Details: Building a Stylized Character in Adobe Illustrator
$25.00
One time

Sick of boring characters with straight blue pants and a white shirt with some dumb haircut? A character is all about the details! You don’t need to be a master (or really even that great) at drawing to create a believable, lovable character.

✓ Over an hour of video content
✓ Unlimited access
✓ Vector source files to download
✓ Photoshop brushes and color palettes
✓ Full process breakdown

What you’ll get

  • Illustration showing a body parts template with sections for head, body, legs, feet, and hands, alongside color palettes and a brush set on a green background.

    RESOURCES

    Photoshop brushes, source Illustrator vector files, color palettes, and a ‘build a body’ kit

  • Skillshare course on character design in Adobe Illustrator featuring an instructor with purple hair, a stylized character illustration, and design materials on the desk.

    VIDEO

    Over an hour (1:09) of video lectures as well as screen-sharing demos walking through the full process

  • Illustration process showing sketches and color variations of a character wearing a cap, accompanied by an actual Gramicci cap in different colors. Also includes a color palette swatch.

    PROCESS

    There’s nothing more valuable to me personally than seeing the way someone thinks AND executes. This course balances both of those valuable assets.

  • Logos of various companies: Apple, Chase, McDonald's, Mailchimp, Adobe, Publix, Rocket League, HuffPost, Boston University, Traeger, Meta, Uber, Google, Amazon on a black background in white chalk style.

    INSIGHT

    Kirk has been working with brands like Google, Facebook, and Adobe for over 10 years. He’s taught at universities and spoken at conferences

  • Person with glasses and lavender hair wearing purple shirt, surrounded by illustrated sunflowers.

    ACCESS

    With this course, you’ll have access to emailing Kirk questions or getting feedback on your project as you see fit.

  • Illustration of two stylized figures with Adobe Illustrator logo

    SOURCE FILES

    To tinker, Kirk will also be giving his source files of the character he makes for the course. That will be a layered vector file to open in Adobe Illustrator.

THE PROCESS

Man sitting at a desk with text on left: 'Writing, References, Sketching, Tightening, Color/Final' and plants in background.

IDEATION

We’ll come up with a concept and talk through what makes a strong character design from writing to reference gathering.

Illustrated sketches of three futuristic characters with detailed gear and accessories, alongside various clothing and equipment designs on a neutral background.

SKETCHING

Drawing can be intimidating, I’m as scared of it as anyone, but we’ll go through this process really simply to get results we can iterate on.

Two animated characters in a digital art design, one on the left with a futuristic style holding a staff, and one on the right featuring a colorful, outlined style wearing casual clothing. Both characters display geometric patterns on their clothing. In the center, a graphic of a shirt with a crown design. The illustration is in a vector graphic software interface.

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR

Once our sketch is done, we’ll bring it into Illustrator and trace all our shapes and bring some color and detail into everything.

A digital illustration in Adobe Photoshop showing two stylized cartoon characters with unique outfits and a creative design, along with the Photoshop interface displaying brush options and layers.

PHOTOSHOP

And lastly we’ll take our illustrator shapes and import them to Photoshop to add some grit and texture to give the illustration a warm hand-made feel.

$25.00
One time

I WORKED HARD ON THIS. SMOOCHES

I WORKED HARD ON THIS. SMOOCHES

Concept art of a stylized character with purple hair and streetwear-inspired clothing, featuring sketches, color palettes, and annotations about design elements like accessories and style influences.
Storytelling Through Details: Building a Stylized Character in Adobe Illustrator
$25.00
One time

Sick of boring characters with straight blue pants and a white shirt with some dumb haircut? A character is all about the details! You don’t need to be a master (or really even that great) at drawing to create a believable, lovable character.

✓ Over an hour of video content
✓ Unlimited access
✓ Vector source files to download
✓ Photoshop brushes and color palettes
✓ Full process breakdown

✺ Frequently asked questions ✺

  • Just over an hour of lecturing and demos/screenshares.

  • There’s no homework to this course, but you’re welcome to email me what you’re working on and I’d love to leave feedback or help push the design further.

  • Not unless the whole website goes down. Overall, the answer is no, you’ll have “lifetime” access.

  • This course can be taken with pencils and paper. Of course one large benefit to it is the digital art education of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop as well.

    What I’m saying is, to fully benefit, you should have some basic idea of illustrator and photoshop or another digital tool. But outside of that, it’s a simple course overall to follow.

  • Everything is done in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. A lot of this course can be done with analog tools as well if you prefer.

    There’s a lot of theory to this course I believe is extremely valuable outside of the digital art realm as well.

  • Yes! Please feel free to email or DM me any questions you have as you’re taking the course.