Digital Illustration: Create Manga Characters

Want to design characters like the ones from your favorite manga, anime, and video games? In this online course, digital illustrator Catalina Carlesi teaches you how to bring your own heroes to life.

Under her guidance, learn to draw expressive manga characters and tell a story through their clothing, accessories, and environment. Discover digital techniques to help you create charismatic illustrations rich in light, color, shadows, and intricate details. Get ready to build fantasy worlds and make them a reality with Procreate and Photoshop.

Meet your teacher for the course, Catalina Carlesi. She tells you about her creative journey as a digital artist, along with the sources of inspiration that influence her work.

Next, learn to draw manga characters from head to toe. Catalina explains everything from body proportions to expressive features before sharing her techniques for line art and how to apply color palettes to your illustrations. Then start building your hero and the world they live in using a character sheet.

Once you’ve mapped out your ideas, it’s time to illustrate them. Sketch out your character and their surroundings before cleaning up your line work and incorporating layers of grayscale followed by color. Add light and shadows for a more dynamic environment and discover how to polish your scene in the rendering process.

To round out the course, Catalina shares tips on how to present your work on social media, as well as ideas to enhance your illustrations and the characters in them.