Character Design and Coloring with Tori Solomon
Schedule
Sat May 25 2024 at 01:00 pm to 04:00 pm
UTC-06:00Location
3017 Monte Vista Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM, United States, New Mexico 87106 | Albuquerque, NM
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EVENT DETAILS
Character Design and Coloring with Tori Solomon
Workshop:
As I go through all the character design material, everyone will already have their coloring book. They will be allowed to
color or take notes as they see fit. I also have several “Art of_____” books that I will bring in and pass around for
everyone to look through. These books contain a lot of conceptual work for various movies including a lot of character
design planning. I want this to be as fun and relaxing learning opportunity as possible, not just a “listen to me talk at
you” event. I will be covering the basics of what makes a successful character design, such as an identifiable silhouettes,
exaggerated poses and expressions, color, backstory, personality, etc. We will look at examples of good character
designs and not so good character designs. We will talk about how to exaggerate reality to make a better cartoon
character. We will look at different types of character styles. We will talk about turn around sheets and expression
sheets. We will talk about the importance of thumbnail sketches, planning, and the value of the unsuccessful iterations
of their character that come before the final version. We will talk about everything they need to know to make their own
characters.
I find that the most successful learning, however, comes out of doing. While we will talk about a lot, I think the more
important part of the workshop will come from doing. After covering all the basics, we will go through one mandatory
exercise and then some voluntary ones. For the first exercise, the one that everyone will be participating in, I will ask that everyone get a piece of paper. I will have everyone draw six, very different, very random shapes spaced out on that paper. Everyone will put their name on the back of their shape paper and pass it to their right. Everyone will be asked to draw in eyes for each of the shapes on their new paper, and pass it to the right. They will then be asked to add in a nose to their new shapes, and pass it to the right. We will continue this game of drawing telephone until we have all the necessary parts of a character drawn in.
They will then get their original paper back. Depending on the size of the group, it is very possible that the only portion
of their characters they drew is the original shape itself. I will then ask that everyone to pick out what they feel is the
most successful character on their sheet and why. We, as a group, will go around and talk about this and discuss how
various aspects are working and which aspects could be changed and how to make them better characters.
At this point, we will move on to the voluntary portion of exercises. If they do not wish to participate, they are more
than welcome to just color in the Goober coloring book and observe. For those who do wish to participate, I am going to
ask that they go ahead and create a more fully fleshed out character. It can be one of their own imagining, one from their shape character sheet, or one from a random word generator that I will pull for them. I am going to ask that the rest of the workshop be spent creating these sketches, a turn around sheet for their character, as well as an expression sheet.
They can then get feedback from me, or the entire group on these designs. By the end of the class, hopefully they will
walk away with not only a coloring book of my characters, but also a fully developed character of their own.
About the Artist:
My name is Tori Solomon. I am a new and emerging artist in Albuquerque. I hold a BFA from Edinboro University of
Pennsylvania in Cinema and Applied Media Arts.
After graduating college, I didn’t really pursue much in the Cinema field. I stuck a lot closer to the more traditional art
fields, particularly painting and illustrating, but the one thing that I still find myself doing from my cinema background
is designing characters.
The first post college character to be born was Goober. He was a collaboration between myself and my husband. We
were at a fall festival in North Carolina. They had a small children’s activity station where you were supposed to take
various found objects, dip them in paint, and then stamp them onto paper to make a picture. I was working
meticulously to create very delicate floral patterns. I looked over at my husbands picture to see this blob of blue and white that he claimed to be a dog. It was the goofiest, most ridiculous thing I had
ever seen. I loved it. When we got home from the festival, I immediately set to work at bringing some personality and life into his goofy little blob, and Goober was born.
I have since designed a whole slew of goofy animal friends to create what is now referred to as “The Goober Gang”. They have gone on many adventures all across the country and gotten into any mischief they can find. Some of Goober’s friends, much like himself, are completely fictionalized, while others are drawn from
actual, real life, animal buddies. All required quite a bit of planning and design work before taking their final form. That is what will be covered as we go through the workshop.
Materials Needed:
-Goober Coloring Book
-Loose leaf paper
-Pencils/pens for sketching
Sign-Up Details
-Saturday May 25th from 1 pm to 4 pm
-$30 per person
Additional Notes
I will need to have a rough estimate of a head count at least two weeks before the class so that I can order an appropriate amount of coloring books and have them arrive on time. I understand that enrollment will be left open until the day of, and I will have extras on hand to account for any sign ups in that two week time period, but a rough estimate will be extremely helpful.
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Where is it happening?
3017 Monte Vista Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM, United States, New Mexico 87106Event Location & Nearby Stays:
