Scott Harris – Character Art School: The Complete Character Drawing Course (Download)
Creating compelling characters is at the heart of visual storytelling—from video games and animation to comics and concept art. Yet many aspiring artists struggle with fundamental issues: stiff poses, inconsistent proportions, lifeless expressions, and an inability to draw confidently from imagination. Professional character artists make it look effortless, but without proper foundational training, progress can feel frustratingly slow.
Course and Instructor Overview
Character Art School: The Complete Character Drawing Course is a comprehensive training program taught by Scott Harris, an experienced Art Director and Lead Instructor. Designed for both absolute beginners and intermediate artists, this modular video course provides everything needed to advance your drawing skills to a professional level—whether you’re working traditionally with pencil or digitally.
The course includes over 7GB of supplemental materials: video demonstrations, custom brushes, professional workflows, and detailed resources. Rather than teaching a single “method,” Scott focuses on core fundamentals that apply across all character drawing styles, from Disney-inspired animation to manga, comics, and game concept art.
What You’ll Learn
Art Fundamentals for Character Illustration
The foundation begins with essential art theory, including how to see like an artist and balance skill with emotional expression. You’ll understand the difference between observational and imaginative art, learn to create believable versus realistic drawings, and discover how storytelling elevates your character work beyond technical proficiency.
Drawing Fundamentals
Core drawing techniques include warmup exercises for penmanship, three-dimensional thinking, dynamic drawing principles, and creating depth. You’ll master line weight variation, asymmetry, and speed drawing techniques essential for professional workflows. The two-stage drawing process helps you work efficiently, while lessons on developing your visual library and using references properly accelerate your learning.
Character Forms and Proportions
Detailed instruction covers body proportions, head construction from multiple angles, and hand anatomy—three critical areas where many artists struggle. You’ll learn to draw individual facial features including eyes, ears, noses, and mouths with confidence. Form-based drawing teaches you to construct the head, neck, torso, limbs, and extremities in three-dimensional space, with special attention to gender differences and anatomical accuracy.
Gesture Drawing Mastery
Gesture drawing brings life and energy to your characters. Starting with foundational concepts, you’ll progress through basic, intermediate, and advanced gesture techniques. Learn to capture action, identify important drawing lines, work with axis and asymmetry, and practice with life gestures that create dynamic, believable poses.
Professional Workflows
Multiple workflow demonstrations show you how professionals approach character drawing from initial sketch to finished illustration. The two-stage and multi-stage workflows provide flexible approaches depending on your project needs, with real-time demonstrations revealing the thought process behind each decision.
You may also be interested in these courses:
Character Composition and Design
Elevate your work with character design principles including center of gravity, squash and stretch animation concepts, and action-reaction dynamics. You’ll understand focal points, silhouette value, symbolism in character design, and how to create unique, memorable characters. The three core elements of character design and five essential composition principles provide a framework for professional-quality work.
Facial Expression and Emotion
Bring characters to life through expressive faces. Detailed instruction on eye, eyebrow, and mouth dynamics teaches you to convey specific emotions convincingly. Demonstrations show the complete process of drawing various facial expressions that connect with viewers emotionally.
Hair and Clothing
Master the fundamentals of drawing hair, from basic components to complete hairstyles with natural flow and volume. Cloth dynamics lessons teach you how clothing drapes, folds, and moves with your characters, adding realism and visual interest.
Final Polish
Professional finishing techniques include creating clean line art, understanding rough versus refined approaches, and composing complete character pages that showcase your work effectively.
Who Should Enroll
This course welcomes absolute beginners with no drawing experience, intermediate artists seeking to refine their skills, and anyone passionate about character art across all mediums—video games, animation, comics, manga, and illustration. The structured, modular design allows you to learn chronologically and revisit specific topics as needed.
With rewarding assignments that bridge theory and practice, you’ll see noticeable improvement in your work almost immediately.
