Creating Stylized Animals

Unlock the secrets to creating stylized animals that enchant and entertain their audience, resulting in characters that follow in the popular paw-prints of much-loved creatures from Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar, and other great studios.

Creating Stylized Animals focuses on the art and craft of developing stylized characters from the animal kingdom, both real and imagined. Some of the best professional illustrators and animators dedicated to creating characters for video games, TV, and books, guide you through accessible step-by-step tutorials. These experts create specially commissioned animals, demonstrating their process from the all-important research stage and experimenting with thumbnails, to manipulating shape language, exploring gesture, and assessing color palettes.

The animal-focused design fundamentals covered inside include anatomy and anthropomorphism, and how to imbue these animals with the personality and characteristics essential to capturing the attention of audiences of all ages.

This book is perfect for artists of all mediums, ensuring newcomers to drawing the animal kingdom are equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to create their own eye-catching characters. Whether tasked with creating an adorable comedy critter to captivate the audience, or an imaginary creature to carry an adventure-packed narrative, this book is your best friend from start to finish.

• Create stylized animal characters with originality and appeal, inspired by real-world research
• Design characters from all over the animal kingdom, from elephants and owls to fish and frogs
• Learn character-design fundamentals such as simplification, gesture, and color, applicable to the world of animals and beyond
• Discover how character designs can tell stories, evoke emotion, and engage an audience with poses, props, and expressions
• See how experts from the entertainment industry tackle multiple character interpretations in their own signature styles

Product details:
Softback 264 pages
Dimensions: 260mm x 210mm
Paper quality: Full-color premium paper pages
ISBN: 978-1-912843-25-1

Foreword
Getting started
Character appeal - Dave Mottram
Stylizing Animals - Nathan Pangilinan
Gesture & pose - Gervais Merryweather
Faces & expressions - Fran Rodríguez Hernández-Tejero
Anthropomorphism - Alex Gadelev
Color theory - Tom van Rheenen
The stylization process - César Vergara
Character Projects
Villainous Hyena - Justin Runfola
Greedy Pony - Andrea Femerstrand (Noukah)
Snowy Owl - Tata Che
Tropical Fish - Sean Anderson
Happy Cat - Trudi Castle
Poisonous Frog - Juan Useche
Curious Magpie - Veronica Matei
Breakdown Gallery
Skateboarding Turtle - Shannon Hallstein
Monkey Mage - Rudy Siswanto
Mystical Horse - Marlène Beaube
Snowboarder Samoyed - Erika Wiseman
Cute Pigeon - Meike Schneider
Project ideas
Contributors