Some time ago I was asked to come up with the Art course for an international school here in Vienna. Eventually this course hasn’t been approved, but I still think it’s worth to share.
Anime and manga
For beginners: 10-14 years
In this course you will learn how to draw anime and manga. I will show different styles such as Shonen, Shojo, Kodomo, Chibi and other. We will discuss the difference between the styles and try our favourites from popular TV series and games. I will teach anime and manga fundamentals and you will learn how to draw faces and different facial features. How to draw expressions and put figures into movement. How to build spreadsheets and write your own story.
- Head, body types
- Facial features (face, eyes, mouth, hair)
- Facial expressions
- Hands and arms
- Feet, legs and clothes
- Body movements
- Body in the environment in perspective
- Storytelling, frames
We will start from drawing sketches with pencils and learning the basics. We will move slowly exploring different manga and anime styles. As soon as each student chooses the style that they are interested in, we will switch to work in colours. For this course you will need: HB and 3B pencils, eraser, ruler, A4 sketch book. For some anime and manga styles you will also need: watercolours, acrylics, brushes, A4 albums with heavy paper, markers.
- You get taught the specifics of Anime and Manga styles
- You draw your own Manga
- Learn the fundamentals of drawing human body, composition and colour
- You will need patience, since you will work on the same drawing more than one lesson
- To make a good outline in manga you will have to buy very special markers
Art literacy
For beginners: 6-10 years
This course is to teach students about creative process and uniqueness of the drawing experience. We will draw colourful and abstract pictures while learning the fundamentals of decorative art and composition. Using photos and pages from magazines we will build collages and learn the basics of graphic design. We will learn how to collaborate in Art by working on different tasks together. We will copy other pieces of art and pop culture to understand its aesthetics. By copying different art masterpieces of the past we will learn how to navigate in Art History and differentiate all Art isms. But also we will learn how to draw cats, dogs, horses and maybe even dragons.
- Decorative art
- Sketching as doodling and as prep art
- Making collages
- Animals and people
We will use any material we will find. As the minimum we will need: pencils, eraser, ruler, watercolours or acrylics, brushes, A4 album with heavy paper. As addition we will need: scissors, glue, coloured paper, magazines and newspapers.
- The main focus of the lessons is to have fun
- You will learn how to use different art supplies (pencils, paint etc.)
- You will learn in casual form some Art fundamentals and even Art history
- You might get smeared in paint, so you will need an apron.
Digital art and animation
For intermediate: 10-14 years
This course is for student who want to try themselves in the film, video games and publishing industries. We will explore all the different technics that are used nowadays in CG (Computer Graphics). I will show different styles in popular movies and games. You will learn different tools for drawing CG and animation. During this course you will learn how the games are done and we will try to build one.
- Environment
- Key art
- Characters
- Character animation
We will start to draw on tablets (iPad Pro and similar). We would need Adobe Photoshop and Procreate.
- CG allows you to work as long as you want without worrying about the quality of the paper
- You can use some apps to help you with light, anatomy etc.
- You will need an expensive tablet
- There are a lot of technical information
And here is a good advice from Adult Swim studio:
