Character Design Fundamentals
Adult (Ages 16+) | Registration opens 11/5/2025 10:00 AM
A successful character design is able to provide audiences with important context to their role within a story, relation to other characters, and place within the world they inhabit. In this 8-week course, we’ll explore the building blocks of character concept design: anatomy, costume design, shape language, expression sheets, worldbuilding, and more! With a new lesson focus each week and guided exercises to reinforce learning, students will develop four original characters while learning how story and design work together. By the end of the class, students will walk away with polished concept sheets and the skills to continue creating unique character designs for future projects! This class is intended for intermediate to advanced artists who have BOTH a basic grasp on human/humanoid anatomy and an interest in character design/visual development for animation, comics, games, or other original content.
Note: this class will focus primarily on humanoid designs. There will be a week to learn about designing anthropomorphic characters, but we will NOT be focusing on fully animal or robot/mech designs.
With Artist Nala J. Wu
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Please note that ACA will use the email address, which you provided at registration, as our primary means of communicating with you. In registering for an ACA program, you acknowledge that ACA has permission to email you with important updates, as well as information about upcoming events, programs and exhibition opportunities. Requests to be removed from our email mailing list must be sent to info@acarts.org.
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Upon registering, you will receive an automatic confirmation of your subscription from the number (781) 429-0398. Please save this number as “ACA” or “Arlington Center for the Arts” for future reference. Please note that this is a non-responsive line. To receive live assistance from an ACA staff member, please contact info@acarts.org or (781) 648-6220.
Students are welcome to work with whatever supplies they want and are comfortable with. You should probably bring a sketchbook or notebook or laptop/tablet to take notes with, should you choose to (the first portion of each class will be lecture/theory based, and the second half will be exercises to practice what we've learned).
For the final project (4 finished character designs) you are free to work either digitally or traditionally.
The instructor will be primarily working digitally on an iPad Pro & Procreate.
Nala Wu
Nala J. Wu (aka Jae) is a proud multiple-marginalized art director and award-winning illustrator who works full-time doing freelance for tabletop roleplaying games. They specialize in character/costume design, life drawing, portraiture, layout design, and cover/key art. Besides art, Nala enjoys voice acting, experimenting with makeup, eating ungodly amounts of pasta, and Committing to the Bit (whatever the Bit may be). They hold a BFA in illustration from the Savannah College of Art & Design. You can view their portfolio at https://naladraws.com.