Robert Huth
Mastering Character Design
Learn to create appealing characters with this 9 week online course. Starting with a foundation in basic draftsmanship and progressing to figure drawing, we will take a multi-week journey in exploring this discipline. You will learn basic drawing techniques and hear from the world’s top character designers at Disney Animation Studio.
Learn From The Best
Bobby is an artist at Disney Animation Studios and studied at Ringling College of Art & Design. He has a solid grasp on the highest standards of character design. This comprehensive course covers everything you need to know to master character design.
Interview series w/ Top Artists
We interviewed a series of Disney artists who gave their take on what makes good character design. Their insight is valuable for designers and animators a like. Including live drawing demo’s from a few of the artists.
Learn Solid Draftsmanship
This course includes a lot of drawing instruction. There is simply no way around the need for solid draftsmanship in a successful character design. Learning to draw is an important part of this process, and this course goes in depth to help you improve your drafting abilities.
Robert Huth
Artist & Animator - Walt Disney Animation Studio
Robert Huth is an animator and artist currently working at Disney Animation Studios in Burbank CA. He has animated on films such as Wreck It Ralph, Frozen and Moana. In addition to this, he’s had experience as an Animation Supervisor for Zootopia and Wreck It Ralph 2 working along-side the character design, modeling, and rigging team to produce many of Disney’s memorable characters. He has a BFA from Ringling School of Art & Design and has been working in full-time feature film production for the last 10 years.
Robert lives in Burbank with his wife Christal and their son Caleb. He is passionate about art and design and hopes this course can serve as a valuable resource for you.
Course Preview
Learn to create appealing characters
Course content
What you'll learn from this workshop
We've broken this massive amount of information into a weekly schedule. Going over the fundamentals needed to master character design takes time. This course is not a live mentorship course, but rather an e-course which will guide you week by week.
Week 1 : Drawing Basics
In the following videos and posts we will discuss what makes good character design. We will also examine specific technical concepts like perspective, lighting and drawing exercises.
Week 2 : Intro To Figure Drawing
This week we will move past simple drawing exercises and dive right into a discussion of figure drawing. We will start simple, by deconstructing the human form into it’s simple shapes and give you a series of drawing assignments designed to help you understand how figure drawing works.
Week 3 : Refining Figure Drawing
This week we will continue our focus on figure drawing. This is a big subject and we wanted to take a few weeks to tackle it. We will also challenge you to push your drawing into gestures. This process should be fun and challenging.
Week 4 : Character Types and Shape Language
This week we will focus on character types and shape language. We will also examine workflows for developing your character concepts by sculpting silhouettes and basic shapes.
Week 5 : Character Bio and Shape Explorations
This week we will focus on character bio’s and shape exploration. We will also examine a series of concepts that are essential to consider before moving forward in finalizing your shapes for a design. Considering the role of straights and curves, shape weight and pushing forms.
Week 6 : Refining Your Character Design
This week we will focus on refining our designs, based on character types. We will also examine concepts of doing your line work. We want to establish the forms and details of our characters.
Week 7 : Color & Turn-Arounds
This week we will focus on color and turn-arounds. We will also examine basic shading on our character while we work through the color and poses of our character.
Week 8 : Expression Boards
This week we will focus on expression boards. This process goes to the heart of your characters personality and shows them with different facial poses. This helps to build a character that can display a full range of emotion.
Week 9 : Personality Pose and Scene
This week we will focus on a personality pose and background. This process allows for a final shot of your character to be enhanced by adding a simple environment.
Course excerpt
Creating a caricature with Trent Correy
Doing a caricature is a great exercise for character designers. It gives you a human reference as a starting point from which you can exaggerate and emphasize features.
During the production of our interview series we put a few guys on the spot and had some fun. We asked Trent to caricature Bobby. He came up with a great first draft and dropped some great pointers along the way.
Trent’s example shows the need for both solid technical skills and design principles to create appealing designs. In this course, this will be our emphasis. On being solid with our technical skills and starting to master the principles of strong character design.
Testimonials
What students say about the workshop
This workshop has helped hundreds of motion designers improve as artists.
Bundled workshops
Save more on our 2d Design & Animation workshops
The MoGraph Mentor Character Bundle
All the techniques, workflows and processes needed to start from the ideation of your original character, all the way through to a fully animated shot. We are combining two of our most popular workshops and offering this bundle at a discounted rate.
Henrique Barone’s traditionnal 2d animation course and Robert Huth’s character design course.
Buying each workshop would total $298, so we’re offering the two at a discounted rate of $239, for students who are interested in the design and animation process.
We hope these courses will help you create appealing characters and animations.
$298 $239
Enroll any time
Tons of content
Hours of training
Interviews with Disney Artists
In-depth techniques review
Weekly assignments
Access to our community Slack forum
And more!
Lifetime access
Download ressources
Mastering Character Design with Robert Huth
A 9 Week Character Design Course With Bobby Huth At Disney Animation Studio.
Enroll now for $99 USReceive feedback on your project on Slack and Facebook group
Upon your enrollment, you’ll receive an invitation in your email inbox to sign up for our Private Slack Channel. You can also join our Facebook Group.
Each workshop has a dedicated channel where you can share your work and get feedback from other students and the MoGraph Mentor Crew.
We can’t wait to see what you’ll create!
F.A.Q
Have questions?
We’ve got you covered. Check out the questions below or visit the help center for anything else.
Why this course?
This 9 week E-Course serves as a roadmap for understanding the discipline of character design. Starting with a foundation in basic draftsmanship and progressing to figure drawing, we will take a multi-week journey in exploring this discipline. You will learn basic drawing techniques and hear from the world’s top character designers.
Is there homework?
Yes. Each week comes with a series of assignments or prompts. This is designed to put concepts into practice and give you experience with drawing, observation and design.
What will I know by the end?
The process of designing original characters and an understanding of how to improve your work over time. People spend a lifetime mastering this discipline, but starting with a focus on the proper techniques can dramatically improve your designs.
When does it start?
Right when you sign up! This is an e-course which sends you weekly training materials and assignments, every week, for 9 weeks. Working through each week is spaced out over 2.5 months to give you time to truly understand concepts in the proper order.
How long do I have access to the course?
How does lifetime access sound? After enrolling, you have unlimited access to this course for as long as you like – across any and all devices you own.
What if I am unhappy with the course?
We would never want you to be unhappy! If you are unsatisfied with your purchase, contact us in the first 30 days and we will give you a full refund.
We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiousity leads us down new paths.