Recommended Age: 18+ (though skilled and mature 16+ considered)

Arguably the most popular job in the comic book pipeline is that of the penciler. A penciler takes the words and directions of the script and turns them into exciting panels that tell a story and make readers eager to turn the page to see what happens next. It is important for a penciler to understand how to draw anything the story may require, from the obvious stuff - the characters, vehicles, settings, props, animals, etc., to the subtle stuff such as water that looks like water, wood that looks like wood, leaves, cloth, metal, reflective surfaces, and more. Understanding line weight (thickness) and how to use it separates the professionals from the amateurs. This five week course will teach you how to choose the best tools, shows you how to render a wide range of materials, explains line weight, and helps you take a scripted page from thumbnails to rough drawings to final art. If you have a favorite artist, bring in samples of their artwork and we'll break them down in class.

Recommended Age: 18+ (though skilled and mature 16+ considered)

Successful Comic Book and Manga pages are more than just a series of images in panels. In order to create professional pages that tell a story, there are certain rules and guidelines that need to be understood and followed. If your goal is to one day work in the comic book industry, or to create your own self published comics, you will need to understand how to do it right, in a way that will attract the attention of editors and readers.

In this five week course, students will be taught the basics of comic book layout and composition, pacing, eye flow, storytelling, translating a script to the page, and the differences between the various types of story genres, including action, super hero, horror, noir, magical girl, and more. Students will be encouraged to create the kinds of comic book stories that they want to tell, and will be instructed in the nuances and unique traits of their chosen genre.

If you want to learn how to make powerful pages that pull your readers in, or can’t understand why your comic book submissions keep getting rejected, this is the class for you! This class will take you to the next level.

Recommended Age: 18+ (though skilled and mature 16+ considered)

Every good movie, video game or comic book needs imaginative and skilled designers to come up with cool and unique looks for their characters. A good story, coupled with incredible character designs, make for epic movies like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, video games like HALO, Final Fantasy, and hundreds of others, as well as iconic comic book characters like Iron Man, Batman and the X-Men. This class will show you how the professionals come up with their designs, and challenge you to create your own.

This five week introductory course gives students enough information to begin designing their own characters for fun or eventual employment, and those who truly enjoy creating characters will have a head start if they wish to take the full ten week course in 2025, which goes into even greater detail on each step of the creative process.

Students will be introduced to character silhouettes and thumbnail designs that stretch design creativity, then move into further refining the best of the designs until two or three designs remain. Those designs will be carried to the final stages. Lessons on the production pipeline will be taught, as well as what Art Directors and Editors look for in an artist's portfolio. Students who complete all the homework and exercises will have a foundation understanding with which to build a strong portfolio.

Recommended Age: 18+ (though skilled and mature 16+ considered)

If you want to get into designing characters for the movie, video game and comic book industries, this is the place to start! Learn how to draw various body types, facial features, and anatomy in an intuitive way, even when you are without a model or reference, and all you have is your pencil and paper.

These classes are filled with shortcuts and tested methods that, if practiced, will dramatically improve a student’s abilities to not only draw a wide variety of character types, but includes tips for consistently duplicating that character again and again, so they look the same every time you draw them. It is recommended that you take these classes to get the most out of Character Design, Creature Design, Action Anatomy, the various comic book courses, or anything that might involve depicting the human form.

Even if you have some experience drawing figures, you will learn things to make them stronger and less frustrating to draw.

Recommended Age: 18+ (though skilled and mature 16+ considered)

Some of the most difficult things for an entertainment artist to draw include depicting the figure in motion in understandable and realistic poses, or showing them believably interacting with other characters to tell a story. This course will teach you how to take what you know about the human form and show you how to position those characters in a near infinite number of ways. This will allow you to depict the character carrying out whatever the story, client, assignment, or description require. This class covers foreshortening, perspective, dramatic poses, and natural poses, as well as a wealth of tips to give the student control of the human form for creating whatever pose they may need, whatever the purpose.

This class requires ten sessions in order to cover all of the shortcuts and tested methods that, if practiced, will dramatically improve a student’s abilities to manipulate the anatomical structure and illustrate characters in a wide range of poses necessary for telling a story or depicting the figure in action. It is recommended that you take this class to help maximize the skills taught in the Character Design, Creature Design, and various comic book courses, or anything that might involve depicting the human form.