Best seller

Dynamic Animal Illustration for Children’s Stories

A course by Julie Mellan , Illustrator

Illustrator. Lyon, France.
Joined December 2020

Learn to draw anthropomorphic characters that bring joy to young readers by exploring the fundamentals of animal anatomy, posing, and stylization

Best seller
98% positive reviews (273)
11,516 students
Audio: English
English · Spanish · Portuguese · German · French · Italian · Polish · Dutch

Learn to draw anthropomorphic characters that bring joy to young readers by exploring the fundamentals of animal anatomy, posing, and stylization

Illustrating for children’s stories is an opportunity to draw evocative and playful characters that bring joy to young readers. Illustrator Julie Mellan turned her childhood love for drawing into a full-time career and has since worked on children’s books published by Penguin Random House, Clavis, and Fleurus.

In this course, Julie teaches you how to create dynamic character illustrations of your own. Explore how to use animal anatomy, observation, and other drawing techniques to illustrate expressive anthropomorphic characters for children’s stories. Light up the imagination of young readers through character illustration.

This is Julie’s second Domestika course. In her first, Animal Characters in Watercolor for Children’s Books, she takes you through the process of bringing animal characters to life in watercolor form.

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What will you learn in this online course?

14 lessons & 14 downloads

The Materials Needed
6 minutes, 46 seconds
The Three Parts of an Animal
7 minutes, 4 seconds
The Perspective
5 minutes, 19 seconds
Animal Anatomy
10 minutes, 20 seconds
Observation
15 minutes, 35 seconds
  • 98% positive reviews (273)
  • 11,516 students
  • 14 lessons (1h 58m)
  • 14 additional resources (5 files)
  • Online and at your own pace
  • Available on the app
  • Audio: English
  • English · Spanish · Portuguese · German · French · Italian · Polish · Dutch
  • Level: Beginner
  • Unlimited access forever

What is this course's project?

Create a dynamic and expressive illustration of an animal of your choice for a children’s story.

Projects by course students

Who is this online course for?

This course is for anyone with an interest in learning to illustrate dynamic characters for children’s stories

Requirements and materials

No previous experience is required.

In terms of materials, you will need paper, a pencil, an eraser, and some visual references for inspiration.


Reviews

11,516 Students
273 Reviews
98% Positive ratings

Julie Mellan

A course by Julie Mellan

Teacher Plus
Illustrator

Julie Mellan is a French illustrator and self-confessed watercolor addict who specializes in illustrations for children’s books. She spent her childhood reading Beatrix Potter’s books and drawing animal characters from Disney movies, before going on to study classic drawing, painting, illustration, and animation at the French art school École Émile Cohl. After graduating, she continued to combine sketching and watercolors to create expressive animal characters, and eventually published her first book in 2013.

Julie uses traditional mediums to tell stories through her illustrations and create connections between characters. Her work has appeared in children’s books published by the likes of Penguin Random House, Clavis, and Fleurus.


Content

  • U1

    Introduction

    • About Me
    • Influences
  • U2

    The Basic Body Structure

    • The Materials Needed
    • Defining the Intention: the Action Line
    • The Three Parts of an Animal
    • The Perspective
  • U3

    Building around the Structure

    • Animal Anatomy
    • Observation
    • Stylization
  • U4

    Developing the Character

    • Doodling
    • The Sketch
    • Structure, Stability, and Volumes
    • Honing and Final Touches
    • Anthropomorphic Characters
  • FP

    Final project

    • Dynamic Animal Illustration for Children’s Stories

What to expect from a Domestika course

  • Learn at your own pace

    Enjoy learning from home without a set schedule and with an easy-to-follow method. You set your own pace.

  • Learn from the best professionals

    Learn valuable methods and techniques explained by top experts in the creative sector.

  • Meet expert teachers

    Each expert teaches what they do best, with clear guidelines, true passion, and professional insight in every lesson.

  • Certificates
    Plus

    If you're a Plus member, get a custom certificate signed by your teacher for every course. Share it on your portfolio, social media, or wherever you like.

  • Get front-row seats

    Videos of the highest quality, so you don't miss a single detail. With unlimited access, you can watch them as many times as you need to perfect your technique.

  • Share knowledge and ideas

    Ask questions, request feedback, or offer solutions. Share your learning experience with other students in the community who are as passionate about creativity as you are.

  • Connect with a global creative community

    The community is home to millions of people from around the world who are curious and passionate about exploring and expressing their creativity.

  • Watch professionally produced courses

    Domestika curates its teacher roster and produces every course in-house to ensure a high-quality online learning experience.


FAQs

Domestika's courses are online classes that provide you with the tools and skills you need to complete a specific project. Every step of the project combines video lessons with complementary instructional material, so you can learn by doing. Domestika's courses also allow you to share your own projects with the teacher and with other students, creating a dynamic course community.

All courses are 100% online, so once they're published, courses start and finish whenever you want. You set the pace of the class. You can go back to review what interests you most and skip what you already know, ask questions, answer questions, share your projects, and more.

The courses are divided into different units. Each one includes lessons, informational text, tasks, and practice exercises to help you carry out your project step by step, with additional complementary resources and downloads. You'll also have access to an exclusive forum where you can interact with the teacher and with other students, as well as share your work and your course project, creating a community around the course.

You can redeem the course you received by accessing the redeeming page and entering your gift code.

If you're a Plus member, when you complete a course you've purchased, you'll instantly get your personalized certificate. You can see all your certificates in the Certificates section of your profile. You can download your certificates as PDFs and share the link online. Learn more about certificates.
Dynamic Animal Illustration for Children’s Stories. Illustration course by Julie Mellan Best seller

Dynamic Animal Illustration for Children’s Stories

A course by Julie Mellan
Illustrator. Lyon, France.
Joined December 2020
  • 98% positive reviews (273)
  • 11,516 students