Portray beautiful, fleeting moments in your memory

Hi, I'm illustrator HANTOGRAPH. I draw soft and warm colored paintings with colored pencils. Through my first colored pencil class at CLASS101, I was able to meet and communicate with a lot of people with my drawings. I am grateful for all the energy and support I received.

And one pleasant surprise I had looking at the classmates' work was the deticate expression of character's emotions. This imspired me to create a new course with insights about how to express such emotions as well as how to illustrate various settings and situations.

I hope this course helps you draw portraits with attractive story and lively characters.

Let's get started!

Capture the moment and personality

There are many ways to express a character other than drawing in delicate facial expressions or emotions. You can make the character more lively and human by giving it story of its own.

Imagining details like its clothes, the pattern of the clothes or window curtains if more specific, and what the character is smiling adds up to character's unique story. We can produce the overall mood and story of the portrait by imagining such elements.

Of course, this doesn't come along easily. It can be overwhelming to draw on your own instead of following a fixed format. Also, it's difficult to change and fix colors with colored pencils.

You might end up spending some time planning out the painting.

But no worries!

If you're not sure how create a coherent storyline, try drawing small idea sketches first, as if you're drawing a short trailer for a long movie.

I'll also show you various examples of details you can draw in the portrait. Your work will become more vibrant and colorful just by adding in these elements!

I can tell you with confidence that the entire process of spending time to plan out and draw the painting is really exciting. As you think about all these little details and eventually complete the work, you grow more and more attached to the work. You get to adore all the small details that others might not notice, like the small tree in the corner or soft-looking muffler.

Take a step further!

Express the character in various ways

This class is recommended for those who are interested to go beyond basic techniques and learn diverse methods to express characters. The curriculum covers how to draw various facial expressions, movements, and fashion in detail on top of the basic front-facing figure. You'll be able to try drawing figures with their eyes closed or hair fluttered.

I'll also show you how to make sure your character stands out in the portrait above the backgrounds and props.

Let's make a portrait where all elements, whether character or props, blend in naturally!

Key point lesson!

Draw perfect clothes for your characters

A flowing blouse, elegant hanbok (Korean traditional clothing), or even school uniforms with suspenders..

There are countless variety of clothing.

People often find it difficult to expresss the distinct texture and mood of each clothing. That maybe the reason why there are many paintings focused on faces, not full body.

But as the saying goes, the tailor makes the man. Clothes are crucial in creating an attractive character. I'll show you how to easily illustrate the unique characteristics of each clothing, without using fancy techniques. You don't need to draw every single strand in the weave to express a sweater. You can focus on illustrating the weave in sleeves and turtleneck, or other thick weaves that stand out. By focusing on these elements, you can illustrate the warmth and coziness of thick, pretty sweater!

Make your portrait more vibrant with rich details

Here comes the fun part! Once you've finished visualizing the scene for the portrait, it's time to realize it on paper. You can add details to your portrait, making your character and story look more real.

In the picture I introduced above, I drew in a calender for August and a window filled with green to show the time setting is hot midsummer. I also added a cup of ice-cold black coffee. By drawing in a cute flower pot and a memo, the portrait showing sisters with neat personlality is complete.

The key to filling the background is the small details.They help create a portrait with a unique story, distinct from other typical pretty drawings.

In this class, I'm going to teach you how to express detailed elements you can widely use in drawing. I'll recommend colors, props, and backgrounds best matching the situation you're trying to illustrate, so that you can easily create your own unique work.

Draw a cozy natural background

There were times when the background ended up looking a bit too much whereas my intention was drawing natural-looking background.

I tried to find how to illustrate the background naturally while giving enough details and eventually found my answer.

If you mix and add natrual objects adequately, they can be a great last touch for your background. I'll show how to express natural-looking background, exclusively for my dearest classmates!

Exciting moments of coloring

When you draw, you'll need to use wide range of colors to color character's face, background, and obejcts. We'll discuss about mixing and matching colors, while making sure that colors don't become cloudy or tacky.

You all probably know that not all blue colors are the same blue. You can make your own unique blue once you mix and layer the blue colors of your choosing, colors like light blue or dreamy blue.

My unique portrait

Portrait only I can draw

There are various know-hows and tips I'd like to share through the course, but let's not forget.

The goal of this course is to help you create a portrait with unique story by yourself. The moment I really started to enjoy drawing was when I started to portray stories in my drawing.

To portray a story, you need to think about various elements. I would like to help you to become capable of drawing portraits with delicate, in-depth story.

I'm sure all of you will create portraits with unique stories of your own. I hope we can have a chance to look at each others' paintings and discuss as well! :)

Well then, I'll look forward to seeing you all in class!