In this 12-week flex course students will create portraits of their own cartoon characters! Students are introduced to basic drawing techniques in Weeks 1-9 and will practice drawing the face in 3 views, gender bend, age, ink, and color their characters. Students are introduced to basic storytelling techniques in Weeks 10-12 and will practice building their character’s personalities and tell their stories with interactive team projects. This course is for novice cartoon, anime, and manga artists. These are students that are completely new to drawing cartoon characters and character features. No prior knowledge is necessary to enroll in this course. This course is open to students using traditional and digital drawing tools.

Lessons and course materials are posted daily. Monday lessons are demos and students will follow along with the instructor using any worksheets and printouts posted to the classroom page to learn the drawing technique. Tuesday lessons are practice sessions and students will practice or discuss the drawing techniques demoed on Monday. Homework is posted on Wednesdays and is where students can express their creativity by creating their own character using the drawing technique learned on Monday. Homework must be submitted by the due date to receive helpful feedback from the instructor. Thursday and Friday lessons will be review and reminders for each week. 

Project Weeks are where students further express their creativity and apply what they learned during the course. The first Project Week happens at Week 9. Students will create their final character using everything they learned up to that point and post an artist critique of their work to the classroom page. The second and third Project Weeks happen at Weeks 11 and 12. Students will work together to create short stories about their characters on the classroom page using prompts and guided roleplay. 

SUPPLIES:
If students will be drawing by hand, they'll need...
• Paper (8.5 x 11 inches)
• Pencil
• Eraser
• Marker (black and fine-tip)
• Color Pencils or Color Markers
• Ruler or Straight Edge

If students are drawing digitally, they'll need...
• Access to a digital drawing program
• Any additional tools needed to use the drawing program (e.g. stylus, laptop, computer, tablet, or mobile device)
• See Supply List and External Resources below for recommended free and paid drawing programs

WEEKLY SCHEDULE:
Week 1: Sketch Your Character (Front View)
Week 2: Sketch Your Character (Side View)
Week 3: Sketch Your Character (3/4 View)
Week 4: Sketch Your Character (Gender Bend)
Week 5: Sketch Your Character (Age)
Week 6: Sketch Your Character (Facial Expressions)
Week 7: Ink Your Character
Week 8: Color Your Character
Week 9: Project Week (Individual)
Week 10: Create Your Character’s Story
Week 11: Project Week (with Team #1)
Week 12: Project Week (with Team #2)

IMPORTANT: This class is a Flex Course. This means all lessons are pre-recorded and no live meetings will occur. Students are able to complete lessons and assignments at times convenient for them, but this is not a fully self-paced course. Students are expected to follow the weekly pace set by the instructor and complete lessons and assignments by their due dates. The instructor will post lessons and class materials daily – in Eastern Standard Time – and is available for questions at any time via messaging.

CLASS EVALUATIONS & FEEDBACK: Feedback from parents and students are always welcomed and definitely appreciated! My goal is to make this class helpful and accessible to my students, so let me know how I’m doing! Responses about class time, flow, and structure, and lessons students do or don’t find helpful will be reviewed to help me improve this and/or future classes.

REFUNDS: This class operates under Outschool's standard refund policy for flex classes. This means parents may receive a full refund if they withdraw their child before class starts. After class starts, a prorated refund will be given based on the number of meetings that occurred. Learn more about receiving refunds here: 
https://support.outschool.com/en/articles/16379-outschool-s-happiness-guarantee-and-refunds 

Keywords: cartoon, anime, manga, art, drawing