MAKE A SPLASH IN ANIMATION ART

Character designer Amanda MacFarlane reveals her process for painting a mermaid, including how she course-corrects her colour choices

- Amanda MacFarlane

In this workshop I’ll be walking you through my process for painting this issue’s cover art and explaining my thought process as a character designer. I want this to feel like we’re just old friends sitting down together with a cup of coffee and talking about what art piece we’ve been working on lately.

I love designing characters and figuring out the world around them, so I can’t wait to share this art experience with you. I’ll be covering concepts and which character works best with your overall idea, how to create a strong colour theme and be talking about two key brushes I use.

Making art that people enjoy is one of the best feelings in the world, but if you’re not happy with it, it’ll bug you to death. Here you’ll see hard work paying off and be encouraged to never give up on that project of yours. You can walk away from it for a while or change it up a bit, but don’t give up on it forever. Sometimes you just have to look at it at a different angle to see what you’re missing. Come with me, get ready to dive into this colourful cover art and don’t forget to have fun along the way!

1 Developing the concept of the mermaid

I couldn’t be happier during the early stages of a project. This is where ideas are born and creativity thrives. When I was given the chance to draw a mermaid for the cover of ImagineFX, I jumped at the opportunity! Mermaids are magical and so much fun to draw. I quickly start sketching a few in Procreate to choose from, and come up with five different images to show the ImagineFX team.

2 Designing the right look