Art Gym: Character Consistency Workshop
Drawing characters is hard work—and drawing them consistently from page to page? Even harder! That’s why we created this Art Gym session: to help illustrators draw characters more confidently and efficiently (which also makes it more fun!)
If you’ve ever sketched a character you love, only to realize they look different every time you redraw them… this workshop is for you!
What makes a character look consistent?
There are a few key elements that help a character feel the same throughout a book:
Their attitude and expressions
Their outfit and accessories
How they’re colored or drawn (tools, technique, texture)
Their proportions and shapes
In this workshop, we focused on that last one—because it’s often the trickiest part.
What You’ll Learn:
A concrete strategy for drawing consistent characters
How to analyze your sketches for consistency
How to simplify your character’s design so it’s easier to draw repeatedly
How to test if your character’s design will work with various poses (For example, if your gnome needs to kick a soccer ball… do they even have legs long enough? Now’s the time to find out!)
The Benefits:
Build confidence for drawing characters in books and portfolio pieces
Develop a new character—or refine one you’ve been working on
Connect and spend time with other illustrators working in kidlit
Share your work in the gallery and get inspired by others
Bonus reason: Some artists even used this workshop to develop characters from their own stories, so this session can provide you dedicated time for working on those projects you might keep putting off!
Art Gym Gallery
Enjoy scrolling through the gallery to see some work from Art Gym!
Some art by , , and from the Character Consistency Workshop.
Want your art featured in the gallery? Join the next live session or watch this replay and submit your work. You can showcase your art here:
Join us for the next Art Gym on May 8!
In the next workshop, we’ll be focusing on Sports Poses! We’ll draw people—especially kids—in active poses like running, jumping, and playing sports. You’ll learn how to capture energy and movement in your characters, making your illustrations feel more dynamic. We can’t wait to see you there!
RSVP for the next workshop here:
Sign up to join us live!
An annual subscription gives you 12 Live Drawing Workshops (via Zoom)
In addition you will also get access to all previous workshops including:
Character Consistency(this post)
A monthly pass is $20 which lets you binge watch all the past recordings and attend the next session live.
The annual pass is $100 which lets you in to 12 live workshops and watch any of the 14 previous workshops at leisure over the course of the year. (That’s 58% cheaper) and works out to $3.84 per workshop!
Paid subscribers can also sign up for the upcoming Art Gym Workshops here:
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Art Gym: Live Drawing Workshops & Illustration Tutorials to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
