Mini-courseIntermediate
Book illustration: your first spread
Seven lessons and more than seven hours of breakdowns: how a book is built, two characters, a storyboard of six scenes and one illustration taken all the way.
- 3 weeks
- of study
- 3
- modules
- 7
- lessons
- 7 hr 17 min
- videos
About the course
Seven lessons over three weeks, about seven hours of video in total. Week one is how a book works: types of illustration, breaking the text across spreads, a character’s personality through silhouette and expression. Week two is the storyboard, choosing the shot, value and palette. Week three is composition, environment, volume and the final render. The material is deliberately familiar, Little Red Riding Hood, so you don’t burn energy inventing a story.
A spread falls apart when all six scenes are shot from one point and at one shot size. The rhythm of the story rests on alternation: a wide shot, then a close one, a calm scene, then a dynamic one. The second place a book gets lost is the text: you have to leave a live area for it in the composition, not drop a white rectangle on top of a finished drawing. Value as a tool for depth gets a breakdown of its own.
With your own hands you’ll make two versions of the Wolf from animation references, two or three designs for Red Riding Hood, a storyboard of six spreads in thumbnails, a value study of the scene you choose, a palette and the final illustration in a large format. What comes out is a whole book case, not a set of separate pictures. You need a tablet and an editor with layers: Procreate, Photoshop, Krita.
The mini-course comes with the Club plan and isn’t sold separately. While the subscription is active, all the courses and the whole archive are open. Working files and lesson references can be downloaded, the video plays in the player on the site.
- Format
- Video lessons with practice after each one, your own pace — about 3 weeks
- Materials
- Working files and references for the lessons — yours to download
- Where to watch
- In your account: your progress and the rest of the plan’s courses live there too
What you’ll be able to do
- 01Book structureunderstanding how a book works — types of illustration, the spread, where the text sits.
- 02Character through silhouetteconveying personality through proportions, shape and expression.
- 03Storyboard6 scenes with varied shots and a rhythm to the storytelling.
- 04Value and colorworking out the value and color scheme of an illustration.
- 05Final illustrationa fully worked-up scene with characters and environment.
- 06Portfolioa coherent book project, ready to show.
Program
3 modules · 7 lessons · 7 hr 17 minEvery lesson opens with a plan — you watch them in your account
How it works
Watch the lesson
The walkthrough video and its working files open in your account.
Repeat it
Every lesson ends with practice — you draw right away, step by step.
Show your work
Post it to the shared feed, and Azat reviews the work on stream.
Who it’s for and what you’ll need
Who it suits
- The course is for illustrators who want to learn book illustration and understand how visual storytelling works. It suits artists who already draw but want to build a story through images — and come away with a coherent project for their portfolio.
What you need to have
- A graphics tablet or an iPad with any stylus
- Any program with brushes and layers: Procreate, Photoshop, Krita, etc.
- A computer, laptop or tablet with internet access to watch the lessons
SubscriptionClub — $33 a month
The course opens along with the whole studio
286 video lessons
Azat’s archive on drawing and painting
9 mini-courses
all of them, not just this one
4 reference packs
references and working files, yours to download
Streams and work reviews
Azat reviews work on the Sunday stream