On December 12, the NABA Milan Campus hosted a captivating workshop on character design in partnership with Staedtler Italia, a leading company in producing art writing instruments that provided the demonstration materials. The workshop, involving students from the BA in Graphic Design and Art Direction (link), was led by Caterina Giorgetti, a comic designer and illustrator who, since 2003, has worked for Disney, Piemme, Giunti, Lingen, any many other international publishers, and has also specialised in concept art, character design, and magazine restyling.
The NABA students' project
The illustrator enabled NABA students to explore and deepen their understanding of using Staedtler pigment Arts pen. She demonstrated a character design process that began with freehand and instinctive pencil sketching, followed by using brushes for volume and shading, and culminating with fine liners and soft brushes for final line work. Starting with a narrative prompt from Caterina Giorgetti, the students created their characters, experimenting with various sketching techniques.
Character design and other specific illustration and drawing techniques will be extensively covered in the new BA in Comics and Visual Storytelling, launching for the Academic Year 2024/25 in Milan and Rome. It aims to prepare future comic illustrators, graphic novelists, and visual artists, equipping them with the necessary skills to create engaging stories and develop a distinctive artistic style.
