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Designing a Transforming Super Mecha

Drawing & Rendering Robots Using Clip Studio Paint & Photoshop With Léo Chiola

Description

Learn how to master inking in Clip Studio Paint and level up your lasso game in Photoshop with this concept design workshop by Léo Chiola. In this 3-hour video tutorial, Léo walks through his process for designing a Super Mecha and reveals how he approaches a vehicle-transformation design, based on his creative experience working on Transformers: Cyberverse.


This workshop covers all aspects of character design, from an initial brief through to the final piece, and includes his thinking process throughout the workflow. The first half of the tutorial focuses on the exploration of various designs, using rough lines and colors. From those initial sketches, one is chosen and pushed forward, with clean line art taken care of in Clip Studio Paint before the final rendering is tackled in Photoshop.


Léo shares his favorite inking brush in Clip Studio and demonstrates how to properly set up your brush to work properly at any resolution. Discover how to effectively add color variation for subtle details and final effects for the final render, ready for final presentation in a production environment. Further areas of discussion include shape language, the importance of silhouette, how to analyze a brief, how to convey the right emotion through design, and the use of references.


This workshop is suitable for any artist level, from beginners looking to understand the thought process to skilled professionals looking to improve their character design skills. Project files provided with this workshop include his layered Photoshop files for his initial designs as well as the Mecha and Vehicle Mode finals for subscribers to reference.


Duration: 3h 04m

Format: HD 1920x1080

Léo Chiola

Concept Artist, Comic Artist, Illustrator

Léo Chiola began his career when he was 20 years old as a freelance comic artist and illustrator. In 2017, he joined the animation studio Boulder Media, owned by Hasbro, to work as a character designer on the animated TV show, Transformers: Cyberverse.

In August 2019, Léo settled in Canada where he currently works full-time as a concept and comic artist for Digital Dimension Entertainment Group, developing the art of an exciting, brand-new animated TV series.


Follow Léo Chiola on Instagram: @leo.chiola.


  • If you like stylized mecha and giant robots, do yourself a favor and learn from a great character designer how to create solid shapes and dynamic poses in his own unique style.

    - Serge Birault
    Character Designer

  • Léo has a great understanding of shape language and knows how to create awesome designs that look both functional and fun. Having worked in video games, animation, and also as a comic book artist, Léo has extensive knowledge of stylized character design. I highly recommend his workshop.

    - Edward Delandre
    Concept Artist at Eidos Montreal

  • Léo is a hell of a comic artist, and has great experience in mechanical character design; while working on Transformers he provided a lot of concept sketches and technical drawings for robots and vehicles so I’m looking forward to seeing what he will come up with on this [workshop].

    - Marco Caradonna
    Art Director