
Master basic photoshop operations for digital painting, starting with an A4 canvas at 300 resolution, then using brushes, zoom, selection tools, and layers to create and refine artwork.
Learn to sketch Chinese traditional accessories, focusing on earrings and a bird. Use hard edge brushes, layers, and precise color to build detailed, metallic textures.
Sketch a small Chinese traditional scene with a fish, a playful girl on its back holding a lantern, and a boy nearby, then apply linear definition.
Apply traditional color allocation with red and yellow tones, layered fills, and gradient shading to render a gua chao painting of a boy and girl with fish, lanterns, and flowers.
Sketch a complete mid-autumn festival scene with a circular full moon-centered composition, featuring rabbits, mooncakes, chrysanthemums, and a Fujian round architecture backdrop.
Master coloring a mid-autumn festival scene in Photoshop by establishing a purple main tone, layering colors with hue adjustments, and adding red and yellow accents for harmony.
Build foundation colors, shadows, and gradients for the chinese mid-autumn festival illustration, using Photoshop tools to refine the rabbit, moon, trees, silk rope, sky lanterns, and chrysanthemums.
Create a festive Christmas illustration in digital painting style by composing a winter night scene with a girl on a Santa-inspired sleigh, bears, gifts, reindeer, and architecture across snowy landscapes.
Learn to color a Christmas scene in digital illustration using red and green highlights, layered brushes, and hue saturation adjustments to create depth, contrast, and festive details.
In 2023, about 40,000 students have learned this 'Guochao' illustration course in China. Just come and join them to see what you can create.
What is 'Guochao' illustration style?
There are many kinds of Chinese style illustration, 'Guochao' is one of them. 'Guochao' means based on the Chinese traditional culture background, adding some modern fashion elements. It is also the illustration style mainly introduced in this course.
This course has 4 parts (total 11 lessons) with downloadable resources.
Part 1: The Foundation of 'Guochao' Illustration.
Starting from the basics of photoshop, then Chinese traditional elements, color theory and others needed for painting to gradually help you master the foundation of 'Guochao' illustrations. After those basic courses, you will be well prepared for the the next part and can easily deal with various difficulties.
Part 2: A Simple 'Guochao' Illustration Creation
Under my guidance, you will create a 'Guochao' painting with Adobe Photoshop through some simple elements like fish lantern(not the lanternfish), which has over 600-year history in China. By this way, you will get more familiar with 'Guochao' illustration and know how to utilize different combinations of characters, animals and plants.
Part 3: A Complete 'Guochao' Illustration Creation
In this section, I will lead you to create a complete digital painting of Mid-Atumn Festival by using a great deal of complicated elements. After this part, you may try creating your own paintings by any other themes and elements. Looking forward to your unique design.
Part 4: Create a 'Guochao' Illustration by Christmas Theme
In this part, I will show you how to create a 'Guochao' digital painting by Christmas theme. It is really amazing and deserve sharing with your family and friends. After this part, you will be more familiar with this kind of style, try to create more paintings and to be brave to discover what you like then draw. Do not limit your imagination!
I will use Adobe Photoshop in the whole course, if you don't use Adobe Photoshop, iPad Procreate or Artstudio is a good choice, so don't worry about the tool.
Any questions, suggestions or advices are welcomed.