Brooklyn Walker Art Mentorship

Let’s Build Some

Character

Brooklyn Walker Art Mentorship

Let’s Build Some

Character

Join me in an intensive character design mentorship with a curated curriculum designed to challenge and elevate your skills.

The next session begins the week of January 6th, 2025 – Submit your portfolio by January 1st to be considered

MENTORSHIP DETAILS

Engage in weekly live group sessions to learn how to apply design principles to your work through personalized critiques, lectures, in-class exercises and portfolio-driven homework assignments. Throughout the mentorship, you will be creating content for your character design portfolio based on a story of your choosing.

Topics Include

FUNDAMENTALS

Workflow/Design Process
Shape Theory
Color Theory
Character Archetypes
Principles of Gestalt
Principles of Contrast
Gesture & Storytelling
Draftsmanship

ADVANCED APPLICATION

Stylization & Appeal
Caricature
Clichés
Character Dimension
Acting
Fabric & Folds

PROFESSIONAL APPLICATION

Assignment Research
Model Sheets
Presenting Your Work
Portfolio Curation
Applying for Jobs
Preparing for Interviews

FUNDAMENTALS

Workflow/Design Process
Shape Theory
Color Theory
Character Archetypes
Principles of Gestalt
Principles of Contrast
Gesture & Storytelling
Draftsmanship

ADVANCED APPLICATION

Stylization & Appeal
Caricature
Clichés
Character Dimension
Acting
Fabric & Folds

PROFESSIONAL APPLICATION

Assignment Research
Model Sheets
Presenting Your Work
Portfolio Curation
Applying for Jobs
Preparing for Interviews

Brooklyn is an extremely personable, thorough and knowledgeable mentor. Her vast knowledge is only surpassed by her passion for character design, and her commitment to help every single one of her mentees succeed in whatever artistic goal they set at the beginning of the mentorship.

Tonatiuh Grasa

I learned so much from Brooklyn’s mentorship. I loved her informed, confident prodding to do more and encouragement that I could succeed. Her insights into the animation industry were solid gold. Her instruction and guidance on how to leverage the creative process and put in the necessary “pencil miles” changed the way I look at making art. Her advice to “lean into the difficult” constantly reminds me of the path forward. I loved having weekly assignments built on my own characters, and her feedback, guidance, and draw-overs helped me get past the roadblocks holding me back.

Ray Sewell

Brooklyn is a fantastic mentor! She truly listened to the challenges I was running into with my work and gave advice on the spot. Her draw-overs helped me understand the ways I could push my designs further. After leaving a session, I felt a renewed sense of hope and a vision of how I would improve. Her lessons were easy to understand and covered the most important aspects of storytelling, design, and character personality. I am so grateful for the time I spent learning from her!

Sierra Gonzales

My experience during Brooklyn’s mentorship was nothing short of transformative! She is an incredible teacher, and her insightful feedback and unwavering support truly pushed my art to new heights. She really breaks down the concepts of character design, and in each lesson, I always learned something new! I’m truly grateful I got to learn from her!

Sarah Fowler

This mentorship has been so great and really filled in the gaps in my knowledge with character design. Brooklyn’s lectures especially have really allowed me to step back and understand character design in the big picture. I find myself putting more thought behind my designs and I now understand why I’m making certain design choices. In addition, her critiques have also been super helpful, and she really takes the time to draw over our characters and I’ve felt myself improve over my time in the mentorship! Overall, I’ve had such a lovely experience, and she was a kind and patient teacher who was always willing to help out!

Leia Sun

Brooklyn has helped me on my journey to better develop the necessary practices to become a character designer. Her thoughtful feedback has helped me to greatly improve my work and further train my eye as a designer. I feel that the work we’ve been doing over the past several months has given me valuable techniques and has taken my work to the next level.

Josh Brennan

Heard about a character design mentorship on social media and immediately followed Brooklyn’s artwork, without her help I would be lost in my path to follow my dream job in the film industry. You won’t regret it. She brings a lot of good material in the field that would make you find the way in your own craft.

Jesus Antonio Benitez

Hi, I'm Brooklyn Walker

Your Character Design Mentor/Certified Art Nerd

Welcome! So happy you’re here 🙂 I’m a character design artist in the animation industry and have worked with such clients as Skydance, Netflix, Nickelodeon, Bungie Games and Sony Pictures Animation.

I’m passionate about creating beautiful designs through the application of sound art principles and I’m here to help you do the same.

Instagram: @brooklynwalker.art

Cara: @brooklynwalkerart

Hi, I'm Brooklyn Walker

Your Character Design Mentor/Certified Art Nerd

Welcome! So happy you’re here 🙂 I’m a character design artist in the animation industry and have worked with clients such as Skydance, Netflix, Nickelodeon, Bungie Games and Sony Pictures Animation.

I’m passionate about creating beautiful designs through the application of sound art principles and I’m here to help you do the same.

Instagram: @brooklynwalker.art

Cara: @brooklynwalkerart

Testimonials

In my educational journey, I have had the privilege of participating in several courses led by esteemed professionals within the Animation Industry. Among these experiences, studying under Brooklyn stands out as exceptionally enriching and enlightening. Brooklyn is remarkably supportive and empathetic, and possesses an innate talent for instruction.  Despite my extensive time as an Animation student, Brooklyn’s guidance has imparted fresh insights and perspectives that continue to resonate with me. She adeptly tailors her feedback to meet each student’s individual needs, offering targeted critiques and challenges to facilitate their growth. I found it notably uncommon and distinctive that within her mentorship, she facilitated our artistic development and nurtured our professional growth by imparting valuable insights into crafting portfolios and preparing for artist interviews within the industry. Furthermore, despite her status as a seasoned industry professional, Brooklyn remains dedicated to furthering her own skills through continued study and practice. It is this idea of perpetual growth and development that, in my view, distinguishes her as a truly exceptional educator and role model within our mentorship community.

Josh Beames

It has been such a pleasure taking Brooklyn’s Character Design Mentorship for the last few months. As a busy professional wanting to improve my character design skills it has been the perfect push for me to get back into drawing and learn to push shapes and dig deeper to find the personalities of the characters I’m designing.
Watching Brooklyn go over my drawings every week has opened my eyes to what a character designer’s aim is, what to get from the exploration phase and how to use reference for your drawings to get the most out of the idea you’re going for. I am humbled every week with her draw overs, yet encouraged and excited to to do more passes on my designs. I’ve also been learning to slow down and think more when I draw and incorporate storytelling and how that informs and elevates the design.
I have drawn more for Brooklyn’s class than I have by myself in the last few years. My drawing confidence has definitely increased over the course of the mentorship. Anyone hoping to improve their drawing and character design skills should take Brooklyn’s class. I highly recommend it!
Amanda Zima

Going into the mentorship with Brooklyn I knew that I would have to draw a lot, and boy, was I right! From weekly practice, to the assignments, to figuring concepts out, I have been drawing a lot these past few months (which still went by super quickly!) and I am extremely happy with the progress I’ve made.
I really liked the way Brooklyn approaches the mentorship; there is not really a right or wrong way but there is value in finding your own path and I feel like Brooklyn definitely encourages to do just that. I found it extremely helpful for her to go in depth during the theory classes since I noticed that actually naming concepts helped a lot, going from intuition to applying concepts that we had learned during the mentorship made it easier to make informed decisions while designing.
Throughout the mentorship, I always felt comfortable sharing my concerns and doubts with Brooklyn. She took the time to thoughtfully respond to every question and concern, often revisiting them in subsequent sessions to ensure I fully understood the answers. Her dedication made a significant impact on my learning experience.
I wholeheartedly recommend Brooklyn’s mentorship program to anyone looking to enhance their drawing and character design skills.

Carlos Mendietta

Brooklyn’s course was one of the best art classes I have ever taken!

Her class helped me to think not only about artistic appeal, but also on how to make decisions so as to communicate the story and personality behind a design. Brooklyn was so kind and tactful when critiquing each of our works, that it propelled us forward and I was always motivated to keep learning. Any insights she shared about areas for improvement were always honest and balanced with praise & encouragement. I felt like she cared about everyone’s ideas, and sincerely wanted each of us to succeed. What I loved the most about learning from Brooklyn was how she was always able to explain why a certain design was appropriate in different contexts, so I was able to grow deeper in my understanding of purposeful design not only for characters, but in every other aspect of animation in order to communicate the story in a meaningful way.

I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to learn from such a knowledgeable yet humble designer as Brooklyn!

Em Williams

Prior to the mentorship with Brooklyn, I felt stuck with my style and was hesitant to push boundaries. Thanks to her guidance, I no longer feel that way. Brooklyn is very attentive with her students and identifies any obstacles present, so that you can progress forward. In working with Brooklyn, you can quickly feel that she is kind, passionate, and aware of your goals and gives you the tools and advice you need to achieve. Additionally, the community in class was strong and collaborative in sharing critiques, suggestions, and kudos towards each other’s work. Altogether, it was awesome to witness everyone’s skills evolve.

For people considering Brooklyn’s mentorship, especially if you are focusing in character design, hers has my highest recommendation. You will be learning from someone who is just as eager to see you succeed as you are

Pat Nee

My mentorship experience with Brooklyn was incredibly fruitful! I was studying visual development in school, and I sought out the mentorship to learn more about character design to improve my skills. I felt the program was very in depth & covered design topics specific to the form / character which wasn’t covered at my school! I also found the critique sessions to be very helpful; Brooklyn gave me plenty of draw-overs and notes on my homework each week, which were detailed & personalized for every student. I felt that Brooklyn’s teaching style provided technically sound solutions while still embracing each student’s ideas or stylistic choices. I was able to learn and grow immensely each week through putting the course material to practice and problem solving my character designs based on Brooklyn’s feedback. 

Allison Nguyen