This teaching concept works with character design, the visual creation of a character for its later use in media or art. We encounter avatars in video games as well as in everyday communication on various messenger services. Not only gamers, but also smartphone users have the opportunity to design their own characters. Mostly, however, common character creation tools only allow for creations based on narrowly defined presettings. There, the focus is on size, hair color or hairstyle and barely on visual storytelling and individual character design.

The concept Avatar your Friends! gives students the opportunity to explore such a very free approach to avatar design.

• Introduction and trying out ZBrushCoreMini.

• Small groups for conversation / introduction round / self-description

• Work on the avatar

• Mutual introduction of the avatars and presentation to the whole class

• Character design references; it should be discussed that some character designs reproduce gender stereotypes:
  https://characterdesignreferences.com/

Luca Ruhri, studies at the Department Art and Education, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

Author’s Encouragement
With a focus on learning about digital possibilities for artistic expression, this assignment is a great addition to analog drawing, painting, modeling, and animation techniques. The teamwork required provides an opportunity to get to know each other, so this teaching concept works very well with newly formed classes or at the beginning of a school year.