I have an MFA from Calarts in animation- so I can speak from experience- the course here is on par with what I have studied in the past. It's well thought out, offers insight, and gives a chance to hone skills. Very good intro to character design- for comic writers as well!

Great course! Great teacher! Fun, engaging and very useful. I've been using the first four courses from CalArts Game Development Specialization to develop a game idea I've had jotted down some time ago and I've found them to be the best thing I could've done to get my game going on the Narrative and Visual fronts. I've been doing the first four courses in the five course specialization as an unpaid observer, but after taking these courses, I'm signing up for the full specialization. If the quality holds true, the project driven fifth course will be amazing and well worth the money. The teacher in this particular course (Same teacher as in the Introduction to Game design class) is funny and entertaining to watch. Definitely goes the extra mile, doing interviews with great character designers and exploring their unique processes. Highly recommended!

As a complete beginner to character design (and game design in general), I found this course very easy to understand with many great assignments to reinforce learning! I especially liked watching other designers create characters from scratch - seeing and hearing about the process other designers use to turn their ideas into a character they can use in a game - even animated characters - was particularly helpful. After completing this course, I now have many different character designs I can potentially use in my own games, along with awesome feedback from peers to make my character designs even better! I recommend this course to anyone interested in getting into game design and development.

I liked the course, thanks to this I got the interest in learning the basics of drawing since I had never before tried to draw ... "at least as an adult", so I take a long time to face my fears.

But, I think the videos are too long. More than 5 or 8 minutes is already very long and makes you lose attention because it is more to see how a cartoonist, illustrator or character creator works and sometimes expresses something vague in the absence of a specific theme or objective in the idea that wants to transmit.

There was an extensive flow of activities and assignments that really helped spark the creative process and essentials to brainstorming effective, eye catching characters. Each week I learned how to develop certain areas of the character's traits or story. I loved the community and the peer guidance. It was truly a place where criticism was welcomed, and ideas were shared, and displayed thoughtfully. If I could take this class again, I would. I absolutely enjoyed every minute!

Very in depth, and it was indeed wonderful to draw my own characters for more of a defining purpose than just for fun! I really appreciated the time to truly figure out what, and who, the characters are. Not only that, but learning how to make them more interesting to someone who knows everything about them, and seem more human. Thanks, Coursera, for the best course ever! (Well, so far. I say that 'cause it has helped tremendously.)

This was a great course! It was cool to see the perspectives of different artists. I only wish there had been more of them, with more different styles (What about someone who is more realistic? What about someone who is super stylized in a different way?) Really delightful to have the opportunity to hear their perspective on things and have them describe how they think about what they're doing and to see their different processes.

Another fantastic course by Fran! He really shines as an instructor in this one, and makes the experience very enjoyable. I suspect he produced this Character Design course after the Game Design one, as all my complaints regarding the latter have been addressed here. I'd really love it if he went back and polished the Game Design one so that it would be on par with this. :)

Great course! The teaching techniques are extraordinary. With fun facts through the course, it never gets boring. For anyone who need to start something that will benefit your game design in arts, this here is your best choice. My heartfelt appreciation goes to all the tutors who put there time and effort to this. Great work and thank you! You guys are the best!

It was an amazing ride, watching such professional designers do their work inspired me to do my best during the course. The activities were also very interesting, because I got to work with objects and concepts that I hadn't tried before. I spent a really good time and would gladly recommend it to all aspiring designers out there.

I really enjoyed the Sample studies with Industry artists, and the assignments were well thought out and interesting to work on! The professor is also very fun and energetic to listen to, even if some of the guests were a little hard to follow along with - but hey, talking while in the middle of creative process is hard!

I loved this course and super recommend it to any one who wants to either boost his own characters designs or who wants to hear inspiring interviews from successful character designers! The course is full of valuable insights about the character design itself and hints on landing the jobs in this field.

Loved the way Fran taught and laid out this course! The assignments were top notch; really required some creative thinking. And I enjoyed all 3 of the interviews. It was great to see the different perspectives of professional artists.

I'd totally recommend this course to anyone! It was a lot of fun!

It's a great course I strongly recommend. Not only you are going to practise different character design through various exercises, but you are going to watch some great artist talking about their work while they are drawing. So interesting!

Wonderful course! It really helps in understanding the foundation in character design and shows how the characters you love were created. I definitely feel a lot more confident in my ability to design characters after this course.

Excellent course! I just have no words to explain how much I've learned here. Of course it's just the beginning and we should keep practising a lot after this course, but it's definitely be kept as reference for future projects.

Brilliant course ! I really felt like I was actually visiting each designer's studio. Each of them were very inspiring, and the assignments were great fun ! Thanks CALART and especially Fran Krause for this wonderful course !

This course was fun. I gained several new insights in designing a character, especially in the final week. Some things I kinda already had a grasp on, but this course really defined those things even more so.

This course was great, like other courses from this series. But this one was especially hard for me because it requires a lot of drawing, something I'm not so good at.

But anyway, great course, recommended!

I'm loving it, it's being awesome!

Each week's assignment is very cool and demands a different skill of us :D

I liked the topics very much, and I think it's great learning from other character designers!

I love the set up of this course - the fact that we get to sit in on artists as they draw and talk about the design/decision making process out loud. I wish the world design course was set up this way.

It was very fun, accessible and made me learn a lot! It was also super relaxing and not stressful at all which I appreciate a lot of a course taken during college classes time. Highly recommend it!

Fun and challenging to me. Is not easy to me to create new characters, but with this practice and professional examples, I feel more confident to just do and see what happens. Thank you, very much.

Good course, especially since you have the option to take it for free. Nice assignments that gets you to think outside the box or challenge. Recommend it if you wanna keep yourself busy and learn.

As I said earlier, I recommend this course for everyone; doctors included (:

I like how this course was treated in a different way. We see people doing the job on there ground, that's interesting.