My second article for "Character Design Quarterly" #36 "Digging for inspiration is out!!

Check out what just arrived home  My second article for the magazine Character Design Quarterly #36 "Digging for inspiration" is out!! This time around I unravel the step by step of my creative process using as an example the character design of "Mary" from my personal project "Anning's fossil depot".

It made me SO happy to see the article printed on such quality paper and I LOVED how the editorial team created this wonderful layout design for its pages. Thank you so so so much to the Character Design Quarterly for inviting me once again to publish with them, it's always a pleasure! 

If you would like to get the magazine shipped to your home and read all the lovely articles in it, check out the 3DTotal shop

Annecy 2026

The best week of the year is almost here!! Can't wait to eat galettes with my friends, sketching ducks by the lake and watching indie shortfilms! See you at Annecy 2026! 𓂃 ོ☼𓂃

"How to train your dragon" tribute exhibition at Gallery Nucleus!

 

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Una publicación compartida de *Esther Morales* (she/her) (@esthermoralesart)

Little sneak peek of my new piece for Gallery Nucleus!! Can you guess the character? 🦇🦷🌙

 

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Una publicación compartida de *Esther Morales* (she/her) (@esthermoralesart)

#ArtVSArtist2025

It’s that time of the year again! #artvsartist2025 !! ✍️🔥

I can’t believe December is here already, these past months have literally flown by!!

This year has been full of exploration, growth and discovery: I’ve worked with some of my artistic heroes, got some time to develop personal projects and shared and learnt with the most amazing humans. Thanks SO much to everyone who made this 2025 such a special year and I wish you all an awesome start to the new one! 💫 💫 💫

 

Common Side Effects 2

I’m SO incredibly thrilled to start working today as a character designer for @greenstreetpictures on the second season of Common Side Effects!!! 🍄🍄🍄 

I’m a huge fan of this masterpiece of a show created by Joe Bennet and Steve Hely. Special thanks to the awesome Alejandra Guevara for the opportunity and to the whole production team for such a warm welcome! 🙏🙏🙏

Geladas

 Did you know that geladas are also known as the "bleeding-heart monkeys"? I find these baboons SO incredibly cool and creepy at the same time that I had to create a little design of them. Which one is your favorite? 🦷🦷🦷

La Galeria Roja

Hi everybody! For those of you who've been asking: I'll have one last online character design workshop this 2025 at La Galería Roja! (I still haven't decided on the dates for 2026 but I'll keep you posted in the future). During this class we will have 24 hours of both theory lectures and in class exercises divided in 6 days during the last weeks of October. Can't wait to see your character design projects and work together on them! :D (there are only 12 spots available and you can sign up on their website: https://lagaleriaroja.com/producto/online-illustration-workshop-character-design-with-esther-morales-4/ )

Tray

Here's "Tray": the little spaniel dog that faithfully accompanied Mary Anning throughout all her excursions around the cliffs of Lyme Regis. Searching for fossils and climbing the cliffs was a very hardcore and dangerous task, so much so that the real Tray sadly died in a rockfall that also almost killed Mary in 1833. It was heartbreaking to read her letters about that time in her biography and I wanted to portray that dangerous element of their job including a little bandaid on Tray's leg (as if it wasn't the first time they encountered dangers before). 

Annecy 2025

Can't wait for Annecy 2025! Who's coming this year? I will be attending the festival from June 8th to 15th. You will probably find me sketching around, eating crêpes and hanging at Cafe des Arts every evening (if the weather is nice), see you there! :D

Mary Anning's turnaround

Turnarounds are always such a daunting task but such an important one for keeping consistency on the model throughout the posing process + they're key information for the departments that come after us (modellers, riggers, animators...). Even when it comes to personal projects, I always love to develop a turnaround of my character first to make sure that they feel like "themselves" on each angle and that their design is still recognizable from each direction. 

Mary Anning's poses 1

Hi everybody! After a long time on hold I'm finally back to developing my personal project "Anning's fossil depot"! Here you can see some poses of Mary as she goes by her day exploring the coasts of "Blue Lias" in the search of fossils with her faithful companion "Tray" :3 More to come soon!

Fossil dinosaurs for my personal project “Anning’s fossil depot” 🦕👀✨

 

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Una publicación compartida de *Esther Morales* (she/her) (@esthermoralesart)

Victoria Semykina's workshop sketches! :D

A little selection of sketches that I drew during the AMAZING life drawing workshop by @victoria_semykina at @lagaleriaroja . I couldn’t recommend her class enough if you want to improve your observational and creative skills + explore lots of new media and drawing approaches! ✍️🔥 I’ve posted on my Patreon almost 30 pages of sketches from the workshop if you’re curious to see more! (I still can’t believe how MUCH work we managed to do during only 3 days 🤯) Thanks again Victoria for all your wisdom and advice! 🫶✨

¡Curso de Ilustración en "La Galería Roja"!

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Una publicación compartida de *Esther Morales* (she/her) (@esthermoralesart)

Art VS Artist 2024

 It’s that time of the year again #ArtVSArtist2024✍️💫 ! It’s always so fun to compare these over the years and see the changes 👀✨

This 2024 has been so surreal and I still can’t believe that my characters and paintings have been exhibited in Los Angeles and Tokyo 🤯

Thanks SO much to everyone who made it possible, to the animation studios that trusted me for their character designs and to all of you for your amazing support in this little corner of the internet! Crossing fingers for a 2025 half as good as this one! ❤️❤️❤️

Warrior Art Camp new classes!

So excited to be teaching one more year my long-format "Character Design for Animation" course with Warrior Art Camp! Starting on February 15th, we'll have 7 weeks of online theory classes, demos and individual feedback sessions to prepare a character design project for your portfolio! 

Registrations open tomorrow at noon (PT) and there will be only 12 spots available: https://www.warriorartcamp.com/character-design-for-animation-with-esther-morales

Can't wait to see you there! :D

New character design workshop at La Galería Roja

 

Hi everybodyy! I will be teaching an online character design workshop at La Galería Roja next month! :D It will be 8 days long (32 hours) and we will be covering the full process of designing a character from the early rough visual development stage to the more technical model sheet process. Here's all the info and thanks SO much for always being so supportive of my classes!

• Dates: 30th ,31st of January, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 13rd and 14th of February

• Time: 17:30 - 21:30 (CET Spain time)

• Prize: 320€

• There will be only 12 spots and you can already sign up in their website: https://lagaleriaroja.com/en/producto/online-illustration-workshop-character-design-with-esther-morales-3/ 

"Magpie"

 

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Una publicación compartida de *Esther Morales* (she/her) (@esthermoralesart)

Character design workshop at La Galería Roja!!

I'm SO happy to collaborate again with the wonderful team of La Galeria Roja doing another online character design weekend workshop! During the 21-22-23rd of June we'll be nerding out about the process of creating characters for the animation industry (both through the conceptual and technical aspects of it) + I'll be giving live feedback on your work. If you want more info/sign up, click here: Esther Morales + La Galería Roja (There are only 15 places available!)