ODD BODIES: Illustrating Expressive, Stylized People
Tom Froese · Illustrator and Designer
A working illustrator's actual principles and exercises for developing a stylized figure style
What you will learn
- The FACES framework: flattening, abstraction, clarity, exaggeration, simplification
- How to identify and simplify the five recurring pain points: face, ears, head/neck, hands, feet
- Translating a realistic reference photo into a flattened contour sketch through iterative tracing
- Drawing from memory after referencing a photo to develop a more personal, less copied style
- Composing a page of related figures doing the same activity to reveal your own stylistic tendencies
Standout ideas
- The FACES acronym as a working checklist during sketching, not just a theory list
- Drawing the same subject twice, once from a photo and once purely from memory, to strip out reference-copying habits and surface a more personal line
- Treating the five pain points (face, ears, head-to-neck, hands, feet) as deliberate simplification decisions rather than areas to render more carefully
Best for: Illustrators with some figure-drawing experience who want to break away from realism and develop a personal, stylized approach to drawing people.
The course is built around a genuinely practical progression: reference-based sketch, memory redraw, then a multi-figure composition, each exercise designed to strip realism out of the work in a controlled way. Its strength is Tom Froese's clear articulation of principles (the FACES framework, the five pain points) grounded in his own working process rather than abstract theory. The main limitation is that the bonus finishing project requires Photoshop and inking materials, so viewers without that setup only get the sketching half of the class.