One of the most popular trends in design is flat illustration. Just do a search for flat illustration and you will get a lot of examples and articles. You will also notice that many artists offer flat design elements, such as people, animals and props, for building your own hero image for your website or for other projects.

One fun project that is great for flat illustrations is to draw animals from basic shapes. Most artists begin a drawing by breaking down the subject of the drawing in to its basic shapes. At least that was what I was taught a long time ago. But much more recently, I have noticed many artists posting their flat illustrations to Instagram, Pinterest and other social sites. The illustrations to which I seem to be drawn to the most are the animal illustrations. So I decided to give it a try. But first I took a few courses on Skillshare.

If you want to draw your own animal characters, below are some great courses that I really enjoyed.

Let's Draw Cats Using Simple Shapes by Portia Monberg (affiliate link)

This was my favorite class. Monberg uses traditional water color and pen to demonstrate how to draw a cat from a vertical rectangle, horizontal rectangle, triangle and curved shape. Next she demonstrates how to add patterns, facial expressions and exaggeration. The course includes a downloadable .pdf listing several cat head shapes.

Learn to Draw Cute Animals Using Simple Shapes by Fabiola Bonghi (affiliate link)

In this class, Bonghi will teach you to draw a kitten, kawaii teddy bear and a unicorn, starting from basic shapes. All you need is a paper and pencil. Bonghi includes a Basic Shapes Practice Sheet downloadable .jpg.

How to Draw Cute Characters With Simple Shapes: Let's Draw Bears by Lisa Glanz (affiliate link)

As part of her "Let's Draw Series", Glanz teaches how to draw five cute bear characters from basic shapes. After drawing the bears, Glanz covers how to add color, details and personality. Included in the download are the following: 5 shape brushes (in Procreate, Photoshop and Affinity Designer formats), shape examples in jpg and png format, pdf worksheet for analogue drawing.

Critters with Character in Adobe Photoshop - A Graphic Design for Lunch Class by Helen Bradley (affiliate link)

Learn how to make a simple critter in Photoshop from shapes. You will learn how to draw the shapes and warp these shapes into your critter. Next, Bradley demonstrates how to add shadows and clothes to your critter. Finally she shows how to morph and recolor your critter into a different critter.

Disclosure: As a participant in the Skillshare affiliate program, some of the links in this article are affiliate links. However, my opinions are completely my own based on my experience.

Screenshots used by permission of Skillshare, Inc.