Becoming a Better Artist – Critical knowledge and techniques for today’s artists

#341

Enrollment for the 9th run of the workshop is now open. The link below contains all the details regarding the workshop such as the course contents, week-by-week detailed outline, student testimonials, and enrollment details:
http://beta.workshops.cgsociety.org/courseinfo.php?id=177

It will start on November 21st, 2011.

Typically, it’s a bad idea to have a workshop at the end of the year due to the holiday season, but I know some people don’t celebrate those holidays and prefer to get stuff done with the down time (I’m one of those people), so I’m going to run a workshop anyway, even if it might be a smaller class.

If you’re wondering if the holiday season will be a problem, don’t worry about it. There are no deadlines for the assignments and I have always let students take time off to go on vacation or deal with unexpected things in life. They just come back later and continue, even if it’s after the official end date of the workshop, I’ll still be there. The dates are really just a formality and I don’t abide by them. I continue to teach and help students long after the official ending date of the workshop–even months or years later (past students I taught can attest to this). I’m very open and flexible, and it’s far more important to me that you actually learn and grow, instead of adhering to some kind of arbitrary deadline or schedule. So, if you’re going to be busy during Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years, don’t worry about spending time with family and friends–just go have fun, and then return to class later–I’ll always be there to help you.

#342

Greeting all, I just wanted to jump in and say hello. Signed up for this course and i’m very excited from the overviews, content and feedback I’ve been reading; I truly believe this will be a major supercharge to my skills and feel it will help me overcome some ongoing frustration I have with my ability as an artist. This works well with my crazy schedule too.

Robert, thank you in advance for your prep and dedication to this course, looking forward to it!

Charles

#343

Started from page 1 and finally finished reading the complete topic after 2 days! :love:

Looking forward to the real thing come 21st Nov… I’m one of those skinny stick-man artist so I’m damn excited to have it grow some muscles and kick some butt after the freaking intense training! Woo! :buttrock:

#344

Hey peeps. I’m in the current group just finishing up and my suggestion is to do your best to have your schedule down now before it starts. You are going to need as much time as you can to get the most out of this crazily insane cool course that Robert has put together. :slight_smile:

#345

This course is amazing, breaks your brains and you have to really commit to this (I won’t lie - it’s epic!!), in fact I’m not even finished yet (about 3 months behind) but in my opinion it drives the basic of CG Artistry home like nothing I’ve ever done before… style, composition, colour, characterisation, mood, lighting. It’s amazingly comprehensive and whichever medium you work with you can apply the principles learnt here to pretty much anything. So glad I did it… I reckon I got my moneys worth in the first week’s reading.

#346

According to my current progress, I’m predicting I’d be done with the course material very soon. I’d be surprised if I’m still not done by the end of January (although I do keep on adding stuff as I think of them though–such as the new section I just added on reflective and illuminated highlights). After I hand over the material to CGSociety, it’s up to them to fit my workshop into available opening slots. I don’t know how far scheduled in advanced other workshops are for next year. Once the workshop goes live, any re-runs will only happen if enough people request for them, or that I’m available to do them.

Good; that gives me more time to get better with drawing and using my tablet. :wink:

business development

#347

What would you consider a reasonable amount of time to set aside daily/weekly? I’m hoping I can break my time up by reading the info during the day and get about an hour at lunch and whatever time I can scare up in the evenings (say and hour or two in the evenings to work).

I understand that the class isn’t time intensive, I will have to divide time on two seperate workstations, both up for the task and do the jump drive thing.

Thanks*

#348

The workshop is actually VERY relaxed in terms of time, because I don’t enforce any deadlines for the students. I know that many have jobs, families, unforeseen things come up in life, and so on, so I basically tell all my students that they can do the assignments at their own pace, and even if they hand in assignments in months later, or even a year later, I’ll still help them. If I’m still alive and could be reached online, then I’m still available. :slight_smile:

The only thing I ask of my students is the keep up with the reading of the lecture notes, watch the videos, and forum discussions every week, even if they don’t have time to do the assignments.

#349

Thanks Robert. One of the things I’m looking forward to the class is streamlining my workflow to be more efficient. Instead of persuing weak ideas and wasting time or messing a good idea up halfway into it.

I’m certain I can carve out enough time during the week to cover the material.

#350

Alumni students lounge forum is now open!

It’s finally happened! I’ve been talking about this alumni students forum idea ever since the first run of the workshop, and now it’s a reality:
http://beta.workshops.cgsociety.org/course/view.php?id=198

From this point on, all of my graduated students can meet each other, make friends, hang out, form/organize study groups, share inspirations and learning resources, help each other with critiques, ask questions, and support each other in your collective journey as creative talents. This private form will be a lot more comfortable than huge public ones like typical online forums, and because all of you have been through the same workshop–one that was life-changing for many of you–you all have a strong common experience that binds you all together. I’ll be hanging around too, so in a way, this will almost feel like an ongoing extension of the workshop. Isn’t that awesome? Let’s all continue to learn, grow, and chase our dreams and aspirations together!

We are currently trying to notify all the past alumni students through the internal workshop forum messaging system, as well as via sticky thread in the workshop General Discussions Forums, but some students might still slip through the cracks–that’s why I’m posting the notice here too. The alumni students from the first two runs of the workshop were on the old forum system, so it’s harder to get to them, and I’m currently trying to collect all of their contact information so I can email them and notify them. I have the contact information for all the students of the first run, but the second run is still missing some contact information. I think we’ll eventually find everybody and add them to the alumni student’s lounge forum, so just be patient.

#351

I would really love to enroll in this one, but I am at school until dec 19th, and starting back on january 9th.

Robert, do we need to be available on specific hours to take full advantage of your workshop? ( I did read that the course’s video are available for 12 months after the workshop has finished. )

edit: Also, my drawing knowledge is extremelly poor. Are there some basic knowledge required to be able to fallow your workshop?

Thanks

#352

No, you don’t have to do the workshop during specific times–it’s all up to your own speed. I’m very relaxed about deadlines and allow my students to work around their jobs, school work, vacations, familial/social obligations, illnesses…etc. Basically, if you become a student of mine, you’ll be a student of mine for life, until one day you no longer need me. The newly opened alumni students lounge forum is a testament to my continuing commitment to my students. Any of my past students can tell you how dedicated I am to them.

As for being a total noob, I’ve had lots of students who were drawing at the level of stick figures, and they all learned tons of valuable knowledge and insights from the workshop. Whatever you gain from the workshop will stay with you in your future learning/growing, and in fact, the workshop will dramatic shorten the time it takes you to excel to more advanced levels, because you’ll learn how not to learn/practice the wrong way, skip all the misconceptions and misguided attempts, and focus on just the most efficient and relevant knowledge/methods.

#353

Hi people, I took the first run of this course, and I thought I’d come in and say how good it was.

I commented earlier on my experiences in this thread, but it’s been like… 18 months since then, and now there’s an Alumni forum for people who took it before. I made an introduction in there, and I realized a couple paragraphs from it work as a One-Year-Later review. So here you go. :slight_smile:

"…As for Rob’s course, I loved it. There were aspects of the foundations that I had never heard about before - what I specifically remember that was new was edge treatment and making sure that hard surfaces always had harder edges than soft ones in the same image. The other thing I really loved was the videos of Rob painting, step by step. I really needed to see for myself how to get from a blank canvas, click by click, to a polished piece.

Those are the things that stick out most now, but honestly, I think there were TONS of other things that were absolutely new to me at the time - and I honestly can’t remember what they were, because the lessons are already ingrained. I feel like I’ve known them forever but I’m certain there’s a lot that I actually only learned a year and a half ago in this workshop, and it doesn’t even seem new anymore. It seems obvious and common-sense. What’s for sure is that this workshop shaped me a lot, and I’m glad Rob was in a postition to put together all his experience in a format like this. It’s incredibly helpful."

That was the first run, too, and since then there’s been lots of updates. I asked Rob about the updates in the Alumni forums and here’s part of his reply:

“Hey Mynta! I actually haven’t really kept track of the changes I’ve made, because I’ve been updating so often and have added so much new content (only in the lecture notes, not the videos, although a few student-made helpful videos were linked in the lecture notes). There are some sections that are completely new, or greately expanded, or completely rewritten. The amount of new content added since the first run could almost be a new workshop in itself.”

I hope that helps someone to make a decision either way. :slight_smile:
~Mynta

#354

The timing is perfect for me and I am ready to enroll. Just one last question. What happens if not enough people enrolls this time? Do we get our money back or do we have to wait until the next time?

#355

That’s not how it works–once we announce a run, we do it for good. The only reason we would stop is if a few consecutive runs all had only a small handful of students–that’s when we’ll decide to stop, and when it happens, we won’t even announce any more new runs, so there’s no issue with refunds or whatever–we simply don’t run it anymore.

Luckily, that hasn’t happened yet, and hopefully won’t happen for long time. :slight_smile:

#356

Thanks again.

I just upgraded my account to a CGS CONNECT member through paypal. As soon as the account has been upgraded, I will proceed with the payment for your workshop.

#357

Hey guys, congrats to everyone who enrolled for the current run!

I want to use this thread as another opportunity to tell you that you won’t regret any second you’re going to spend on the workshop. Enjoy the weeks!

#358

Hi Lunatique! I think i have decided to undertake the workshop if it will do another run after the current one that i can’t attend. So i know it might be early, but is there a chance that another run of the workshop will start after the current one or shortly afterwards?

Can you give maybe an estimate of when to expect a future run?

Thanks in advance!

#359

The next run is planned for February, 2012. I’ll update this thread with exact dates as we get closer to the next run.

#360

Hey Lunatique!

I’m looking to do your next workshop, it sounds awesome. I was able to convince my employer flip the bill for the class (I know I’m lucky, don’t ask what I had to do to get approved haha). But they are asking for some more info.

Mainly they wanted to know how many hours the training would be creditable. He was saying that I couldn’t account for the time working on projects, but duration of video, reading, ect. All that could count toward the time. Looking at older post, I’m getting a rough estimate of 15 hours of video total, and 3-5 hours of reading/research a week. If that sounds about right for your next class, I’ll go with that.

Also, they wanted to know if there will be a certificate of completion given out at the end? Company’s like that sort of thing.

Other then that, I’m excited for the class, can’t weight to get into it.

Thx