Enrollment for the next run of the workshop [COLOR=Cyan](July, 2017) 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:
[/color]http://training.cgsociety.org/course/becoming-a-better-artist
I know a lot of you have been wanting to join us, and have been waiting for the right timing or saving up for it. I’m going to keep running this workshop for as long as I can, and when you are ready to come and join us, you’ll become part of the alumni students community, with our own private forum for critiques, discussions about personal artistic growth, portfolio/career development, and on-going mentoring from me, as well as mutual support and friendship from fellow alumni students. It’s a much cozier atmosphere compared to large, anonymous forums, because all the alumni students have been through the same experience during the workshop, and for many, it’s been a transcendent experience in artistic growth, self-awareness, discovery, and huge boost in skill, knowledge, and confidence.
For those of you yet to experience the workshop, we’re waiting for you to come and join us. :arteest: 
[b]I have removed the details from the original post below since it’s now superseded by the information in the link above, but I have kept some additional details below so those interested in the workshop can find out more about it.
While this workshop is epic and covers a lot of subjects, if I had to sum it up as simply as I could, this is what I would say:
While putting together the material for this workshop, I came to the realization that the entire course is essentially the absolute distillation of the most essential things I have ever learned as an artist to date, and if I could travel back in time and spend eight weeks with my younger self, these are the very things Id want him to learn.
Original Post: [/b]
I didn’t want to post too much detail about the workshop before because the scope of the course keeps snowballing and has become absolutely epic in size (I’ve spent a year and a half on it already, and in fact this workshop had been taking shape ever since a few years ago, and has grown to about 10X the scope/detail of the original size), to the point that if I didn’t put my foot down and cap off the size of the workshop, students will be totally overwhelmed by the sheer scope and depth of all the knowledge, techniques, creative methods…etc they’d have to absorb in 8 weeks. But at the same time, I tried very hard to make sure the workshop is designed so students (regardless if they’re beginners, intermediate, or advanced) don’t have to master anything during the workshop–they only need to observe carefully, flex their creative muscles, participate in the class assignments, and all the lessons taught will stay with them for the rest of their lives–in fact many of the lessons will likely change their lives, as some of the material in the workshop had changed my life in my own artistic growth and struggles. Some students may not have enough skill and experience to execute some of the advanced concepts in the workshop, but having been taught those advanced concepts, they would’ve eliminated years of unnecessary frustration and confusion down the road as they grow as artists. Everything taught in the workshop was designed to save you from wasting precious years of your life using ineffective learning/practicing methods, or focusing on misguided mentalities/approaches that cause severe damage to your artistic development.
(If you want to be notified when the workshop is open for registration, just reply to this thread and you should be notified whenever this thread has new replies.)
I want to point out this part specifically so students will know what they are getting:
"Another unique aspect of the course is that it does not waste the students time and money by covering topics that already have many free or low-cost commercial resources available, and concentrates on mainly topics that do not have readily available resources, or covers popular topics with a new level of depth not seen elsewhere."
This is very important, because I do not waste the student's time on very common subjects like basic anatomy/figure, because there are so many free and very cheap resources out there already (listed in the sticky threads right here at the top of this forum). I would be wasting the student's tuition if I spent time on those basic and common subjects that they could find for free online or buy very cheaply in bookstores, when I could've been teaching subjects that students will not be able to find elsewhere--subjects that will impact their growth as artists much more significantly down the road. The truth is, basic anatomy/figure are areas that any half-way decent artist should know at the very least, and many artists who have gained a firm grasp on anatomy/figure are still severely limited because they are missing all the other important knowledge/skills--the very things this workshop teaches. At the same time, anatomy/figure must be mastered if one wants to become a competent artist (and today's aspiring artists are extremely lucky that many learning resources are free or very cheap).
To master anatomy/figure takes years (and for most people, they will continue trying to master them for their entire artistic lives)--they are not what you could learn completely from one workshop or one class--they take combination of multiple resources and years of actual life drawing experience to get a firm grasp on. Any serious artist will have a stack of books on anatomy/figure, tons of photo references, and hundreds of hours worth of life drawing under his belt.
So if your only interest is basic anatomy/figure and absolutely nothing else [color=YellowGreen](drawing/painting techniques, composition/perspective, color, lighting/values, parameters of stylization, aesthetic sensibility, expressive characters, creative vision, flexible and powerful workflow, visual storytelling, personal growth and career development strategies…etc) then this workshop is not for you. Although this workshop does not cover basic anatomy/figure, it does delve deeply into effective body language, expressive characters, elements of aesthetic beauty, stylization decisions, etc, which are advanced concepts of anatomy/figure, and those will impact your growth as an artist more than basic anatomy/figure, because they are what will separate you from being merely competent and become creatively authoritative. You do not need to have mastered anatomy/figure to learn about these advanced concepts. You should think of these advanced concepts as knowledge that will make it much easier for you to not only master anatomy/figure when you study them, but also aid you in developing your own expressive styles.[/color]
If you're an artist who is beyond the novice level--maybe you're intermediate or advanced in certain areas, but feel like there are glaring holes in your knowledge or creative approach (for example, you're strong in anatomy/figure, but you can't seem to draw attractive characters to save your life, and you're terrible at lighting or colors or visual narrative, or maybe you're great at environments and objects, but really struggle with characters, or you are great at photo-manipulation but can't draw/paint well), this workshop's sections on advanced concepts would be perfect for you.
Anyway, these are the details so far. Feel free to ask questions or make suggestions.
