Along with Del, I was one of the students who just finished in the first run of the workshop, and it is has been absolutely brilliant. As Robert has said, this is not the kind of class where you are judged based upon your execution of the assignments, but is one that combines advanced technique and concepts with philosophy, exploring the very soul of an image and helping a person in their artistic journey.
Even as one of the beginning art students in the workshop, I can easily say that nobody who enrolls in this workshop will be disappointed.
And all of Robert’s students lived happily ever after…
This would be perfect for you - even if you are missing big gaps in the foundation, this course gives you a good foundation in many other areas and a perfect place to launch from. You’ll come out of the course all the more determined to get the basics so that you can implement everything you learned. I think it would be a great infusion of knowledge, especially for someone starting out.
I have to agree with everyone here. I’m also one of the survivors of Rob’s great first run. Falling within the first group he described, I was blown away.
If you’re hesitating about taking this class: please don’t. Everyone who had the pleasure of being within those digital walls will agree to what has been said about this class: it will exceed your expectations and will forever change the way you look at and approach your art (and even other people’s).
But keep this in mind too: you must participate, and if time allows you, participate as much as you can, post the assignments, questions, then critique/review your classmates work and you will see why Rob gets so much praise. I will always regret not having enough time to put on many of the assignments, and yet, I still got so much out of this.
You won’t regret it for a second. I would take it again in a heartbeat, and I might, if Rob still runs it some time down the road.
While it’s be great to see examples of your 2D work, 3D work is fine too if you don’t have 2D work to show. I had students who were primarily 3D artists in the last class and they had a great time, as just about everything in the workshop could be applied to 3D–even the week on surface treatment could be applied to NPR solutions in 3D rendering. All visual art share the same foundations and creative philosophies, and there are actually lots of subjects in the workshop that uses 3D artworks to demonstrate points.
I can imagine your time is very limited so I will go straight to the point.I have started working as art director in film company .I sort of jumped on that position from architectural visualization creative director position as we formed it within our group.Point is, while being an architect and visual artist, I feel I need some wider knowledge and skills to become better art director, however I would like your personal opinion if the course you will be leading will offer me a lot as per my current level.
If you don’t mind please briefly look through my folio/website and tell me your thoughts.
Thank you in advance for your time! Regards from Chengdu
J
Just signed up for the workshop and really looking forward to it. I don’t have a background in Art and only really discovered digital art around 18 months ago. Having said that, I have taken 3 of Don Seegmiller’s workshops and I would discribe my level as intermediate. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I don’t. I’ve learned a lot over the past months am looking to progress further. This workshop sounds like it will help fill in some of the gaps. I find that when I’m not on one of the workshops I lack direction and struggle to come up with ideas on what to paint and inspire me. My occupation is anything but art (finance I’m afraid) and it would be nice to get a feeling and some advice of where I can go with this and how to start, even at my age (mid 40’s)
I looked at portfolio, and I think you will be surprised by how much you will get out of the workshop. There are very advanced concepts in the workshop that mystifies even advanced professional artists who are veteran in the industry, and based on what I’ve seen in your portfolio, your current experience in photography and architectural visualization will probably not be enough if you are going to be art directing, as art directing involves many aspects that’s not necessarily purely visual–a lot of it has to do with understanding of style, aesthetics, taste, the essential elements of narratives…etc.
I didn’t see any advanced studio photography in your portfolio, as all the examples are travel photography using available light. While available light photography will hone your compositional skills and your 3D visualization work taught you how to light architecture, I didn’t see any work in your portfolio that showed effective lighting of people for expressing moods, emotions, or achieve specific aesthetic goals, or how to artistically manipulate values in creative ways to achieve what would otherwise be impossible just by studying real life or realism.
I think the week on visual narrative would be absolutely critical to your future as an art director, because as an art director, it is your responsibility to figure out how to communicate emotions and ideas and visual stories in ways that have the strongest emotional and intellectual resonance. This applies to everything you do as an artist, not just for your job. The heart and soul of your work is most personal and poignant aspect of who you are as an artist, and too many people never think about it and just think about creating pretty pictures.
The week on expressive characters, stylization, and aesthetics is also extremely important, because it is directly related to effective body language, facial expressions, and the elements of beauty–all of these things will be involved when you are trying to work with the director, stylist, DP…etc to achieve specific looks and feelings in the films you’ll art direct. The sets and props are like characters themselves and how the actors interact dynamically with them and how the entire scene with the actors in them will look will be a big part of your art direction, so the more you learn about expressiveness and aesthetics the better you will be able to interface with others. There’s also a section that focuses on the differences between Asian and western ideals of feminine and masculine beauty. As a westerner art directing in China, this will be invaluable to you.
These are just some of the stuff off the top of my head, and there’s a lot more stuff you’ll discover during the 8 weeks that will be very useful to the next phase of your career. I see that you also do 2D and concept art, and if that aspect of your work is important to you at all, then I think you’re going to love this workshop.
Edward was one of the beginners in my last class, and even though he was behind most students in terms of skill and knowledge, he fought hard and kept up with everyone every single week. He never got discouraged when the assignments he turned in weren’t as well executed as the more advanced students. He also totally trusted in how I would help him reach his goals, and whenever I had critiques and suggestions, he took them to heart and really tried to apply them to his work.
So it doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner–it only matters how badly you want to become a better artist, and how hard you are willing to work at it. When the workshop is over, you would’ve also learned how to not only work hard, but also be smart about it so you can improve in a fraction of the time it takes others who haven’t learned how to work and learn smart.
[QUOTE=Lunatique]I looked at portfolio, and I think you will be surprised by how much you will get out of the workshop. There are very advanced concepts in the workshop that mystifies even advanced professional artists who are veteran in the industry, and based on what I’ve seen in your portfolio, your current experience in photography and architectural visualization will probably not be enough if you are going to be art directing, as art directing involves many aspects that’s not necessarily purely visual–a lot of it has to do with understanding of style, aesthetics, taste, the essential elements of narratives…etc.
Hi Robert,
your reply simply blew me away, I’m in for sure Thank you for taking time and writing back.
Sorry I didn’t want to be me,me,me. I guess I needed to hear what you have said. I really appreciate that and looking forward to the course.
By the way I was never impressed by the studio photography, it seems to lack genuine feel and emotional background. Everything is set and prepared, that part somehow bothers me. I understand what you are saying about setting up the light and creating the mood but still - its just seem bit empty.
I don’t know, I think I might change my mind but capturing life situations in real time and natural light appeals more to me.
Just signed up.
I’m very exited, my gut told me to do this and feel and come to understand, that you Robert really want to convey your knowledge and skill. And that you are very dedicated, the last is key for any teacher.
My 3d sculpting skills are better than 2d drawing skills. My 3d skills seems to come more natural.
I know that when my 2d skills get better, my 3d skills will accelerate also.
I want to become a good 2d artist. 3d will be used to bring thing to live in productions.
I agree that available light is the most natural, and you’ll see from my own photography that I favor a natural look as well for candid shots and travel photography. But because film productions are highly contrived, the technical and artistic knowledge/skills behind studio lighting can be used in many ways, and very often they are used in seamless and invisible ways so that the audience can’t even tell there was any artificial lighting used. That is how skilled photographers use studio lighting–to create the illusion of natural lighting, when it’s anything but.
In most movies, just about every single shot you ever see on the screen in any movie is fake, with very few exceptions, yet they can look so natural when done right. Even a typical daylight scene will have light reflectors to fill in drastic cast shadows from the bright sun. There’s very often a large diffuser above all the actors to soften the harsh direct sunlight. Even tracking shots of people just walking down the street will have the crew holding large reflectors following them every step of the way. And interior scenes are about as fake as it gets. The lights that you can seen in the shots are far brighter than normal household lights, and lots of studio lights are used to reinforce or fake very natural looks. Night scenes are the most fake of them all, because there’s no way in hell you can get fast enough shutter speed using available light at night, so a whole arsenal of studios lights are place throughout the set to fake entire night exteriors, lighting up the trees, the people…etc so it looks like there’s bright enough moonlight. All of that falls under the umbrella of advanced studio lighting. And in skilled hands, they can look extremely natural and artistic. In fact, without knowledge in advanced studio lighting, you cannot effectively DP on any halfway decent movie. If you are going to interface with the DP, then it would be a good idea really know what the DP does.
But of course, if you are after “authentic” photojournalism, then you are pretty much restricted to available light. But even then, often when there IS the opportunity to use a fill-flash or reflector, even photojournalists will use them, because otherwise they may end up with a back-lit dark mess. It really depends on the context and the situation though. There are times you want that dark silhouette without any details.
I also participated in the first run of this workshop. I’ve tried to think for several days of how to best describe how pleased I was with it. Unfortunately, words fail me. Best I can manage is that I’m extremely grateful I was able to take it. I heartily recommend this workshop, even if you’re a beginner. As others have said, do try to set as much time aside for it in order to participate as much as you can. You learn a lot from each other, and the amount of teacher interaction I got was stellar. Nobody worked harder than Rob during the class.
Hi Robert, really looking forward to this workshop. I’m wondering if it will make me a better Photoshop warrior. I’m currently engaged in my 14th battle in the istock Steel Cage (my username there is crazychristina). Although I’ve improved a lot since my first battle, my work is still very pedestrian and lacking finesse. Naturally I want to compete with the best. My best work so far is probably this one.
This is only one of my artistic interests, but it’s a lot of fun and I’ve been using it as a way to try to become a bit more creative. I am also a contributor to istock. My portfolio is[%22,%22size%22:%22Vector%20Image%22,%22priceOption%22:%22All%22%7D,%7B%22type%22:%22Flash%22,%22size%22:%22Flash%20Document%22,%22priceOption%22:%22All%22%7D,%7B%22type%22:%22Video%22,%22size%22:%22All%22,%22priceOption%22:%221%22%7D,%7B%22type%22:%22Standard%20Audio%22,%22size%22:%22All%22,%22priceOption%22:%221%22%7D,%7B%22type%22:%22Pump%20Audio%22,%22size%22:%22All%22,%22priceOption%22:%221%22%7D]&showTitle=true&showContributor=true&showDownload=true"] here](http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?action=file&userID=1604425&order=6&fileTypeSizePrice=[%7B%22type%22:%22Image%22,%22size%22:%22All%22,%22priceOption%22:%221%22%7D,%7B%22type%22:%22Illustration%20[Vector). Mostly boring food photography at the moment.
I was a little hesitant to sign up for this course given that I am mostly interested in producing 3D animations and not necessarily any form of drawing, but after reading a lot of the reviews and glowing comments here, I’m now really excited to get started.
I’ve never taken an art course in my life and up until now have just pieced together information here and there from tutorials, lectures and forum posts. I’ve had quite a few projects sitting in the back of my mind, waiting to be created, but have held on to them until I had the necessary understanding to see them become reality. So, I’m hoping that a course like this will really take the rudimentary knowledge and give it a much needed push in the right direction.
I read today the whole thread, and I got every information that I’m interested about.
So there are few obstacles:
[ul]
[li]Registration started few days ago and only 6 places are left
[/li][li]My friend won’t borrow a tablet (he put it onto the marketplace and I’ll be very happy if he doesn’t sell it)
[/li][li]My mum won’t give me in advance money
[/li][/ul]
I have the will to attend this workshop, I saw some great posto of Lunatique, so nothing else is stopping me to attend this workshop!
Absolutely. Not only will it improve your workflow technically, it’ll also change the way you think creatively as an artist, and that is one of the most overlooked elements. Very few workshop try to teach creativity, and we’ll tackle it head on in the first week and throughout the workshop. Too many people create images that are simply pretty but have no soul, no meaning, and no value beyond being disposable eye candy–we aim to push beyond that and actually have our artworks mean something not only to ourselves, but to create emotional and intellectual resonance in the viewer.
Also, don’t forget about the extremely important foundations of visual art, such as creating compelling and entertaining composition, effective lighting, strong colors, expressive characters…etc. They are all major elements of the workshop.
Don’t worry too much about it. I think as long as there’s demand for this workshop, I’ll go on teaching it. I highly doubt the second run will be the last one. The fact the spaces are going very fast is because people now realize the value of this workshop, and the testimonials from the previous students are proof of that.
The workshop is for improving as an artist overall, so that includes everything. The only week that strictly focuses on expressive characters, stylization, aesthetics…etc is week six, while all other weeks are all-encompassing.
From what I know about those tablets, they’ll be fine.
I don’t think so. Just practice with the tablet for an hour or so a day and you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly. There’s still a few weeks until the class starts. I would suggest you not only explore using a tablet, but also the different brush settings like controlling the opacity and brush size with pen pressure, and the various other settings–just treat the brush settings like a playground/science lab and experiment/have fun.
I would also highly recommend you review the Loomis books again before the class starts, as it’ll help prepare you for this workshop.
I also signed up after reading this thread. I’m mostly a 3d gal and was worried that since I haven’t done any 2d in ages I would be too much of a beginner, but after reading the testimonials I’m now looking forward to taking this course.
I think it would be a great infusion of knowledge, especially for someone starting out.
