Some perspective final assignments from our Term 1 students. Man, glad I'm not a student anymore! These usually take about 20+ hours to complete. Hand plotted using rulers on A3 paper. These are impressive.
Shakir is correct. They are not allowed to copy a photo directly, but reference is required (in this case: Buddhist temples). Students actually have to turn in all the underlay plotting drawings as well (not shown here); those are crazy looking drawings with hundreds of plot lines all over the place.
The key is in the foundation courses. Skipping this step is a major handicap for those who want to learn - it's kinda like learning physics without knowing basic math first (every step will become a guess...instead of going in with full confidence).
Once the students pick up the hardcore foundations, they advance down the correct path. This was exactly the type of education I received as well back at ACCD.
Yeah, some of the students make amazing transformations during the year. But it takes a lot of hard work and countless all-nighters.
Do you know another way of learning the basics except a study on a university or academy? I'm asking, because I'm in a fulltime job right know and wanna switch carrier but I need to learn everything beside the job and that is pretty hard. I know that I have choose a hard way but I just wanna learn correctly!
Read lots of books and practice a lot? I am in a similar position, get home from work about 8pm every night, trying to teach myself digital painting! It's very hard without a mentor to tell you where you're going wrong, the progress is slow.
Feng love all of the work you post. Thanks for sharing!!
@mike I would suggest all of Fengs Gnomon Dvds and also all of Scott Robertsons Dvds. He Teaches basic perspective to how to render surfaces. Thats a good place to start in my opinion. I have learned lots from those dvds and I understand the drawthrough method. But like Feng says in the free tutorials, its hard to stay disciplined without the pressure of school.
Learning on your own is possible (there are some good examples out there). However, it requires a serious effort. Doing a few hours a day really isn't gonna cut it. If you really want to make a career switch, you need to put yourself in a stressful situation first. By having a job, you have a backup...therefore the pressure is not there. For me, I dropped out of a very good university to pursue a career in design - so it left me with a "all or nothing" mentality going in. People achieve great things when under pressure (I've seen this over and over with students).
So if you can, perhaps work only part time (3-4 hour job per day...or not work at all), just enough to pay bills (or sell a car or something and use that money to fund your living costs). Then work around the clock to learn and practice. It sounds bold, but this is the pressure that's required. Careers are not handed to anyone; it's earned through hard work.
Of course this is a huge risk, but that's the chance we all took when deciding to go down this career path.
Thanks for the answer, I know that from my self, when I'm in a real stressful situation, I can work much better and more efficient. But the problem is, that I need the job fulltime to save money for a later study here in germany, or maybe at the FZDS but that is the far future. I really wanna learn and I know that there is a lot to learn, I just wanna do it the right way.
Feng Thanks for sharing thoughts about stressful situation. It really useful to know, some people have illusions that it's possible to get good skills just doing something 1 or 3 hours per day.
When I see this, I feel pretty small with absolutely no talent :(!! But thanks for sharing Feng, these are really great!!!
ReplyDeleteWere the students allowed to use references for this (copying a photo)?
ReplyDelete@ Ender- I don't believe copying, considering in several videos Feng has said no copying allowed but for sure references was used to study.
ReplyDeleteGood post though.
@Ender
ReplyDeleteShakir is correct. They are not allowed to copy a photo directly, but reference is required (in this case: Buddhist temples). Students actually have to turn in all the underlay plotting drawings as well (not shown here); those are crazy looking drawings with hundreds of plot lines all over the place.
@Hav0cc
ReplyDeleteThe key is in the foundation courses. Skipping this step is a major handicap for those who want to learn - it's kinda like learning physics without knowing basic math first (every step will become a guess...instead of going in with full confidence).
Once the students pick up the hardcore foundations, they advance down the correct path. This was exactly the type of education I received as well back at ACCD.
Yeah, some of the students make amazing transformations during the year. But it takes a lot of hard work and countless all-nighters.
@Feng
ReplyDeleteDo you know another way of learning the basics except a study on a university or academy? I'm asking, because I'm in a fulltime job right know and wanna switch carrier but I need to learn everything beside the job and that is pretty hard. I know that I have choose a hard way but I just wanna learn correctly!
Hand drawn perspectives, fantastic!
ReplyDelete@ Mike
Read lots of books and practice a lot? I am in a similar position, get home from work about 8pm every night, trying to teach myself digital painting! It's very hard without a mentor to tell you where you're going wrong, the progress is slow.
Man...your students are rocking it hard Feng.
ReplyDeleteSome of the best students are inspired by the greatest instructors. Keep rocking it Feng, thanks for sharing!
Thanks John,
ReplyDeleteWish I can attend that Red Engine event. I might be in LA in the fall, so I'll definitely try to stop by and say hi.
Feng love all of the work you post. Thanks for sharing!!
ReplyDelete@mike I would suggest all of Fengs Gnomon Dvds and also all of Scott Robertsons Dvds. He Teaches basic perspective to how to render surfaces. Thats a good place to start in my opinion. I have learned lots from those dvds and I understand the drawthrough method. But like Feng says in the free tutorials, its hard to stay disciplined without the pressure of school.
Amazing
ReplyDeleteGreat job.
But hard to guess that it took so much time
@Mike
ReplyDeleteLearning on your own is possible (there are some good examples out there). However, it requires a serious effort. Doing a few hours a day really isn't gonna cut it. If you really want to make a career switch, you need to put yourself in a stressful situation first. By having a job, you have a backup...therefore the pressure is not there. For me, I dropped out of a very good university to pursue a career in design - so it left me with a "all or nothing" mentality going in. People achieve great things when under pressure (I've seen this over and over with students).
So if you can, perhaps work only part time (3-4 hour job per day...or not work at all), just enough to pay bills (or sell a car or something and use that money to fund your living costs). Then work around the clock to learn and practice. It sounds bold, but this is the pressure that's required. Careers are not handed to anyone; it's earned through hard work.
Of course this is a huge risk, but that's the chance we all took when deciding to go down this career path.
@Feng
ReplyDeleteThanks for the answer, I know that from my self, when I'm in a real stressful situation, I can work much better and more efficient. But the problem is, that I need the job fulltime to save money for a later study here in germany, or maybe at the FZDS but that is the far future. I really wanna learn and I know that there is a lot to learn, I just wanna do it the right way.
Feng
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing thoughts about stressful situation.
It really useful to know, some people have illusions that it's possible to get good skills
just doing something 1 or 3 hours per day.