We often get asked about which classes we took and/or recommend. So we compiled a very comprehensible list, ranging from affordable to high end courses, separated by types of class, and with a small summary of what we thought of each experience.
• Online Schools:
We’re starting with online schools because they are the most complex, complete courses. Specific tutorials can only get you so far, but a well thought out class, with an experienced and talented teacher, is what can get you to another lever as quickly as possible – in our experience, at least!
The Oatley Academy
Classes we took: Magic Box, Painting Drama, It’s Aliiive
Created by Chris Oatley, former Disney character designer, OA has some of the best classes we’ve ever took. If you’re not familiar with the school itself, you might’ve heard of Chris because of his world famous art podcasts, the Artcast, Paper Wings, Escape from Art Jail and others.
While Magic Box is self taught, with a subscription format different from the other classes at OA, all the other ones are mentored by Chris himself, alongside some great artists like Brett Bean, Sarah Marino, Justin Copeland and more.
Robotpencil Mentorship
Classes we took: Environment Design (and Character Design hopefully soon!)
This one was created by Anthony Jones, former concept artist at Blizzard. We took Kalen Chock’s class, one of his partners and teachers at Robotpencil, and we absolutely loved the production approach of it all. Kalen acted as our art director, and during the whole mentorship he would give us assignments and feedbacks as we were indeed working for a major company.
We’ve known friends who took AJ’s character design class and they were equally satisfied! You can choose between 1 and 2-month mentorships.
Schoolism
Classes we took: Gesture Drawing, Designing with Color and Light, Fundamentals of Lighting
Founded by Bobby Chiu and Kei Acedera, from Imaginism Studios, this is one of the most well-known online schools. With diverse content and teachers, you can find different approaches to similar subjects all in the same place, giving you a more global grasp of the many facets of art fundamentals.
They offer both mentored options and online subscriptions for self taught classes.
Other
Apart from the ones above, we’ve heard wonders of some other online classes, such as CGMA, Gnomon Workshop, SVS, The Illustration Masterclass, and so on.
• Gumroad Tutorials:
Anthony Jones: https://gumroad.com/robotpencil
Kalen Chock: https://gumroad.com/k04sk
Ryan Lang: https://gumroad.com/l/hUUX
David Colman: https://gumroad.com/davidsdoodles
John J. Park: https://gumroad.com/jparked
Tyler Edlin: https://gumroad.com/tyleredlinart
Alex Negrea: https://gumroad.com/alexnegrea
Victoria Ying: https://gumroad.com/eca
Mike Butkus: https://gumroad.com/mikebutkus
• Skillshare Tutorials:
Denis Zilber: https://www.skillshare.com/profile/Denis-Zilber/6556755/teaching
Tom Bancroft: https://www.skillshare.com/tombancroft/teaching
Patrick Brown: https://www.skillshare.com/profile/Patrick-Brown/6619254/teaching
Charlie Bowater: https://www.skillshare.com/profile/Charlie-Bowater/1123950/teaching
You can also look for your favorite artists on Patreon, take free basic art lessons on Ctrl+Paint, I mean… there’s no shortage of content online for you to learn whatever you like, may that be 3D, digital painting, photobashing, character design… I do mean everything!
As a bonus, we’d also like to give an extra tip on a Gumroad that can’t be left aside: Kyle T. Webster’s brush packs. They are what’s best on the market right now in terms of brushes, if you either want to simulate traditional painting or not, his megapack has a whole range of styles and possibilities enough to make your head spin!
We’ve bought it, I don’t know, 2 weeks ago, and haven’t had the time to experiment everything yet!
Aaaand I think that’s it!
If you have any suggestions or remember a course/mentorship that we haven’t mentioned here, feel free to write below on the comment section! We hope that this was helpful and gave you a glimpse of what can be accomplished if you just look for it; there’s plenty of great ways to learn, it’s just a matter of finding the artist of style you want to learn from, and find a program that fits your pocket!
