Breaking news! There are some awesome new art classes being offered online…but you better sign up fast before all the spaces are filled. The current courses at the new website Schoolism.com include:
Digital Painting with Bobby Chiu
Character Design with Stephen Silver
Drawing the Female Figure with Alberto Ruiz
(I wouldn’t be surprised if more classes/instructors are eventually added).
These instructors are some of the top people in the biz. Each week there is a new lesson/demo presented as an online video tutorial which you can watch at your leisure. There are also weekly assignments, and (this is the best part) the instructors will give you a personalized one-on-one critique of your work every week (although I’m not sure how that will work. Chats? Phone calls? Video cam? You get a special schoolism.com mailbox when you sign up, so I’m guessing it will be an e-mail critique. But elsewhere on the site the critiques are referred to as “discussions” so who knows?). (EDIT: Instructor Stephen Silver writes on his blog that his students wll receive personal video feedback from me as I draw over top of your assignments.”
The classes aren’t cheap, but if you are serious about making your living as an artist this promises to be a good investment.
But you better hurry. Spots are filling up. For example, there are only fifteen spots for Stephen Silver’s character design class. Even though his particular class doesn’t start until August, registration just started yesterday and this afternoon I was already student number 9. Although I might have been the 9th student to sign up for any of the classes, or the 9th student for his specific class. Not sure. Either way, don’t dawdle.