Coming up to my last year at Brock, I've been hunting around for "practical" courses to add on to my more academic pursuits at university, in the hopes of landing a position within the next few years with a game-design company.
One of the skills I was hoping to develop was that of my artistic abilities.
I have a background in traditional art (starting from early childhood involving the side of a bookcase and an unattended tube of lipstick), and I've been trying hard to get better at it on my own time for many years - taking as many art-related courses as possible while in school in the hopes of gaining further instruction on how to improve.
At university, however, I made the mistake of assuming I would be able to continue that pursuit as thoroughly as I would have liked...
Granted, my program allows for a certain amount of freedom in being heavily cross-listed (which lets me sneak into things like Visual Arts courses), but it seems that the majority is focused on the programing aspect of video game design over the artistic and conceptual aspects... And for free time-practice?
No.
Just no.
So, I reasoned, when I had gone as far as I wished with university, I would go on to pursue artistic and conceptually-based college courses to compliment my theory and academic education.
Sound like a fairly good plan, yes?
There has, however, been a... hiccup.
One skill that is absolutely vial for those who want to pursue conceptual design for video games is that of Digital Painting. If one researches concept art online, a large proportion of the finished projects used in the development of models and levels are completed (if not entirely composed) with virtual tools, ie. they're digital paintings. Logically, I thought, I should pursue instruction in that venue through a college in good standing and develop my skills to a more competitive level... I have, as of yet, been unsuccessful in finding an institution that supports this medium for more than a short period in a larger class.
Why, I wonder, is that?
Digital painting (in the right hands) produces industry grade results... it's quick and nowhere near as messy or costly as the majority of traditional mediums... and takes roughly the same amount of time to complete (barring oils, which take forever to dry).
I seems to me, that this absence of professional/academic instruction may be the result of several factors.
The most irritating of them is the bias I see in the comments of many traditional artists concerning the digital medium. In pursuing a digitally-based career, it has been more and more evident to me that the vast majority of the population doesn't really understand that computers - despite their appearance of having a mind of their own, or the ability to perform almost magical functions with the press of a single button... are machines that run off of programs... and as a first-year programing professor once told the bleary-eyed throng assembled in his 8am class:
"Computers are like any other tool. They're stupid. They only do what you tell them to."
So through that logic, digital painting is quite difficult, because the program won't do anything remotely useful unless told explicitly by the user - much the same may be said of a paint brush or pencil.
The skill and knowledge of the one wielding the tool is what determines (most) of the works value
Digital Painting is, by no means simple or easy... in some ways, the tools used (i.e. the computers and tablets required to create the work) are more complicated and difficult to learn - and so, Digital Painting is easily something worthy of serious instruction.
Thankfully, I'm not alone in this particular thought process, and over the last 6 years or so, I've noticed a trend of people endeavoring to share their experience, knowledge and techniques with the general public. In posting videos, website content, selling books and many other modes of instruction, I found that there were resources available, where those that had gone before me and had made progress and discovered ways to achieve proficiency with the medium of Digital Painting all on their own after years and years.
So, while the internet community sees and understands the value of Digital Painting as a means of competing in the ever-fierce arena of the art world, even if academic institutions, (for the most part) haven't yet.
Below is a list of links to sites that people have constructed and spent time developing to share their knowledge:
here
tutorial
One of the skills I was hoping to develop was that of my artistic abilities.
I have a background in traditional art (starting from early childhood involving the side of a bookcase and an unattended tube of lipstick), and I've been trying hard to get better at it on my own time for many years - taking as many art-related courses as possible while in school in the hopes of gaining further instruction on how to improve.
At university, however, I made the mistake of assuming I would be able to continue that pursuit as thoroughly as I would have liked...
Granted, my program allows for a certain amount of freedom in being heavily cross-listed (which lets me sneak into things like Visual Arts courses), but it seems that the majority is focused on the programing aspect of video game design over the artistic and conceptual aspects... And for free time-practice?
No.
Just no.
So, I reasoned, when I had gone as far as I wished with university, I would go on to pursue artistic and conceptually-based college courses to compliment my theory and academic education.
Sound like a fairly good plan, yes?
There has, however, been a... hiccup.
One skill that is absolutely vial for those who want to pursue conceptual design for video games is that of Digital Painting. If one researches concept art online, a large proportion of the finished projects used in the development of models and levels are completed (if not entirely composed) with virtual tools, ie. they're digital paintings. Logically, I thought, I should pursue instruction in that venue through a college in good standing and develop my skills to a more competitive level... I have, as of yet, been unsuccessful in finding an institution that supports this medium for more than a short period in a larger class.
Digital painting (in the right hands) produces industry grade results... it's quick and nowhere near as messy or costly as the majority of traditional mediums... and takes roughly the same amount of time to complete (barring oils, which take forever to dry).
I seems to me, that this absence of professional/academic instruction may be the result of several factors.
The most irritating of them is the bias I see in the comments of many traditional artists concerning the digital medium. In pursuing a digitally-based career, it has been more and more evident to me that the vast majority of the population doesn't really understand that computers - despite their appearance of having a mind of their own, or the ability to perform almost magical functions with the press of a single button... are machines that run off of programs... and as a first-year programing professor once told the bleary-eyed throng assembled in his 8am class:
"Computers are like any other tool. They're stupid. They only do what you tell them to."
So through that logic, digital painting is quite difficult, because the program won't do anything remotely useful unless told explicitly by the user - much the same may be said of a paint brush or pencil.
The skill and knowledge of the one wielding the tool is what determines (most) of the works value
Digital Painting is, by no means simple or easy... in some ways, the tools used (i.e. the computers and tablets required to create the work) are more complicated and difficult to learn - and so, Digital Painting is easily something worthy of serious instruction.
Thankfully, I'm not alone in this particular thought process, and over the last 6 years or so, I've noticed a trend of people endeavoring to share their experience, knowledge and techniques with the general public. In posting videos, website content, selling books and many other modes of instruction, I found that there were resources available, where those that had gone before me and had made progress and discovered ways to achieve proficiency with the medium of Digital Painting all on their own after years and years.
So, while the internet community sees and understands the value of Digital Painting as a means of competing in the ever-fierce arena of the art world, even if academic institutions, (for the most part) haven't yet.
Below is a list of links to sites that people have constructed and spent time developing to share their knowledge:
here
tutorial
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