If you haven't yet read through Lesson 0, you absolutely should before moving forward. It covers important information on how these lessons are meant to be used, and highlights common pitfalls many students encounter that can hinder their progress as they move forwards.
As you may have noticed, Drawabox is presented in both videos and text. This is because the content we teach here is dense, and it helps students to absorb the material when it is delivered in multiple formats.
While we are working to make the videos more concise and to touch on all the same major points in both text and video format, as of February 2021 we are only just beginning revising the video content. Most of the videos are older - some by a year, some by a few - and many of them are not as up-to-date as the text content. They are still useful, but should not be treated as a replacement for the text.
Expect to both watch the videos and read the text, in order to get the most out of this resource.
Now, I understand that some students may have trouble going through the written material. Some people just don't like reading, but others do have legitimate difficulties and we do not want to leave them behind.
While we're doing our best to revise the video content to make it as complete as the text, members of the community - including ScyllaStew and crispycweed - are creating "audiobook" readings of the material.
Not every page has a corresponding audio version - in fact, the majority of them don't, and as I update the material the readings they do have may fall out of date. Still, they are working hard to put that content out, so be sure to show them your love. Moreover, if you are interested in doing this yourself, let me know by email as you release videos, and I will add links to them.
For those recordings that do exist, you'll see the recordings linked at the bottom of the page.
Worry not! A student contacted me to draw my attention to Audiblogs - a Google Chrome extension that will, in a reasonably human-like voice (with unexpectedly subtle inflections to sound more natural), read out content from any website to you.
I've tested it with some Drawabox pages, and it seems to work fairly well - so be sure to try it out. I do however recommend that you scroll through the Drawabox page as you listen, in case the AI algorithm misses anything, and to ensure that you're focusing properly.
So- if you've read through all of Lesson 0, are ready to follow the instructions of the tasks laid before you, and to both watch the videos and read through the text, let's get started. You can click the link at the bottom right of the page to move onto the next section.
While I have a massive library of non-instructional art books I've collected over the years, there's only a handful that are actually important to me. This is one of them - so much so that I jammed my copy into my overstuffed backpack when flying back from my parents' house just so I could have it at my apartment. My back's been sore for a week.
The reason I hold this book in such high esteem is because of how it puts the relatively new field of game art into perspective, showing how concept art really just started off as crude sketches intended to communicate ideas to storytellers, designers and 3D modelers. How all of this focus on beautiful illustrations is really secondary to the core of a concept artist's job. A real eye-opener.
Having your work reviewed by others is critical, as those who are just starting out aren't in a position to properly judge their own work, and won't be for quite some time. Don't be afraid to show your struggles - it's by analyzing your mistakes that we can help you grow. Perfect homework is not what we're looking for; we just need it to be complete.
There are currently two places you can get your work critiqued by the community - Reddit and our Discord Chat Server.
Both of these are completely free.
If you are interested in receiving extra help, I critique the work of those who support Drawabox on Patreon.
All of these private critiques are done through reddit, in specific threads where students post their work as a comment, including a link to their work (often hosted on Imgur, though most image hosts are okay).
My requirements are more strict than the free community critiques:
The minimum pledge for this lesson is $5.00/month. The orange button above will take you to the reddit thread for this lesson, you can post a link to your work there and I'll be notified. Once I catch the submission, I'll add it to this backlog spreadsheet.
Pledges are collected at the beginning of the following month, but you may start submitting your work immediately. If you're a new patron, I'll be reaching out to your shortly to collect your reddit username.
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