Concept art with Dmitry Klyushkin (Russian, Eng subs)

Learn to think like a concept artist, coming up with and bringing to life original ideas.

Do you want to learn how to create characters without relying on other people’s work? Then this course is for you. During the training, you will improve both your technical skills and creative thinking, which are essential for any artist. In the lessons, you will learn how to convey the story and character of the hero through color, shape, and details. Plus, you will find your own style and add 17 expressive concepts to your portfolio, which your future employer or client will surely appreciate.

Dmitry Klyushkin. Among our teachers, there are no theorists, only practitioners. Dmitry Klyushkin is no exception. Dmitry has worked on Halo remasters and projects for Ubisoft, Applibot, and NetEase. He has 29,000 followers on ArtStation.

The course can help you become a sought-after concept artist. In 6 months, you will improve your drawing skills and learn how to quickly come up with original concept art for characters and environments. The concept art course will help you work without clichés and stereotypes, almost without relying on other people’s work.

COURSE OVERVIEW

• You will be studying under the guidance of Dmitry Klyushkin – a well-known concept artist and experienced teacher.
• You will learn how to come up with and bring to life original concepts.
• You will create 17 works that you can use in your portfolio.
• You will study different methods of generating ideas and presenting them.
• You will develop your own style and individuality.
• You will learn how to simplify and complicate design, stylize and exaggerate.

WHO IS A CONCEPT ARTIST?

A concept artist is someone who creates concept art, which is used to determine the visual direction of content in games or films. Based on the concept art created by the artist, characters, locations, and objects will be designed.

Many concept artists create their work based on the work of others, such as finding a suitable character online and then creating something similar based on it. While technical skills are important for creating such concepts, our course focuses more on creative thinking and the ability to find the right solutions.

Of course, if your technical skills are not good enough, it is unlikely that you will be hired by a studio, even if you generate excellent ideas. But you can always improve your skills through perseverance and hard work, and thanks to this course, you will gain something more important – individuality. In the modern world, this is what a creative professional will always be much less in demand without.

WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?

This course is for beginner artists who have already been drawing with a graphics tablet for at least a year.

If you have less experience, it will be more difficult for you as we do not teach the basics, and you will have to learn them on your own as you go. However, we cannot forbid you from enrolling in the course if you are motivated and confident in your abilities. In general, nothing is impossible – just be prepared for difficulties.

If you look at the works of previous course students, you will see that there are concepts of completely different levels of execution. But even in the less professional works, you can see an interesting idea – and this is exactly the goal we are striving for.

Although the course will focus on thinking rather than specific tools, it will be built on specific assignments. Dmitry himself will work in Photoshop and SAI, but you can use the programs that are convenient for you personally: we will teach artistic principles that are independent of software.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

By the end of the course, you will learn how to create original designs and understand them, significantly improve your drawing skills, and develop your own style – all of which will greatly increase the chance that clients and employers will take notice of you.

However, all of this is only possible if you approach your studies responsibly and devote not just 15 minutes a day, but, for example, two hours a day. We recommend spending no less than eight hours a week on the course.

Don’t get upset if you’re not succeeding or if you’re not being hired – just keep drawing. If you have the passion, then eventually everything will work out for you – come to the course to find out specifically what your problems are as an artist. And if you don’t have the passion, then maybe you’ve chosen the wrong direction – perhaps being an artist isn’t for you.

WHAT YOU WILL HAVE IN THE END

At the end of each lesson, you will need to create a new concept, and by the end of the course, you will have 17 diverse pieces of artwork. You can work further on any of them and use them in your portfolio. As a course project, you will need to draw a king’s helmet, and for your final diploma work, you will create a full-fledged character.

CURRICULUM OVERVIEW

The course is divided into three main blocks – basics, thinking, and character.

BLOCK 1. BASICS

This part of the course introduces basic skills without which further work is meaningless. All subsequent lessons will be built on this foundation.

• You will create your own character and its environment: companions, enemies, architecture, objects of worship, and surrounding flora in various qualities: heavy, light, dynamic, evil and kind, with different ways of presentation and development inside the silhouette.
• You will learn how to easily and quickly generate a wide variety of variations, even without having rich experience in drawing. Each object will be built in volume and thought out its internal composition with references, as well as learn how much they can be used, and where they are overused.
• You will learn a few secrets of working with the line.

BLOCK 2. THINKING

In this stage, you will try out different ways of generating ideas and variations of their presentation, as well as learn how the object’s history affects its appearance.

You will learn to simplify and complicate the design, stylize and hyperbolize in practice. This part of the course is the core of concept artist’s thinking.

BLOCK 3. CHARACTER

In this block, we will study two approaches to character design: quick and in-depth. In addition, you will learn how to create unique creatures and costumes, as well as visually convey the character’s story.