Foundation Patreon – Designing Buildings- Part 1 – Studies by Charles Lin

This course is a solid pick if you want to get better at drawing and analyzing buildings without getting lost in theory. It looks built around architectural sketching, building studies, and the kind of visual decision-making that matters in concept art and environment design work.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Study buildings with a clearer eye for shape, proportion, and structure.
• Build stronger architectural design ideas through observation and sketch-based analysis.
• Understand how Charles Lin approaches building design inside a broader foundation sketching workflow.

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic drawing fundamentals, perspective awareness, and some familiarity with design sketching.
• Tools: Adobe Photoshop or a similar drawing app; sketching setup or pen tablet can be reasonably inferred from Charles Lin’s digital design background and software use.
• Hardware: A computer capable of running digital painting software; a drawing tablet is a practical fit for this kind of sketch-driven workflow.

📝 Description

This one seems aimed at artists who need more mileage with building studies before jumping into polished environment pieces. Instead of pushing flashy final renders, the course appears to stay grounded in observation, breakdown, and design thinking, which is usually where weak architecture work gets exposed.

The Gumroad listing confirms that the package includes a 4 hour 15 minute lecture and demo plus JPG demo material, so the format is closer to a long-form workshop than a quick tip reel. It also notes that assignment feedback and blog access are not included, which matters if you are buying it as a standalone product rather than through the Patreon learning setup.

Charles Lin’s background helps explain the angle here. Public profile information describes him as an Australian concept artist with an industrial design background who has taught foundation sketching, perspective, environment, and character design, and has worked across education, film, television, and game development.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Artists who can already draw a bit and want better architecture design instincts for environments and concept sketches.
• Students who learn best from long demo-based instruction instead of short disconnected lessons.

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Charles Lin is an Australian concept artist and instructor with a background in industrial design. Public bio and resume information show experience across entertainment design and education since 2007, including teaching at Brainstorm School, RMIT University, and FZD-related roles, with coverage in perspective, environment design, and foundational visual communication.

He has also been listed as a design instructor for The Foundation Group, where he created online tutorials for entertainment design. That mix of production-facing design work and teaching experience makes him a good fit for a course centered on studying and designing buildings from first principles.

🏁 Final Result

• A set of stronger building studies and a clearer workflow for turning observation into usable architectural sketches for portfolio development and future environment design pieces.