I think a bit of preface is helpful beforehand, I am a North American Hobbyist 2D/3D character artist, I enjoy creating character design and translating my designs into a 3D gameready format. Here are some examples of my work:
DA: https://www.deviantart.com/robotelixa
Art Station: https://www.artstation.com/robot-elixa
I've never had an Art class, but not for lack of trying, I've taught myself how to do everything so far, never had artclasses being available or a college that fit my needs for what I wanted but not for lack of wanting mentorship. I've looked at a number of schools over the years and they all seem very expensive or far way and locked behind several years of credit hours learning things that aren't related directly to the craft of art like most colleges do only artschools seem far more expensive to boot. I was hoping there might be suggestions for Art Schools that operate in a more trade school oriented manor that had a specific focus on 2D/3D Digital Painting, Animation, VFX, Character, Graphic Design, 3D Modeling, Concept Art, Motion Graphics etc. A school that only cuts straight to the skills with the expectation of being employed in the art industry, I can only think of two schools that sort of operate this way but neither of them are in the US.
ThinkTank:
CGSpectrum: https://www.cgspectrum.com/ (Melbourne, Austrailia)
ThinkTank: https://www.tttc.ca/ (Vancouver, Canada)
During the beginning of 2020, I used my time to attempt polishing my skills to become more ready for professional work, I actually enrolled in "Marc Brunet's Art School" and some of his 3D courses and other courses I arranged for myself. I studied these courses for 7months 12 hours a day at one point in time, and suffered 2 burnouts, there was alot to learn and I do think it was mostly benificial, I didn't exactly find what I was looking for regarding having an ongoing teacher mentor relationship while learning, not having another set of eyes/ professional second opinion is probably why I overworked myself and burned out on things.
I've spent the past 7 years or so pondering all of my options for art education but, I feel I personally could benifit from connecting to a formal education setting with peers learning the same things to grow more efficiently and perhaps working alone may be a detriment in the long run. Self education has been ok, but I feel it's often an arduous process of running into problems without realizing it and slowly working through them, where mentorship would help quickly address and work through them, much of what I've learned could've been explained in a shorter time I feel with mentorship. My primary focus with art now, is to work on making steps away from hobbyist to becoming a professional industry/freelance artist with my work.
Any suggestions for schools that fit the critieria listed are appreciated, they don't necessarily have to be tradeschool format but I would like to know of good art schools that are really good at polishing a wide array of skills as I enjoy mixed media, being a 2D Illustration,3D Modeling,GraphicDesign,Character Design, VFX, oriented artist. I hope my post has been concise.
Thanks
Replies
CGMA comes to mind, afaik either campus (Academic partnerships) or online learning:
https://www.cgmasteracademy.com/corporate-services/#schools
Looking over the site so far I'm not sure how this works exactly it seems to be targeted towards studios that want to outsource training but doesnt seem to offer a curruculum or workshop page to view what's available.
Edit: I've found the courses but it seems they are pre recorded, I was also hoping for something with a formal setting to get peers to network and learn with as a possibility. I do think it's interesting for more supplimental courses, have you given this a try and if so how is the mentor feedback and correspondence?
Do a forum search for CGMA.
Apologies, I'd incorrectly linked corporate instead of course content plus mistakenly thought that there was onsite campus opportunities but at the moment appears to be not the case. Even though my recommendation is solely based off of previous comments/reviews shared by others, their online tuition is still delivered via trainers with established industry experience throughout either a two or three month duration, coupled with I believe competitive price point, as well.
Also, I'll agree perhaps supplementary too those virtual EDU resources you've already looked into so far.
Further info:
www.facebook.com/cgmasteracedemy
Thanks for your suggestions I didn't know about the Facebook group either ill keep these all im consideration. I wonder if there's a good place for student reviews.
If you've hadn't already, I'll strongly suggest checking out "The Rookies" there's a ton of current relevant info worth while trawling through together with a few student reviews:
https://discover.therookies.co/schools/
I have actually
I will continue to check them out but that's how I initially found that Think Tank and CGSpectrum Australia were pretty much the only things I was looking for. Thanks for reminding me about this one though.