How to do art workshops

I subscribe to the “ImagineFX” magazine which helps build concept and illustration skills. Having a design background, I am not very skilled in the “finer” arts like painting. I have got a few magazine issues and have read through most of them. One part of the magazine that has baffled me is the “art workshops” section.

How are you suppose to do them? Just read them. Follow along? There is a lot missing in the steps!

I searched the internet and asked ImagineFX, but didn’t get any response. My mom is an art teacher at a grade school, so I asked her what she thought. According to her, the purpose of them is to learn the techniques and work flow of how different artists do there job.

Just do it!

After reading and thinking about them a lot. I think I have a good idea of what they are about.

The workshops appear much like tutorials.  They are made up of generally 10-20 screenshots and steps. The only difference is that there are huge gaps between steps. It isn’t a matter of going through a few steps and expecting it to look like the original. There is a lot of knowledge and understanding you have to know to make it look good. They give pointers with their process, but don’t go into the details too much.

Here are some free pdfs that ImagineFX has on there website of old workshops.

Just reading about the techniques is only part of the learning process. You really have to DO the workshops to get the most out of them. It seems reasonable that if you just read the workshops, you will pretty much get it and be able to apply it to future paintings. That is what I thought.

Not true.

Working through a workshop gives far more understanding and advancement than just reading. It is much more frustrating, but more rewarding. With the last one I completed, I redid every step about 3-5 times before I get it decently right. It still isn’t nearly as good as the original, but I learned enough from it. Here is my “final” version below.

My version

It pales in comparison to the master version above, but I learned a lot with the process. I changed her outfit a little bit to make it more interesting (it is boring when you are trying to copy something exactly). I started out with the rough sketch that he provided on the DVD, but then did everything myself in Photoshop after that.

You really start seeing a lot of details when you work through it as well. I didn’t really notice the “magic energy balls” that were going around the image much before. The cards and many objects also have a lot of motion blur to take away emphasis and show motion and action. The radial blur coming off of the helix by the spear head. The type of things that give the final thing a “wow” factor.

Her face is kind of bothering me with the eye, mouth, and shading details, but I can get better at that later. I should have added more green lighting from the bottom, as well as use more color in my shadows. Oh well. Next time.