#the oatley academy

[phantomfirefly]

I’m painting the very large spider thing that has haunted me the entire time leading up to it; ff14 art (and art sent to me by my buddies) is keeping me duct taped together. On a soul level. I don’t post much anymore because it feels like screaming into a void rather than connecting with people. I did this class for like three years (with a group i started doing classes on and off again a decade ago. I never went to art school so it is my formal education) and I could NOT manage to connect with people. I don’t know if it’s just how quiet I am (weird maybe?) but, except for one burgeoning friendship (fingers crossed it does not fade into the sunset) I just didn’t interest people and neither did my work. I mean that my art, for everyone, was always just… strangely constructed or at best “ambitious” (which is the nice way of saying it’s way beyond what I can pull off). Other people were making comics or animation bibles or picture books and I was just stuck making another portfolio piece that was too weird. The hard part here is that they were right… idk I try to embrace some of the off the wall elements and let my art directors tell me to cool my jets and and put things more normally on the thirds or not turn dragons into pugs. I couldn’t bring in my work work for games because i can’t do all the stuff that my teacher wants if the client wants me to do something different. Anyway with the kids home I wrapped up my year, which ended at the same time my kids were home from summer and stopped going to class to keep the kids from demolishing the house. This isn’t going well. BUT they thought I was supposed to go for longer. At first I think they mean my year didn’t end in may, that I have some semester left; no they wanted me to go on for a whole entire new year, which apparently is 1000 dollars and they send me another subscription link. It’s a whole back and forth and they are super mad because they reserved this spot for a whole year just for me, and said they refused students for me an everything— so now these almost friends, and my mentor, and everyone involved in my formal art education has turned into a timeshare? With a harsher penalty than adobe has of canceling Photoshop? Anyway the spider has grounded Grim in this picture and she’s going to need her healer who has a macro that yells about an UwU fuzzy paw to rez her. I’m pretty sure that one is Doc or maybe Irene.

[ladygoofus]

Another banger art education video from The Oatley Academy.

[ergoshwampy]

First version of this piece was done back in 2020 during Painting Drama mentorship at Oatley Academy. After finishing this piece I reviewed it with my mentor Chris Oatley who had fantastic feedback. I knew it was worth it to go back and redo the illustration and include the feedback I got. It took me a bit of time to finish, life you know.... but finally, now that I am satisfied with it, I am ready to share with the world.

[sylki]

Finally posting some art...WHAT :0

Here’s a rabbit dinosaur hybrid creature I created for the OatleyAcademy Magic Box digital painting class!

FOR MORE FREQUENT ART UPDATES please check out my instagram, since I’m a lot better about uploading art there. :)

https://www.instagram.com/cylkie/

[darantha]

Finished up a assignment from the Magic Box course over at Oatley Academy; a fancy red panda :) Based on Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s painting of princess Alice!

[cloudedart]

Painted something for the first time in about a month... it’s nice to get back to this! ♥ I used the chisel brush set from OA’s Brush Club! They’re free and I love them

[zachsgotyourback]

Art dumpo of some schoolwork and doodles for funzies 

[meldrumart]

A long overdue study of the color yellow. 

Considering that I 1) Did this from a photo, 2) am way rusty in regards to traditional-style painting, and 3) took forever on this, I’m pleased with how it turned out and exercised my muscles.  I’m moving on to the next.

Notes to self:  1) Work on getting those really soft shadows.  2) aim for more measuring/ accuracy in initial drawing

That’s it for “yellow”~ thanks for the prompt, OA!

[theartofcamillecruz]

I just found your blog through a drawing of Adora you did and I really like your style! Where did you learn to draw?

Hi there! and thank you so much!

This is a bit of a complicated question to answer because there’s no one exact answer, but I’ll try!

I was self taught through anime for the early parts of my life (I think this is the case for a lot of artists today)

Eventually I did get formal education from an Art program (It was mostly art applied to advertising so they taught us design and composition in a very graphic design centric way, the first two years however, included classes on fundamentals, which were incredibly helpful in undoing a lot of the bad habits I’ve developed over the years)

The only thing was, professors from art schools tend to be very critical with anime inspired art (which I understand) but had me struggling to find a style that would appeal to them (it ended up looking somewhat like vintage pulp comics but not in a good way)

I graduated with a style I didn’t like and quite a lot of gaps in my art education so I started looking online for supplementary classes (I started with the free library on CTRL+Paint and eventually bought a few videos on specific things I wanted to learn, I also took a few classes on The Oatley Academy and Schoolism)

Also books! lots and lots of books!

For the most part however, I think what helped me most was finding artists online with styles I gravitated towards and trying to dissect what about it appealed to me and incorporating that into my own!

So it’s a mix of all those things, Style-wise my more recent influences come from western cartoons (mostly traditional Disney and Dreamworks animation from the 90s and early 2000s like Treasure Planet and El Dorado and anime-inspired cartoons like Avatar/LoK) as well as graphic novels and comics, and there are artists I tend to try and draw from when I can (Sophie Li, Mingue Hellen Chen, Nina Vakuneva among others)

Sorry for the long answer! but I hope that was helpful! (also terribly sorry it took a while, today was unexpectedly busy!) 

[kirasketch]

My finished “Fancy Animal” for Magic Box

based off Egyptian Girl by John Singer Sargent

[dearartdirector]

Thank you for answering people's questions in such detail! I really enjoy this blog and the work that you Mods put into it. Do you have any recommendations for other blogs/ websites similar to this one?

Thanks for the kind words. We put the time in because we really feel that this info needs to be out there. So many artists don’t get the career and business advice they need to be successful — even in art school! Our goal is to give artists the info they need to do all the self-promo and networking that’s critical to an art career as effectively as possible so they can get back to making more art!

That said, here’s the rest of the sites run by the same Secret Agent Art Directors of DearAD (some more secret than others):

Drawn + Drafted — the umbrella home page to all our educational projects

Make Your Art Work — our online classes 

The ProjectCast — our podcast with successful artist entrepreneurs

The Newsletter — sign up and hear about everything

we’re also on Twitter and Facebook

and then there’s also awesome places for art education:

Muddy Colors blog

Illustration Age resource page

SmART School, Pencil Kings, and Oatley Academy for more online classes

Advice on getting your personal projects produced and published at Art Order

That should keep you busy awhile!

—All Agents

[songsalive]

USA Songwriting Competition is pleased to announce a brand new book release: How to Write Better Songs: Songwriting Secrets from Award-Winning Songwriters, by Scott Ashley. People often ask: “How did our past winners of the USA Songwriting Competition do this: Scott Oatley, Jamie Alimorad, etc – songwriters from all over – wind up as Overall Grand Prize Winners?”

Award winning songwriters that have been featured in the book include: Ken Hirsch, Scott Oatley, Jamie Alimorad, Joe Hogue, Sean Petersen, Les Sampou, Meg Pfeiffer, Justin Ezzi, Sonny King, Jeff Roe, Steffani Bennett, Mary Beth Stone, Christie Lenée, Wilbur “B52” Levans, the family of the late Ari Gold, and the family of the late Ralph Murphy. This brand new book outlines the ways how award-winning songwriters do it. Also, shows quick way to writing songs, writing the hook, verse, chorus, bridge and more. Commentary from award winning songwriters and how to excel in Songwriting Competitions and more. “How to Write Better Songs” is a must-read for all songwriters and music artists.The book has just been released on Amazon (both Kindle eBook and Print versions). For more information about the book, visit here

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Scott Ashley is a songwriter and graduate of the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. He is a voting member of the Recording Academy (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences). He is currently working as the Artist Relations director with the USA Songwriting Competition and IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards).

ABOUT USA SONGWRITING COMPETITION USA Songwriting Competition has a long history of having winners getting recording and publishing contracts, have their songs placed on the charts as well as having their songs placed on film and television, and winning Grammy Awards.

USA Songwriting Competition first prize winner (2013 Competition) and finalist (2020 Competition) Joanie Leeds of New York, NY won a Grammy Award last year for Best Children’s Album.

Andrew Jannakos, Top Winner of 25th Annual USA Songwriting Competition (2020), was signed to Sony Music Nashville/RCA Nashville, hit #65 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts.

2018 Top Winner David Wilcox received radio airplay for his winning song “We Make the Away by Walking”.

2013 winner American Authors were signed to Island Records, and hit #1 on the Billboard Charts and went Triple Platinum, selling over 3 million copies. The top two winners of 2011: Nenna Yvonne and Alexander Cardinale were signed to Interscope Records after their win. The 2007 winner Ari Gold hit Top 10 on the Billboard charts with his winning song. The 2005 Winner of the Country category had his winning song cut by Country Superstar Faith Hill. The 2005 winner of the Pop category was signed by Interscope Records; she went on to hit Top 10 on the Billboard 200 Album charts. Our 2008 winner appeared on David Letterman TV show and was signed to a record label. For more information, visit: https://www.songwriting.net

PURCHASE BOOK HERE

[ladygoofus]

I'm so heckin' excited that Chris Oatley is releasing podcasts again!! His old podcasts & his online art school (The Oatley Academy) taught me so much of what I know about art and storytelling, and this interview is fantastic.

[ergoshwampy]

Back in 2020 while doing a mentroship course at The Oatley Academy (https://oatleyacademy.com/) I wanted to paint a scene from the classic story of Hercules. The first variation was a black and white painting, and although I wasn't completely satisfied with it, I think it had a lo of protentional. I took some time away from it, and continued to learn about painting. After two years of painting study and taking into consideration my mentor's feedback (thanks Chris, you're the best), I decided to take another whack at it. Hence the new version with a much better story.

[neunhofferart]

For an artist job, like a storyboard artist or a revisionist, you do need a portfolio! Recruiters and people in charge of productions want to see what applicants are capible of.

A typical storyboard portfolio, for example, would include around 3-5 (hopefully) entertaining samples of sequential storytelling! (A mentor once told me to try and include one comedy, one action, and one emotional sequence to show your range). Strong draftsmanship is also good, but not end all be all for storyboarding as long as you can communicate your ideas clearly.

As far as degrees go... On most applications it'll say something like "degree preferred," and I do have a BA myself, but in reality a degree is not required. No one ever asks me where I went to school when I interview for positions now, they just care whether I can get the work done. I would actually not recommend going to art school if you cannot afford it-- it's very expensive, even more expensive than regular college.

Instead, I DO recommend looking into online resources and animation courses that are much more affordable! Sites like schoolism, radhowtoclass, creatureartteacher, and oatley academy are some good starting places. If you're interested in working in animation, consider researching some of those. Hope that helps!

Some derpy little dragons I doodled for Valentine's Day a couple years ago lol

I guess it was right before HTTYD 3 came out?

[darantha]

Was sitting in a info meeting for a Oatley Academy class and noodled away at a back study to keep my hands busy, that then snowballed into me using it to finish up the tattoos on my character Corin. :’)

Took me nearly a year after doing the arm part for another painting, but at least it’s done. xD