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[Bones]

I'm now finishing up my first year at my local Art and Design college. ACAD
Now it may not be the best college in terms of scholar creditability.
But I have never taken a single art course up until now.

As the government has granted me to go to school, I'm not too sure how expensive art school is, but so far material's haven't cost me too much.

I am a self-taught animator of 6 years, and I never had an ounce of direction from school.

Now that I'm in school I see it in a different light.
Sure, I often sit around and wonder if I can't just teach this all to myself.
But with the new obtained knowledge I have about design, composition, and general rules for perspective I feel as though I have a strong sense of what "art" is and how you can achieve successful art through proper iconography, or illusion as an illustrator.

I honestly have no idea what I'm attempting to get out of art school to be honest.
Though it is not that uncommon in art school it seems to have no real direction until your second year in or so.
I just finished a painting course, and I have to say I have gained a lot of useful information this semester alone in color theory and the general painting process.

As for the liberal studies part of art college; is a whack load of useless information about art history, though it's not completely useless, remembering 97+ slide info such as Artist, Title, Material, Period and Date of each slide... I feel like a human index card.

Basically, I'm all for art/design school, everyone gets something from it, they either learn that it's not the place for them or they learn that it's their natural habitat for learning.
So far I've had a great learning experience, and until I find what I'm learning to become irrelevant I shall keep going until I have a Master of the Arts. (6 years)
I'm not even at school for the "Degree" or credibility, I'm only at school to discover more about this huge world of art.

The internet is a great place to learn sure, but not every tutorial is correct.
Sometimes with tutorials I feel like I'm copying something rather then actually being instructed by someone to make something and then being told by them what it is I am actually doing wrong. Sure great critique is available online in various found communities, but great solid theorized instruction?

Rather than just having people tell me "Oh, that's fairly cool."
It almost feels like ass patting rather then critical thought on a piece of art.

[gimymblert]

great solid theorized instruction?

Oh yeah site like pixelation, cg society, conceptart and polycount will gently rip your ass out of awesomeness if you ask. Some forums are for hanging up and making friends (like here) those are for kicking ass.

[cynicalsandel]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

I basically had my mind made up about this from the beginning. I basically have an inability to teach myself anything. It's really hard to get motivated outside of a classroom for me. I just thought it might be useful to get some input and opinions from people with more experience in this area than I have. I definitely got the discussion I was hoping for.

I knew that college couldn't guarantee success, but I'm hoping that the learning environment in addition to the effort I put into it could help get me on the right track.

Thanks again!

[Jetrel]

great solid theorized instruction?

Oh yeah site like pixelation, cg society, conceptart and polycount will gently rip your ass out of awesomeness if you ask. Some forums are for hanging up and making friends (like here) those are for kicking ass.

What he said.

[Bones]

Again the internet is only as helpful as it can be.
If someone is trying to learn something, they may not find the internet the best place to do such.
As not everyone's opinions are easily taken into account.
Sometimes suggestions and critiques just sound like biased opinions about your general "style"
They more less try tell you "What they would do with it" rather then what you could do, to further it yourself.

I remember not entirely agreeing with some of the opinions and suggestions made to me by some people at concept art, or pixelation.

Im not saying that you can't learn from people at CGSociety, or Concept art, or even Pixelation because there are some awesome people out there with some awesome knowledge.
But even the internet can be wrong, I remember being taught in-properly about perspective online through a tutorial, and I learned about it properly in school. Not saying it can't be done, just a point that I learned something from school

As I said, Art College isn't for EVERYONE.
But neither is learning on the internet capable for everyone either.

I learned how to draw via both the PixelJoint and Pixelation communities, so it's certainly possible to learn there.
But I have also seen people come to learn at pixelation and leave somehow offended by the comments made about their art. Or they don't take the critique properly and don't apply the suggestions correctly. I've also seen people come to communities with refusal to change/get better. Also I have experienced giving critique to someone, as well as provide an edit to their work, and they just up right took "my edit" and called it theirs, now that's not really learning.

A lot of times artists make the habit or mistake of trying to go over stylish with their work.
They focus so much on the style of their work, that they don't pay attention to the fundamentals.
Because an understanding of the fundamentals is key to exploring outside of them.
I've seen on multiple occasions suggestions to go practice sketching more, and then return to making pixel art or CG art and the internet really cant help you with sketching.
They can take a look at some of your sketches, and give comments, but only you can bring yourself to a better position in art. And you can do this by either attending art courses, art college, or just posting around social art communities.

[PogueSquadron]

Yeah, style will come in time.  But it's always best that style comes from abilities, and not inabilities.  If you develop a style because you don't know how to do certain things, it will severely limit what you will be capable of.

I knew too many kids who drew or painted "because they liked it that way," even though it was obviously weird looking or anatomically incorrect or didn't engage the viewer on certain levels.  They basically "liked it that way" because they either didn't want to put the work into making it better, or were too egotistical to look at the image objectively.

[jwk5]

It always has been my experience that when it comes to developing an art style you have to treat outside artistic influences as a series of buffet tables and just pick and choose the things from each that look good to you. In the end your personal style is how you've arranged everything you've piled onto your plate. Eventually you'll reach a point where you find that perfect combination where everything just clicks and fits together and you'll have a style that feels natural to you.

[dantheman363]

It depends on what you want to do really. A degree is a degree in some respects.

[nahkranoth]

I knew too many kids who drew or painted "because they liked it that way," even though it was obviously weird looking or anatomically incorrect or didn't engage the viewer on certain levels.  They basically "liked it that way" because they either didn't want to put the work into making it better, or were too egotistical to look at the image objectively.

I agree. Art is the physical outcome of the human impuls to react on the physical. This reaction comes naturally to everybody. This part of the brain can be trained, or rather - erased of cliches - But not only this part. There are a lot of other things you have to learn to deal with, like ego for instance.

My teacher ones said: Art is 10% creativity and 80% sweat.
So i asked: Where's the other 10%?
He answered: Thats magic.