For those who haven't yet met me, I go by sonnyb. it is a pleasure to share this moment in time with you all as we share ideas, knowledge, and help each other in pursuing their goals. now for the question at hand, I don't really know where to start- here it goes. I can draw. I'm thinking about game art design program, but I found some community schools that offer classes in photoshop (which I know nothing about) and some intro game programming (which I also know nothing about). Nonetheless, I'm pursuing my dreams to write, and create characters with future hopes of working on large projects, even starting my own development company. Anyways, where does a new jack such as myself begin. Do I need to go out and get some software, hardware installed in my PC. Do I teach myself, if so, what books or sites do you all recommend. Next, would a drawing class be of importance? I've checked out a few tutorials on youtube, but they didn't help much. I heard that I should learn 3D studio Max, Photoshop, etc. I don't much about game engines, but I would love to learn. well, I'll be waiting for replies. thanks

Are you the SonnyB from FPC?

Quote: Original post by Vampyre_Dark
Are you the SonnyB from FPC?

what is FPC?

In general, if you want to be an artist, take as many damn drawing classes as you can. You may hate them, but they'll break you of your bad habits and teach you how to see. I cannot stress it enough, for all that you have to do stupid still life drawing when you want to be drawing something cool, the suffering is worth it in the end because you learn the fundamental skill of drawing rather than the specialized skill of drawing your favorite things, like dragons or whatever. To speak for myself, I took drawing classes at a community center and a community college before going off to art school for a degree, and these probably made up for my lack of art classes in high school.

I'd recommend taking classes for Photoshop and modeling programs, if that's what you're into, because a class forces you to learn comprehensively rather than you just focusing on what is fun and easy while learning on your own. Same thing as above. I took Photoshop in a community college and it was taught from the perspective of the print industry rather than electronic media, but I learned a lot that I wasn't getting just fooling around with the program myself.

As for programming, other people probably have more useful advice. I learned html and a little flash before taking a "programming for artists" class that got me started on C, then I went to Java, then to Python, and unfortunately I still suffer from a lack of fundamental programming knowledge because of the focus of my education on art. That's the price one pays for trying to do everything!

That and not making much money, but hey, what else would I want to be doing?

If you don't know, I guess not.

Your original question isn't very clear. What exactly are you looking to learn? Youtube won't help you learn anything. You can't learn something complex by watching a video.

So are you looking to learn 3D art, 2D art, programming, or business?

If programming, look up C# books, learn the whole language, and then get into XNA. It's a great place to start. The C# and XNA tools are free.

If you are looking to get into art, you might want a student or learning version of 3DS Max or Maya, and a good book suited for beginners that was written for that specific software. But be warned, the real versions of those programs are not cheap, and cost thousands of dollars.

You learn by doing, which is how I got my current job as a graphic designer. Do I have a formal art education? No, but it certainly would be useful. I learned Photoshop myself, learned Illustrator in high school, and did a lot of both during my high school senior year. Then I learned InDesign on the job, along with a bunch of stuff that every digital graphic designer has to know, like color management, graphic resolution dpi and ppi, etc. Now I have an associates degree in Multimedia, focused on 3D modeling, 3D animation and video compositing.

I suggest you start by getting some formal art education. I would try to find a school that is as cheap as possible while giving you a very solid education. In other words, don't go for the loud name. Once you are in school, you can buy education versions of the graphic design software, like Photoshop CS3. At educational discount prices, they become affordable. You also need to love what you are doing which will force you to do it a lot, thus making you better at it.

Eventually love will turn into obsession, and you will start looking for new techniques to learn. And I don't mean these stupid photoshop tutorials on making realistic looking <insert word here> that the web is littered with. I mean stuff that really boosts you productivity, like shortcuts you never knew about, new ways to extract objects from the background using channels & levels instead of just pen tool/lasso/extract command/eraser/mask paint. Soon you will also find yourself doing this stuff constantly. Doing it on your job, coming home and doing it at home, then volunteering to teach it at your school and spending your evenings learning more techniques and looking through other people's work.