www.artist-reference.com

Drawing is a type of visual expression and one of the major forms within the visual arts. There are sub categories of drawing like figure drawing, sketching, doodle drawing, thumbnail drawing and many others. Being an artist, figure drawing has always been my hobby. As I pursued figure drawing online, I found many website on the internet giving guidance on the subject but the one I really liked was figuredrawings.com. In following lines I’ll share my experience of this artistic website to help artists and CG experts to better utilize this source.

Official name of the website, as it appears on the site, is “Figure Drawings and Portraits”. It is an online marketplace of literature on making human figures, portraits and sketches. This website is spread over two platforms which are a website and a blog (figure-drawings.blogspot.com). Being more active, the blog contains latest activities and offers, which normally include newly added ebooks. In my opinion, it’s one of the most detailed website on human figure drawing and contains knowledge which is hardly available elsewhere. Ebooks are mostly placed on Amazon but some are available on Google book store as well. A short intro of all online publications is available also on the website. This website covers drawing of each and every part of human body. Moreover, it is not a place offering just tips and tricks or a re-gathered data from the internet to draw a better human figure. On figuredrawings.com you get great ways to draw high quality drawings, however most of the instructions are completely understandable only to artists because often they are written in professional style and could be bit difficult for a layman. As the drawing of human figure is concerned exclusively with human body so this website contains lots of nudism which is present in shape of nude male/female model’s images. Hundreds of real life photos from the lives of artists are present on the site to give a real insight of figure drawing as a profession.

However, figuredrawing.com is not a website meant to give you an eye-soothing effect on first glance. It is a website with plenty of text and links with not good looking buttons, navigation menus, slideshows and flash animations. It does not even contain a sidebar! There is a cream colored background which is extensively cluttered with brown text and typical blue color links. If we compare this site with similar sites of the same niche, it may take a lead in terms of stuff it offers but when we talk about layout of the content, it is highly disappointing. There is no concept of arranging similar stuff under some category or tag. Finding something on figuredrawings.com is extremely difficult except that you find your desired stuff right on the start of homepage. By merely having a look on a link you do not get any hint about where the given link is going to direct you. It is also stuffed with Google and Amazon ads which make the layout even more messy and difficult to navigate. Even if one keeps browsing this site for hours, there’s no chance to get the idea of how to find something directly.

After heavy criticism on the site’s design and organization aspects, now let’s move towards some unbeatable areas of figuredrawings.com. Forms of visual arts which are covered in never ending details include figure drawing, portrait, life drawing, sketch making, paintings and academic drawings. The knowledge which is available on this website is sufficient to become a world-class professional artist. In addition, links to various art directories, galleries and drawing sites are provided to explore more stuff online. ‘How to’ guides collection is of very good quality and every concept is illustrated by supporting images, making it easy to comprehend. There is a sense of liveliness and freshness throughout the website’s content which has been brought by number of real life professionals who are connected to this site in one or other way. I have no hesitation in stating that figuredrawings.com is one of the most authenticated places for getting know-how on figure drawings. The major advantage is that you get almost everything in one place. These are some of the major reasons for this website being famous and also the reason I have decided to review this site.

When it comes to price, figuredrawings.com offers valuable and practical literature for a nominal price. No package or membership is offered, if you want to purchase something from this site you have the option to either buy from the site directly or purchase it from Amazon and Google ebook store. Price varies from 4 USD to 60 USD per item. Three payment methods (Paypal, Google checkout and credit card) are available in case of purchasing. However, no money back guarantee scheme is provided so one should be careful while selecting the appropriate product. Ebooks are in normal ´.pdf´ format. Majority of them are very well written, however, you may find some with old and clumsy looking scanned copies of old books. To grab something really useful, it is better to get a printed version.

People who just require some literature from this website for their daily work maybe wouldn’t much complain in general, but people like me who spend hours in writing reviews will not let figuredrawings.com escape so easily. Despite of the fact, that this website should be meant for 18+ visitors who are mature enough to realize the meaning and context in which the nudism is shown here, one can find dozens of nude photos right on the homepage, without any warning or restrictions. Also no ‘about us’ page is available, making history and other details undiscoverable. These weak areas together with poor website design, lack of navigation menus, plenty of advertisement and very roughly organized content, have significantly reduced quality of the website and its content.

To briefly conclude, I would like to say that figuredrawings.com can be a leading online platform to get actual knowledge of drawing human figure but only if they get their weak areas worked on. Right now one may find stuff of his choice but would be probably annoyed while reaching his target.

Summary:

+ Highly technical approach to teaching human figure drawings with easy-to-comprehend images and guidelines.

- Poorly designed and chaotically organized website with high percentage of nude stuff freely available and spread all over the website.

Popularity: 20% [?]

What do you get when you take state of the art animation, 3D effects and a school that can provide you with all that? The Gnomon School of course! This website is just one of the few that the Gnomon group has to offer besides gnomongallery.com, sketchtheatre.com, cgchannel.com as well as thegnomonworkshop.com which I have reviewed earlier. Let´s have a closer look on the gnomonschool.com website.

The website has all that you need to know if you are one of the many hopefuls that hope to make it big in the world of 3D animation and graphics design. Basically, The Gnomon School of Visual Effects is an institute where professionals from the special effects industry come to share their expertise and to instruct those that are either already in it or are aspiring to be. As the website says, “we know that it is not technology that drives the results, but the artist.”

The website itself had my undivided attention the moment I clicked on it. It went right into what The Gnomon School of Visual Effects had on offer. As they say, their courses are for anyone that is interested in the film, game and broadcast industry. The Gnomon School offers several options to choose from – programs or individual courses and on-campus or online training. ´Entertainment Design´, ´Digital Production for Entertainment´ and ´Entertainment Design and Digital Production´ are provided as long term programs consisting of several courses. There is also Maya Fast track program which in particular is designed for those who are already adept at 3D concepts and are now striving to refine their skills on Maya even more. Needless to say, this program is not for people that are new to 3D graphics.

Other than that, training courses can be divided into digital and traditional. One can choose from many courses like Character Modeling and Sculpting, Animation and Visual Effects or Drawing for Film to name a few. Every of them usually lasts 10 weeks and prices range on average from 552 to 1695 USD. Their training options include also an online training courses which allows you to take classes at home. Besides this, their online training program includes Masters Classes that consists of a total of 12 two-hour training sessions. The website has a lot of info on all options (Program and Training Options Comparison; Course Schedule) as well as how you can register for classes.

However, the website was lacking a Home page when I accessed it. Instead, it had a substituted the standard Home Tab with a customized page ´The Gnomon Experience´. But I did like the fact that the people behind the website had chosen to broadcast the latest news in the special effects industry on the first page. Who wouldn’t want to see a play by play of how Pixar’s 3D animated movie “Tangled” was made?

I have to admit, the website has been very clear and intuitive as well as impressive, speaking about design. I also liked the fact that it has assigned a separate section for displaying the work of Gnomon students. It kind of gave me an idea about the level of sophistication and skill that The Gnomon School promises to train its students at when it comes to state-of-the-art 3D graphics design. The ´Best of Term´ section is place where some of their student’s best 3D works were put on display. Regularly, there are winners at the end of each term, who win shopping vouchers to Gnomon store. Here are some latest best works.

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There is no doubt that the Gnomon School of Visual Effects is one of the best training institutes in the field of visual graphics and special effects. The gnomonschool.com will not only tell you what the ´Gnomon Experience´ is, but will also give visitors step by step instructions on how they can be a part of it. The 93% placement rate speaks for itself. And the fact, that the website gives aspirants a means to collaborate with and builds on their own expertise, becomes another feather in its cap.

Summary

+ An excellent website when it comes to informing people about all that the Gnomon School of Visual Effects has to offer.

- You will have to look for information on their profile on other tabs since it is not on the first page.

Popularity: 5% [?]