Environment Painting & Design
Master the Art of Atmosphere
Creating a convincing environment isn’t about "mysterious talent" or finding the right brush, but it’s about understanding the logic of light, the physics of color, and the psychology of composition.
Whether you are battling blank-canvas paralysis or struggling to make your digital paintings feel "real," this course distills 20 years of industry experience into a clear, actionable workflow. You won’t just learn how to paint; you’ll learn how to think like a cinematographer.
The Professional’s Toolkit
We skip the "superficial tricks" and dive straight into the core pillars of world-building:
- The Science of Value: Learn to organize light and dark for instant readability. Treat values like a scientist to transform the mood of any scene.
- Cinematic Composition: Master the hidden geometry used by icons like Kubrick and Frazetta to guide the viewer’s eye exactly where you want it.
- VFX-Grade Lighting: Drawing from 6 years as a VFX lighting artist, I’ll show you the real-world logic of bounce, rim, and fill light that creates true volume.
- Efficient Color Workflows: Learn fast-colorization techniques for tight deadlines and "happy accident" methods for rich, evocative palettes.
- The Power of Edges: Discover how hard, soft, and lost edges separate the amateurs from masters like Sargent and Velázquez.
From Rough Sketch to Production-Ready
This course provides a complete A-to-Z method. You’ll learn how to generate ideas quickly with big shapes, build coherent lighting setups, and use a precise professional checklist to ensure your final painting is ready for a studio pipeline.
Stop Painting Objects. Start Building Worlds.
You don’t need more "hacks" or "brushes"—you need a system. This course gives you the logic to solve any visual problem, the speed to meet any deadline, and the confidence to create environments that actually tell a story.
Level up your portfolio with the fundamentals that industry pros use every day.
This course consists of 28 lessons. There’s theory, of course, but also a lot of hands‑on practice — I include plenty of demonstrations throughout the lessons. The class contains over eight hours of recorded footage.
This class is based on the lectures I used to teach at CGMA, but I took the opportunity to update a large portion of the material, especially the demonstrations.
Some chapters remain unchanged (values, edges, light), others have been adjusted (color), some have been partially redone with new demos (composition), some have been removed (the interior shot), and there are brand‑new ones as well (colorization, rendering, finalization)
If you want to try out the different things you’ll learn in this class, you’ll need access to a digital painting software — but the choice is entirely up to you.
I personally use Photoshop throughout the course, and I clearly explain which tools I use in that program. However, almost everything covered here applies to most other painting software as well.
No, it’s a one-time payment and you have access to these videos forever. You are essentially purchasing a product. It’s not a subscription.
Unfortunately, no — there are no assignments in this course, and I won’t be providing regular feedback on Proko. You’ll have access to all the lectures, but interaction with me will be occasional and not guaranteed.
However, if you’re interested in mentorship with me, I do offer it from time to time. Feel free to follow me on my social media channels to know when and where those opportunities become available.
Unfortunately no, Proko is a completely different platform and cannot transfer your purchase over.
