course
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The Science of Deciding What You Should Draw
Course by Irshad Karim
Full course
$35
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Full course
You will be given unexpiring access to watch the videos online .
$35
Lessons
11 Lessons
Duration
2h 37m
Skill Level
All Skill Levels
Views
109K
overview
I teach beginners the fundamentals of drawing, and the question I get most often is this: What the hell am I supposed to draw?
It's easy to understand why beginners think that as you get better at the technical aspects of drawing, you'll automatically get better at coming up with things to draw - and when that doesn't happen, those same students get frustrated and fed up, thinking that *they're* the problem. That they're just not creative.
We all know that drawing is a skill that can be improved through practice and exercise. Ideation - the process of coming up with ideas - is no different. The problem is that people look at it like it's some kind of magic spell. It's not.
In this course, I'm not going to teach you how to draw. Instead, we're going to look at how to think about *what* we draw. We'll look at generating ideas from "scratch", taking vague notions and refining them into concrete designs, and producing work that can participate in a greater pipeline to create tangible products.
This course is broken into two main parts:
Part 1: Lectures
In a series of very short videos, we're going to look at what design really is, how it differs from illustration, and how by breaking the overall problem of "drawing" into a series of smaller skills, we can target and train them more effectively. We also look at the idea of tools - what they are, and how they can be used to do the heavy lifting, to free us up to focus on the creative aspects to our work.
Part 2: Concepts in Action
As I work through a series of set dressing paintovers for a personal project of mine, I'll talk you through a variety of problems I encounter, and how I think through each one. While I will primarily focus on design choices - which objects I place in the scene, how I arrange them, and how I think about the spaces I'm creating - I'll inevitably talk about compositional choices and concepts as well. There's also a couple anecdotes in there from my experience working in the game industry.Raw footage for the three paintover videos (totalling over 13 hours) will also be included, so you can see every little thing I do, but the main videos of the course have been streamlined to keep on point without wasting your time.
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Only premium students get to watch the majority of instruction contained in this course. Little to no free content is provided.
Step by Step Process
Watch step by step video demos from start to finish with educational commentary from the instructor. Most of us are visual learners (we’re artists!), so reading about it or hearing it explained is not enough. We have to see it!
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Includes content that the student can download to any personal device for offline viewing.
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What others are saying
Beck Doyle
Drawabox is the single most important thing I've done for my art education. It filled the holes in the foundation I started building in my illustration degree and helped me push towards drawing the things I really want to. The feedback I received as I progressed through the course was invaluable - it was appropriate, actionable, and at times, amusing.
Patrick Modzelewski
I first began learning from Irshad Karim around April of 2020 through his DrawaBox site, after having decided to take up learning drawing as a hobby in late 2019. Irshad has been my first instructor in terms of learning the technical concepts of drawing, and how to hone, train, and utilize these skills, mainly the skills involving the perception of forms in 3D space. Having finished his online course in March of 2021, I can say with confidence that I feel I started off with the right instructor on my artistic journey. Irshad provides direct feedback on his site for the assignments in his lessons, and having done this for a number of years and thousands of students, It really shows. He is wise beyond his years, and I always walked away from each critique knowing what went wrong, and what to do next.
Jordan Null
Drawabox was my first introduction to any formalized art education and Irshad still continues to be an important mentor to me as I continue to develop my skills. His straight forward feedback combined with a great eye for design has helped accelerate me from novice to young professional designer. I have learned from several art instructors and Irshad still continues to be on my short list of excellent teachers.
Briggs Mushrush
Drawabox applies the Mr. Miyagi methodology of doing mundane, seemingly almost non-artistic exercises repetitively until the idea of perspective is second nature, and form fully understood. By having such a handle on perspective and form, one can truly focus on the other more fun, and creative aspects of art, while still expressing a clear understanding of drawing fundamentals. Until Drawbox, I understood perspective, but I wasn’t very good at applying it. There’s no denying the Drawabox methodology works, and even after months of not drawing or applying what I learned via the program, I can still pick up a pen and convey an idea or put lines on paper that make sense.
Shivansh Sharma
Drawabox is probably the first course I completed and the teacher Irshad Karim's work got me interested into the world of concept design which im still studying full time. Throughout the year of doing it I developed a strong foundation of perspective, 3d space and construction. Drawabox simplified these daunting concepts into easily digestible lessons. I'm glad I started my education with Irshad's teachings and community.
@SumOfDrawing
As an 'occasionally creative' engineering type who couldn't draw his way out of a paper bag, Draw a Box's specific lessons and measurable progress tickled the logical part of my brain in a way that made drawing feel like a learnable, achievable thing that wasn't based on feelings or intuition. But more important than the lessons was the feedback Irshad provided. He has a way of getting inside your head after seeing your work and figuring out how to propose an alternative method of the topic to ensure that you get it. This mind reading is made more effective by ensuring you've submitted follow up work on DaB and having it re-graded to really prove that you know it.
Rakan Mag
I have went from barely drawing stick figures to designing aircrafts and spaceships thanks to him.
Dmitry R.
I probably would not have gotten as far as I did if I didn't take drawabox. I learned a lot about 3d space, construction, and line quality throughout my time in the course. The feedback I got as a patron is also nice, informative, and direct like the course. I came to learn how to draw boxes only to realize that we are all made of boxes. Recommend.
Guillaume M.
I don't think any other online course could have taken me from zero to where I am today in my understanding of perspective and my proficiency at drawing. The hardest thing about Drawabox is choosing where to go next.
Arnold Merks
Drawabox course is a must if you want to improve at perspective and perspective is a must if you want to make your art more believable and feel right. Drawabox was the first course i took seriously and it couldn't have been a better starting point. it will help you to see things in our world differently and more analytically. I feel spoiled with the valuable feedback I've gotten from Drawabox and its teacher, Irshad Karim, his feedback has been invaluable to me and made me improve very quickly. I highly recommend anyone to take this course beginner or not.
Advayia
Drawabox is hands down my best art investment. With clear goals to achieve, that teaches a method that is simple to understand and put to practice. I think this course is a must have for anyone starting out in art or solidifying there fundamentals. The feedback i got was precise and actionable giving me a clear goal to work on my next drawing. Without Drawabox the drawings i did where flat, distorted and lacked any kind of structure. So thank you so much for all the amazing content and critiques.
Caeruleum
Drawabox is the absolutely best first step for getting into drawing, at least in which I have encountered. Living in a country with censored internet, I find Drawabox a breath of fresh air compared to other courses I can find. Irshad has a unique ability to think as if he is a beginner in art. For this reason, his lessons are uniquely easy to grasp and the concepts are delivered in a easy to access manner, while these features cannot be found in most courses teached by professionals. Furthermore, his feedbacks do well to eliminate the biggest problem in understanding anything, that is thinking that yourself has understood the concept while you just got something important in a wrong but a subtle way.
Lessons
Lectures
Concepts in Action
COMMENTS
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About instructor
I'm a concept artist at Silverback Games, I run drawabox.com, and I draw the web comic "Orc and Gnome's Mild Adventures"
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