This week The Gnomon Workshop is excited to announce the first release of Training DVDs for 2010. We have an eclectic mix of titles that cover everything from sculpting expressions to shot breakdowns for a music video. We’re also pleased to welcome two new instructors into the library, Jeremy Cook and Wayne Barlowe.

The Making of White Swan, by Sil van der Woerd is a new 3 disc set that breaks down the entire production process for the music video "White Swan", winner of "Best Music Video" at HDfest. Sil collaborated with students from the Gnomon School of Visual Effects for all of the effects, and together they cover their particular responsibilities for the production. Each disc explores a particular phase in the production’s pipeline from concept to final compositing. This comprehensive title is over 17 hours of lecture and 3 hours of bonus material including a round table discussion and video of the world premiere event at Gnomon.

Wayne Barlowe’s lecture, Rendering Fantasy Characters in Pencil, is a visual treat that reveals Wayne’s process for designing creatures and rendering in pencil. He begins with a presentation of his artwork and then guides the viewer through a step-by-step process for executing a typical character design for feature film. Wayne is an award winning illustrator whose work can be found on hundreds of book and magazine covers. He’s written and illustrated many amazing books on extraterrestrial life and hell. Wayne has also designed creature for many films including the recently released Avatar for which he was credited for Initial Creature Concepts.

Jeremy Cook’s DVD, CG Survival Kit: From Concept to Final Image, is filled with great tips for CG artists with a focus on working efficiently and holistically. The lecture covers a range of topics from layout, modeling and rendering in 3ds Max to compositing a still in Photoshop. Jeremy brings to his DVD all of his experience working on Transformers, Star Wars Episode 3 and Mission Impossible 3 as well as many TV commercials and game cinematics.

We are also very proud to announce the release of a new addition to John Brown’s sculpture series, Sculpting Expression and Fantasy Characters. This 2 disc set covers an array of topics and techniques including sculpting a quarter-scale male bust, sculpting expression, molding and casting, sculpting details and digital painting in Photoshop. In addition to John’s long list of feature film credits and extensive experience as a bronze figurative artist, John’s finely tuned teaching style reflects his over ten years of teaching figurative sculpture at Gnomon School of Visual Effects, and seven DVDs for The Gnomon Workshop.

Read the Press Release: click here
All of these titles are available as digital download and are also featured in our training subscription plans.

The Making of White Swan with Sil van der Woerd
Rendering Fantasy Characters in Pencil with Wayne Barlowe
Sculpting Expression and Fantasy Characters with John Brown
CG Survival Kit: Concept to Final Image with Jeremy Cook

This week, The Gnomon Workshop is thrilled to announce a huge end of year training DVD release, covering a myriad of subjects from Matte Painting and Character Animation, to Digital Illustration, Creature and Character Design.

From returning instructor Terryl Whitlatch, creature design legend of Star Wars: Episode One, we have a continuation of her creature design series. Volume 3 in her series covers horse-based creature design and delves into horse anatomy while Volume 4 covers her design and story development for a Toad-Ogre creature.

Christian Alzmann, from ILM, joins our ever-growing library with his first DVD titled Digital Illustration Techniques. This title covers his illustration techniques using Painter and Photoshop, as he discusses composition, light and shadow, using reference, applying color and storytelling devices.

Scott Patton, from Legacy Effects, delivers a two volume series on 3D Character Design. In these DVDs he shows the processes he uses to create finished character designs for feature films, using ZBrush and Photoshop. His workflow skips the 2D sketch phase all together as he designs the character entirely within ZBrush. The benefit of this method of design is that it’s more interactive and has allowed him to work with directors one-on-one directly in 3D.

And we have two new additions to the Behind the Scenes Series of DVDs which follows the creation of a game cinematic sequence from concept to completion. In Volume Six, Burke Roane, of Rhythm and Hues, demonstrates the process for animating an action sequence and a close-up of the lead character in Maya. In Volume Seven, Jared Simeth, of Luma Pictures, shows his process for creating two matte paintings using Maya and Photoshop. Both DVDs feature production meetings with either the Art Director or Animation Supervisor.

Read the Press Release: click here

Details are available by following the link below:

Digital Illustration Techniques with Christian Alzmann
View Large Image Creature Design with Terryl Whitlatch 3 – The Marine Mare and Uberhorse
Creature Design with Terryl Whitlatch 4 Toad-ogre Creature Concept and Story
3D Character Design Volume 1 Proto-concepting for Film with Scott Patton
3D Character Design Volume 2 From Concept Model to Presentation Art with Scott Patton
Matte Painting for Production with Jared Simeth
Action and Close-up Animation Animation Techniques with Burke Roane