Accolades:

“Often color can be a very mysterious subject for artists to fully understand. Whether you are a beginner or an old pro, Richard Keyes will help you to make sense of the use of color in your artwork. Through explanations about the physics of it all to the symbolic use of color, your knowledge of this subject will be greatly enhanced by the content of this DVD, brought to you by one of the world’s most insightful lecturers on the subject.”

- Scott Robertson
Chair of Entertainment Design
Art Center College of Design
President, Design Studio Press

“Carlo Sansonetti is the master at creating robust character rigs that have feature film quality on a video game budget…he knows the rigs, he knows animation, and he never stops impressing us with his ability to blend this knowledge into amazing results. Frankly, our job would be impossible without Carlo. He is a marvel!”

- Marty Davis
Animation Director
Heavy Iron Studios

“Aaron Sims is the consummate industry professional in that he consistently marries his considerable artistic talent with the powerful technological tools of today, producing work that not only meets the demands of time-sensitive production schedules, but also never fails to impress.”

- Stan Winston
Stan Winston Studio

“The intricacy of the costuming, delicate sculptural finesse of her faces, exquisite miniature props and the enchanted environments of Wendy Froud’s creations were not only uplifting to view, but seemed imbued with other worldly spirits that could whisk one away on a whimsical journey out beyond the edge of the garden or across the sun-dappled brook. Her figures had an incredible delicacy, yet each one also had eyes that sparkled with a life and vitality breathed into their bodies by Wendy herself.”

- Richard Taylor
Director, The WETA Workshop

“When it comes to painting, Erik Tiemens not only knows how, he shows how. His approach to lighting and composition draws deeply from his extensive knowledge of 19th century Romantic masters. His approach to picturemaking relies on a combination of thorough planning and painterly intuition, and his imagination is fed by his direct study of Nature. The restraint and focus of his pictures are well worth study by aspiring artists who want to give their imaginative work a sense of timelessness and mood.”

- James Gurney
Artist

“It is tempting to think of Erik Tiemens as a man of two worlds: traditional and digital, personal and collaborative, fine art and film art. Don’t be fooled: it is the worlds that are divided, not Erik. His magical sense of light and shade and shape and color touches everything he does, spinning base images into visual gold.”

- Iain McCaig
Art Director

DVD Descriptions:

Color Theory: The Mechanics of Color
Applied and Theoretical Color with Richard Keyes
Beginning with some thoughts on how we define the concept of color, Richard explains various methods people in history have used to systemize color. These systems include the additive and subtractive color wheels, which are addressed as metaphorical maps of color. The basic vocabulary we use to describe color — hue, value and saturation — are explained through illustrative and graphic means. The majority of this DVD is concerned with color harmonies and contrasts, with references to over 350 paintings. This lecture is intended to do more than spend time defining this list of terms — advice is offered about how to best use these “Mechanics of Color” to your advantage, and a few traps to avoid.

Designing Creatures in Adobe Photoshop®
with Aaron Sims
In this DVD, Aaron Sims shows how he uses Adobe Photoshop® to create and design characters and creatures. Aaron covers many of his techniques for designing character concepts and discusses the logic behind his methods. He shows you the entire process including sketching and drawing in Photoshop®, and manipulating, warping and blending photos to develop interesting features, backgrounds and textures. Aaron explains how to effectively design with tools like Warp, Liquify and different layer blend modes for quick results. He also demonstrates how to paint in finer details such as wrinkles, scars and hair. Finally, Aaron covers some of his techniques for unifying an image and giving it a more finished look.

The Skinned Character Rig
Skinning and Deformations with Carlo Sansonetti
In The Skinned Character Rig, lead character rigger Carlo Sansonetti shows the skinning process from start to finish. The lecture begins with the concepts required to understand basic skinning, allowing the viewer to quickly start deforming their characters. It then progresses to detailed examples and explanations of advanced techniques. Carlo covers his favorite tools, smooth binding, deformation order, deformation correction, indirect skinning and deforming cloth. This DVD is for artists who are new to rigging as well as for experienced riggers who are looking to expand their current knowledge base with varying approaches on advanced topics.

Creating a Character Figure
with Wendy Froud
In this two-disc DVD workshop, renowned artist Wendy Froud explains and demonstrates how to create a character figure of your own design. Wendy reveals her process in step-by-step detail, beginning with a discussion of how to use reference to inspire the look and feel of your designs. She sculpts three different character heads, covering a variety of techniques for giving personality to your figure including facial expressions, wrinkles and lines. After painting each head and discussing ways to add skin details such as age spots, she chooses one head to turn into a full character. Wendy then covers sculpting hands and feet, fabricating the body and costuming the character complete with boots, hat and staff. This DVD is meant to follow Wendy’s first DVD Creating a Faery Figure and focuses on character sculpting and costuming without the same emphasis given to body fabricating.

Watercolor and Gouache Painting
The Techniques of Erik Tiemens
The essence of an exciting idea can be captured successfully using a limited palette gouache and watercolor thumbnail technique. Artist and designer Erik Tiemens presents a compelling demo and covers multiple topics, including how to start visualizing thru multiple mini-sketches that take into account lighting, atmosphere, high-key and low-key plans, palette mixing, and brush control. Additional areas covered include paint consistency, working on toned paper, and zeroing in on your final direction. The lecture concludes with a detailed step-by-step demo for creating a finished small-format painting.

Instructor Bios:

Richard Keyes graduated from Art Center College of Design with a graphic design degree in 1987. After working in Palo Alto, California, designing corporate I.D. and annual reports, he returned to Southern California to work in a variety of studios before choosing a freelance career. As an independent designer Richard has worked for clients as diverse as Warner Brothers Records, Guess Jeans, the Los Angeles Housing Department and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. As a color consultant, his clients include Empire Berol, BIC and Avery Dennison. His teaching career started in 1988, with graphic design classes at Cal State L.A. Since then Richard has also taught at Valley Community College, UCLA Extension and has been teaching at Art Center College of Design since 1990, specializing in color theory, graphic design and narrative structure. Richard also teaches a workshop at Disney Studios.

Aaron Sims began designing, sculpting and painting creatures for the movie makeup effects industry in the mid 1980s. In 1988, he joined Rick Baker’s Academy Award® winning Cinovation Studios Inc. In the late 1990s, Aaron began exploring the medium of computer animation and joined Stan Winston Studio in 2000, where he began building a CG department within the Academy Award® winning effects house. As Art Director he designed for such films as AI, Terminator 3, Constantine, Doom and Fantastic 4. With the same adventurous spirit that fueled his willingness to embrace digital technology, Sims created The Aaron Sims Company and began work on 30 Days of Night, The Golden Compass, I Am Legend, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Incredible Hulk and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. In 2007, he co-founded White Rock Lake Productions with business partner and long-time friend John Norris where they have created award winning films.

An Italian native, Carlo Sansonetti studied photography at the American University in Rome. Following his dream to become a CG artist Carlo decided to move to the U.S. to study and work. In the past eight years Carlo has worked on many projects as a rigger including Scary Movie 3 and on the National Geographic documentary Fight Science. More recently he completed work as a rigger on the next generation game title Ratatouille for Heavy Iron Studios. In his spare time, Carlo taught at Gnomon School of Visual Effects and created the award-winning animated short film The Auction. Carlo is currently working as Lead Character Rigger at Lucasfilm Animation on the CG animated series The Clone Wars.

Wendy Froud was born in Detroit, Michigan. She graduated with a degree in fabric design and ceramics from The Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. She worked as a sculptor and puppet fabricator on The Muppet Show, and the feature films The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth and The Empire Strikes Back. Since moving to Dartmoor, England, with her husband Brian Froud, Wendy has concentrated on doll and model making, and illustrating books including “A Midsummer Night’s Faery Tale”, “The Winter Child” and “The Faeries of Spring Cottage” with author Terri Windling. She has provided both models and writing for Brian Froud’s books “Goblins!” and “Lady Cottington’s Pressed Faery Album”. Wendy’s newest book is “The Art of Wendy Froud”, published by Imaginosis. She teaches doll and figure making workshops as well as mask making workshops in the U.S. and England. Her dolls and figures have been widely exhibited and collected throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Erik Tiemens is known internationally as an award-winning movie concept artist. He studied traditional drawing and painting at Art Center College of Design, graduating with distinction in 1990. He has since worked on many films, theme park designs and television shows while also painting traditional landscapes and figurative works. Awards include Honorary Emmy for matte painting on the Young Indiana Jones series, Emmy nomination for designing the opening of Star Trek’s Voyager TV series; additionally, Tiemens was part of the Oscar winning effects team on both Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump. He also served as Concept Design Supervisor for Star Wars Episodes II and III and has shown his traditional paintings in galleries in California and Connecticut.

Since 2000, The Gnomon Workshop has provided artists and students with the educational resources they need to succeed as artists in the entertainment industries. Whether they’re interested in design, modeling, effects, animation, storytelling or matte painting, these DVDs provide a valuable educational resource for students around the world. The Gnomon Workshop is the sister company of The Gnomon School of Visual Effects, which provides professional caliber visual effects instruction to students and professionals in Los Angeles, California.

Visit http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com for more information on The Gnomon Workshop and our library of over 200 training DVDs.

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