What's your opinion on James Gurney?

Before I went to Europe I watched heaps of his videos. He inspired me quite a lot

I'm not a fan of Dinotopia but his blog and books are pure gold.

I really like his blog.

He also seems to be a nice guy.

>>2996610
What happened when you went to Europe

trash meme artist

It was a band tour. (performance every day for 2 weeks) Not enough time for drawing. :(

>>2996621
Post your work faggot.

>>2996607

His book about light and color was pure marketing and belongs in garbage bin. Rest of his stuff is ok and enjoyable to look at. His blog is ok.

>>2996607
He's really good though his dino world stuff is pretty autistic.

Watch his video where his plein air painting gets interrupted by an African parade, it's gold.

>>2996607
Technically strong artist. His work isn't as dynamic as it could be IMO but that's also not the point, so it's fine.
>>2996621
>>2996643
Oh this is that "artist is popular so we have to call them shit" thing that /ic/ does.

>>2996655

I called his book shit you fucking dingus, learn to read.

>>2996610
>>2996653
are there some videos of his that i have not heard of? I have all his Gumroads.

please let me know if there is more. he is a personal favourite of mine

there's his youtube channel which has a shit ton of stuff on it.

>>2996660
he has a youtube channel and instagram that he uploads to pretty regularly

>>2996607
Didn't realize he was vlogging. He looks very composed and is probably an excellent teacher. I love his cityscapes but not the subject matter. The books were a big hit back in the 90's and it seems like they'd be big sellers again now that Jurassic World has succeeded.

I slightly prefer Liam O'Farrell from what I've seen, I'm not sure if Gurney's work has the same observed quality, but he does humour well.

>>2996655
>His work isn't as dynamic as it could be
implying you know shit about drawing

>Not jap

he's great. i look up to him and his work.

>>2996692
Like I said, that's not the point. He does very technical paintings and drawings that are meant to be illustrative in a specific way, geared more towards realism than anything else. He doesn't push really exaggerated perspectives or poses and he does this very purposefully. They wouldn't really be the kind of illustration you'd find in National Geographic if he did.

I'm not saying he's shit, especially given this is something he's very obviously doing intentionally, I just prefer more dynamic work.

>>2996607
Contemporary great.

I follow his yt channel. It's super relaxing the way he talks about art and painting. It inspires me a lot.

very competent pro and good teacher.

most anyone can pick up some good information on his blog.

I would say that he is a master at painting form, but his drawing skills are not as advanced as his painting skills. His figures can be a bit wooden at times and a lacking in the gesture department. Overall very solid obviously

>>2996655
>>2996692
What Dunning-Kruger's on /ic/ do is take one legitimate criticism of a good artist and over-amplify it. However, a lot of Gurney's work looks a bit stiff, that's just a fact.

>>2996619
He died.

>>2996660
Is there a megauploa with his gumroads?

>>2997201
For our sins? I think >>2996623 just forgot to include reference to post.

>>2996607
Good artist and his blog is great and inspiring when it's actually talking about art, but I don't like the way he monetizes every fucking little thing.

I'm not against selling literally everything you feature on your blog, but doing that while pretending you're teaching puts him in the same league as any other "how to watercolor" hack surrounded by a cult of addicted workshop groupies.

Color and Light is a coffee table book and his videos are 90% fluff. He's got a circuit of like-minded instructional sellers whom he exchanges praise with and elevated his coffee table book to god tier status among beginner artists when there's better laid out information for free on the internet.

He's got this strategy of carefully sprinkling a little bit of info so that you buy one video and then another and then another, if you watch the videos twice you realize there's absolutely nothing instructive about them that is worth the price tag. That's not how you teach. Scott Robertson's books, that's how you teach.

TLDR: I appreciate his blog and I like his paintings but his greed gets too much in the way of his teaching.

>>2997272

Yeah, you are making a fair point. A good example of this would be his sketchbook apps. I get that the guy needs to eat but come on, why can't you show your sketchbooks for free.

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>>2997272
What the fuck are you even talking about? He gives away tons of information, absolutely free of charge, on his blog. I'm not sure where this meme about Color and Light being a bad book originates but it's chock-full of practical, useful information with color plates on every page that more than adequately illustrate all its various concepts and principles. Do people not know how to use their eyes/critical faculties and think for 5 seconds about how the pictures relate to the text? It's the same reason there's so much negativity against Bammes and Hogarth, authors of some of the most instructive books on anatomy, provided you take the time to actually look at the plates and use your brain.

There's an attitude of obnoxious entitlement among the retarded userbase of this board with regards to art instruction. As if art instructors are sitting on the ""real"" secrets to getting good and semitically hoarding them away while only giving you the table scraps. In reality everything is right there in the abundant fucking plates illustrating every single page. Then there's the subject of money. If your income consists of selling instructional content, it makes absolutely no financial sense whatsoever to give everything away at once. At that point you're out of a job and neither you nor anyone else benefits from your years of experience and wisdom.

(Side note: The Scott Robertson book is not a great one, mostly on account of how dry and tedious it is to read; several steps down from his gnomon perspective basics videos imo. Intermediate artists already know this information and it's too intimidating for beginners. Perspective for Comic Book Artists is a much better recommendation for newbies).

tl;dr another exceptionally worthless post on a board where I keep being astonished at how low rock bottom actually is

>>2997328

commie detected

>>2997344
>Perspective for Comic Book Artists is a much better recommendation for newbies
I only need to read this to know that you have no idea of what the fuck you're talking about.

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>>2997328
How is that different from an artist collecting sketches into a bound book (with commentary into the process) for a reader to purchase? What a miserly swindler he is wanting financial compensation for the hundreds/thousands of hours he's sunk into the sketchbooks that occupy a massive chunk of his work-week (with added commentary about the painting process).

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>>2997350
It effectively (albeit crudely) demonstrates the basics of perspective and its varied applications without wandering into an overwhelming miasma of diagonal lines and cross-sections. Most importantly, it introduces what to the beginner is no doubt a daunting and technical subject without losing the fun-factor (which is sorely absent from the Scott Robertson books). So as an INTRODUCTION to perspective for BEGINNERS it's a recommendation, and as mentioned in the post the Scott Robertson Gnomon videos are a high recommendation as well. How to Draw contains all the information, but it's very encyclopedic and uninspiringly presented. It's like trying to teach your kid to read by handing them a copy of Harold Bloom's 'The Western Canon' instead of Harry Potter.

>>2997376
Really the best source for a basic intro to perspective IMO is that 12 dollar video lecture series by Vandruf, plus D'Amelio's handbook for reference. Then go on to Scott Robertson's books/videos.

>>2997376
Why have you shifted the entire conversation to beginners? First of all I disagree because Chelsea's shitty book is made out of comics but is a garbled mess because of it. The methods he teaches for perspective are either wrong or absurdly time consuming. This is because Chelsea traces from photos and doesn't know better.

Can you tell me how Robertson's book is "encyclopedic", do you know what that means? He layers information from chapter to chapter and gives you a method that you can actually work with to build grids and construct volumes in perspective.

You complain that people are too impatient to extract information from Gurney's beautiful, content-packed coffee table book yet you suggest a garbage book over Robertson's because "it's made with comics and it's got that fun factor". Have you even read those books or do you just have them in a folder on your PC? I own both in print. I own Gurney's book too and read through it a bunch of times. When you actually spend money on books you feel compelled to actually read them and if they don't deliver their promises it sort of bums you out.

>>2997376
These guys are idiots. Chelsea's book is great for starters. Unless, perspective is a major component of what you do, his book is perfect for beginners. And way more fun to read.

>>2997433
The title is "How to Draw", the implication being that it's aimdd at people who don't know how to draw. If it was called "Everything You Need to Know About Indistrial Design-Style Perspective" I might have liked it more. It's just not as good as his perspective videos. The How to Render book is also way below the Matte Surface Rendering videos. I'm not saying the drawings are bad or the information is wrong or anything, it doesn't hurt to own it and it's still useful reference material. It just doesn't exactly accomplish what it sets out to do, which I feel Gurney's books do. But this discussion is kind of off-topic.

I only care about manga art.


All other art is objectively bad.

Drawing until your hair falls out is just a meme, Mr. Gurney! You need to stop!

>>2997376
I'm not familiar with all of the books mentioned but the way you condemn scott robbertson's book (which I haven't read) seem to be applicable to hogarth and bammes which you defend in your earlier post

I think most of these books contain interesting information but as you mentioned the reader has to be open enough to gather that information. No book is going to force feed knowledge into your brain. Depending on your mindstate, how you feel about the author's aesthethics and how the book reads, you'll be more or less invested in your study

>>2996607
Decent guy, great blog, good art.

Colour and Light didn't hit me the way it hit some people, but as long as people benefited from it (and nobody stagnated) there's no harm.

>>2997205
I would also like to know.

shit

James Gay-ney