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New Master Academy Course Order/ Learning Path

I’ve decided to brush up on some skills, and so have joined the New Master Academy website. Unfortunately since its self-paced they haven’t really defined an ideal course structure.

Choppa790 on Reddit came up with this guide mostly, so a lot of credit goes to him. I’ve made a few edits to update an old post (it was 4 years old by 2020).

This isn’t a comprehensive list either. There are many courses on the site, such as sketchbook training and tips, that I left out. I tried to focus more on the “foundational” concepts such as constructing scenes and less on rendering said scenes. Also note that some courses borrow lessons from multiple instructors, so you may find repeated lessons.

Beginner Courses

Stress Free Sketching For Beginners Thumbnail
Stress Free Sketching For Beginners Thumbnail

Stress-Free Sketching for Beginners by Sheldon Borenstein covers a number of fundamentals such as gestures, shape, form, light and shadow. I did note that some of the later lessons may be intimidating to beginners, such as when Sheldon starts to draw more complex subjects; if this is the case I suggest try out a few other beginner courses, practice, and return when ready to try again.

Total course time is 10.5 hours.

Stress Free Perspective Drawing Thumbnail
Stress Free Perspective Drawing Thumbnail

Stress Free Perspective Drawing by Sheldon Borentstein. It covers one point perspective; two point perspective; three point perspective; auxiliary perspective. Also includes demonstrations in gouache and watercolor. Total time is approximately 6 hours.

Introduction to Materials Thumbnail
Introduction to Materials Thumbnail

Introduction to Materials by Sheldon Borenstein. It introduces graphite, charcoal, colored pencils, markers, florentine technique, fountain pens, acrylic paints, oil paints, and watercolors. Total course time is 6.5 hours.

Color Theory Bootcamp Thumbnail
Color Theory Bootcamp Thumbnail

Color Theory Boot Camp by Bill Perkins. This course covers value, hue and saturation, complementary colors, color temperature, and value over multiple lessons. Total course is 40 hours long!

Finding Your Voice as an Artist Thumbnail
Finding Your Voice as an Artist Thumbnail

Finding Your Voice as an Artist by Bill Perkins. This course covers art philosophy, expression, and developing your person visual style. Total course length is 8.5 hours!

Composition for Visual Artists  Thumbnail
Composition for Visual Artists Thumbnail

Composition for Visual Artists by Bill Perkins. This course is over 31 hours long!

Constructive Figure Drawing Thumbnail
Constructive Figure Drawing Thumbnail

Constructive Figure Drawing with Steve Huston

Steve focuses on critical concepts of gesture and structure. He assume that you have no training with the figure and will help you build up your skill step-by-step with many examples and self-paced assignments. You will learn how to visualize the forms of your figures in three-dimensional space.

This course is over 44 hours long!

Head Drawing for Beginners Thumbnail
Head Drawing for Beginners Thumbnail

Head Drawing for Beginners by steve Huston, Charles Hu, Glenn Vilppu and Mark Westermoe.

This course is for anyone who wants to learn to draw the human head. Whether you are a total beginner or an experienced drafts-person, painter, or sculptor it pays to have solid fundamentals of head drawing and construction.

Constructive Head Drawing Thumbnail
Constructive Head Drawing Thumbnail

Constructive Head Drawing by Steve Huston

Join renowned artist Steve Huston as he teaches you a direct and powerful approach to drawing the human head and portrait. This beginner-friendly course leaves nothing out of the process. You will learn how to visualize the head as simple three-dimensional forms, how to design the shapes and lines of the head and how to deal with anatomy, rendering, expression, aging, characterization and hair.

This course is 30 hours long.

How to Draw Hands Thumbnail
How to Draw Hands Thumbnail

How to Draw Hands by Kamille Corry, Steve Huston, Glenn Vilppu.

Besides the human head and face, hands are the difficult subject matter to create in art. Many artists resort to drawing hands very simply and gesturally or even avoid showing hands in their work altogether! Join Kamille Corry, Steve Huston, and Glenn Vilppu in this comprehensive course and stop hiding those hands in your work!

This course is over 10 hours long.

How To Draw Animals by Glenn Vilppu. This course is nearly 22 hours long.

Intermediate

Introduction to Animal Anatomy Thumbnail
Introduction to Animal Anatomy Thumbnail

Introduction to Animal Anatomy by Joe Weatherly.

Join animal draftsperson and painter, Joe Weatherly for a beginner-friendly course on the anatomy of animals. Joe will teach you how to visualize the simplified three-dimensional structures that lie beneath the fur, feathers, and scales of animals to give you a powerful new way to construct your animal artwork!

This course is 9 hours long.

Spirit of the Pose Thumbnail
Spirit of the Pose Thumbnail

Spirit of the Pose with Karl Gnass

Join master figurative draftsperson Karl Gnass as he teaches you how to draw the figure in a direct and compelling way. Karl will teach you to see past the details of the figure to focus on the “spirit of the pose,” or the dynamics and weight of the drawing. You will learn Karl’s five key elements: Gesture, Formulation, Anatomy, Light and Tone, and Aesthetics.

This course is nearly 36 hours long.

Art Anatomy for Beginners Thumbnail
Art Anatomy for Beginners Thumbnail

Art Anatomy for Beginners by Steve Huston.

It is recommend that you have some figure drawing experience before starting this course. Constructive Figure Drawing with Steve Huston would be a great place to start, as well as Dynamic Gesture Drawing by Glenn Vilppu, and the Spirit of the Pose with Karl Gnass. This course covers the human body as a whole, the shoulder girdle, the torse, limbs, as well as the hands and feet.

This course is over 11 hours long.

Intermediate Art Anatomy Thumbnail
Intermediate Art Anatomy Thumbnail

Intermediate Art Anatomy by Glenn Vilppu.

Previously called Vilppu Anatomy Lectures (2012), although you can access the outdated course still on the website.

This course covers human proportions, the torso, lower and upper limbs, hands and feet.

The updated course is over 6 hours of content.

How to Draw the Costumed / Draped Figure Thumbnail
How to Draw the Costumed / Draped Figure Thumbnail

How to Draw the Costumed / Draped Figure by Bill Perkins.

You should at least do one of our beginning figure drawing courses or have a few years of figure drawing experience before attempting to draw the costumed figure. It is also recommended to take Iliya Mirochnik’s Drapery Drawing Course as well (coming in 2020).

This course is 34 hours long!

Dynamic Gesture Drawing Thumbnail
Dynamic Gesture Drawing Thumbnail

Dynamic Gesture Drawing by Glenn Vilppu.

This course covers gesture; box, cylinder and spherical forms; drawing procedure, and defining tone through lighting; numerous demonstrations, and drawing from imagination.

This course is over 38 hours long!

Advanced Dynamic Gesture Drawing Thumbnail
Advanced Dynamic Gesture Drawing Thumbnail

Advanced Dynamic Gesture Drawing by Glenn Vilppu.

This course covers how to compose shapes using various different medias (watercolor, charcoal for example). It also includes how to invent your own lighting (such as drawing from imagination).

This course is 13 hours long.

The Frank Reilly Illustration Drawing Method thumbnail
The Frank Reilly Illustration Drawing Method Thumbnail

The Frank Reilly Illustration Drawing Method by Mark Westermoe

In this drawing course, the late Mark Westermoe teaches you the famous Reilly Method of drawing the head, hands, and figure. The Reilly approach is a constructive/graphic hybrid that emphasizes line and shape design and clear value control. This approach has become popular among professional illustrators as well as for fine art applications.

This course is 42 hours long.

Renaissance Head Drawing Thumbnail
Renaissance Head Drawing Thumbnail

Renaissance Head Drawing by Glenn Vilppu.

This course covers… how to draw the head. It focuses a lot on construcive head drawing, such as breaking down the major planes and shapes to define overlapping forms, contrast and light. It also covers the neck and the shoulder girdle (that would often be included in portraits). Finally you will learn how to draw from imagination, and how to draw facial expressions.

This course is 30.5 hours!

Elements of Traditional Composition thumbnail
Elements of Traditional Composition thumbnail

Elements of Traditional Composition by Glenn Vilppu.

Glenn Vilppu teaches you some of the fundamentals elements of composition in traditional pictorial art. You will learn how the Old Masters used compositional concepts and how to apply these concepts to your own work.

This course is over 14 hours long.

Advanced

Complete Human Anatomy Thumbnail
Complete Human Anatomy Thumbnail

Complete Human Anatomy for Artists by Rey Bustos.

This course introduces the lower leg and foot, the thigh and gluteals, the back, the torso, the arm, the head and neck, and finally the anatomy of master artists (the anatomy they drew, not their own bodies!). No assignments or practicals are assigned; self-implied practice required.

Total course is 19.5 hours!

Build Your Own Anatomy Figure Thumbnail
Build Your Own Anatomy Figure Thumbnail

(Optional) Build Your Own Anatomy Figure with Rey Bustos. This course takes you step by step on how to build your own ecorché, from armature to final details. Total course is 21 hours!!

Advanced Head Drawing Thumbnail
Advanced Head Drawing Thumbnail

Advanced Head Drawing by Glenn Vilppu, Iliya Mirochnik, Rey Bustos and Steve Huston.

Learn about advanced gesture and construction of the head as well as anatomy, planes, expressions, sex and age differences and characterization in this comprehensive course. This course is over 48 hours long!

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