Activity Feed
Alexis Riviere
•
2yr
added comment inReilly Figure Drawing
To set the tone directly: this post is gonna be a negative critique of this course.
I don't want to slander it or anything, as the content does have value and I like it. But I think it hardly matches what is being promised, which got me a bit disappointed.
Anyway, Let me explain.
The course includes an ebook and a bunch of videos.
The videos are real-time demos of 4 different artists using Reilly rhythms to get some pieces done. And apart from Brian Knox - who takes the time to explain how he prepares his pencils, how to draw clean lines, perspective and such, before going into the usage of the Reilly method to construct the figure - they're not really teaching you how to do the same.
You'd think each specific rhythm would be explained, from how they relate to the actual anatomy down to how they look like in many different poses, but nah. Doesn't happen.
After Brian's done showing the big idea for the torso, no one does the same for the arms/legs, or break down things any further. It just becomes... commented demos, really, with Jeff Watts even stating that he doesn't expect us to really follow what he's doing because it's extremely advanced, or Ben Young not even using the Reilly rhythms at all to focus on tonal rendering instead.
As for the ebook, it does contains different diagrams for the Reilly rhythms, which makes for 3 pages. And the rest is made of commented pictures of the drawings that we're already seeing in the videos.
In the end, it's almost entirely up to us to figure out how these rhythms really work. I understand that students should learn some things by themselves, but a course should break some things down to make it easy for them. If it's just merely about giving clues, it breaks the whole purpose of a course: teaching.
Again, don't get me wrong. I don't want to roast this completely, nor to offend anyone!
These are genuinely great demos, and the ebook is good material to work from. I'm really happy to have them. But frankly, after coming from Stan's awesome courses (which include real lessons with explanations, exercises, critiques, etc.) this can only come as a disappointment.
And for all I know, maybe the team behind this is made of extremely good instructors. But in that case, I suspect that the good stuff is kept away in the main Watts atelier program, making this just a pricey teaser...
Anyway, feel free to express any counter-opinion.
I'm open for discussion, and would actually be really happy if someone were to change my mind about this. ^^
I'm also curious to see if anyone else shares my point of view.
J R
•
1yr
love the course so far. I wish there was a more step by step in the lines he's putting down rhythm wise. He does some, but other times he just adds rhythm lines likely because he's just done it for so long. Kind of a draw along more so then a detailed guide on how to use these