Concept Art Masterclass - Landscapes and Environments (Udemy.com)

I really enjoyed this course. The instructor is obviously very knowledgeable and she gives detailed explanations of every step of the process in each of the paintings. I also loved that she showed us the parts where she experimented with an idea, concluded that it doesn't work and changed it or abandoned it (like, for example, the staircase in the third painting). This is how everything should be taught, there is great value in seeing not only what works, but also what doesn't work. On top of that, all the paintings are really beautiful. Regarding the difficulty, up until the third section I thought this definitely isn't a course for beginners. It is assumed that you know basic things like core shadow, reflected light, atmospheric perspective and similar. At least the first two project seem to me rather difficult and mostly aimed to (at least) intermediate students who know the basic things and have some painting ability and just need some fresh inspiration and interesting new techniques. That being said, I, as a complete beginner, have learned quite a few wonderful basic things throughout the course, even though they were not in themselves the point, but rather just small pieces of the overall image. For example, a wonderful method of painting rocks is explained, then a great way of creating shadows with the freehand selection tool (I use Krita, hence the terminology :-) ) and a soft brush, how to create a limited colour palette, etc., and in the third part we even learn how to paint a tree! I wish there was an actual beginners' course that would be dedicated to this sort of thing - basic shading, highlighting, etc., then learn how to paint a rock, how to paint flowers, trees and other things, then practice that vigorously and combine into a full project, etc. Many courses claim to be for beginners, but few actually fulfill that promise. But I'm digressing. Speaking of the third project, this is actually something that a beginner could do. The painting is beautiful, but its parts are mostly simple and even a beginner could do them with some practice. This is probably my favourite part of the course - limited colour palette, frequent use of the freehand (and sometimes polygonal) selection tool, often in combination with a soft brush, very simple but very effective sky (who knew that you could make a beautiful and convincing dawn sky with two or three brush strokes?), also mostly simple and also very beautiful tree, etc. This part is a wonderful demonstration of how simplicity goes a long way in art. The painting has a very stylized, slightly "otherworldly" feeling (primarily due to the use of colours) and while the first two paintings are also beautiful, as I said, this one is probably my favourite. A very, very, very tiny complaint would be the layer management. The instructor, like probably all very skilled artists, has no trouble instantly seeing that, for example, layer 49 is a rock and that layer 125 is a forest and that the former should be below the latter, but when you're following the course, this is not easy to catch in a second. I think, however tedious and boring that might be, that for the purposes of teaching it is best to name a layer as soon as it is created, or at least immediately after initial work on it is done. As I said, however, this is a very tiny complaint, since these moments of layer confusion are rare and in no way create trouble in following the course. All in all, following this course was very enjoyable for me and if Siobhan ever decides to create a comprehensive beginner painting course, I'll be the first to buy it :-)

I appreciated hearing about the narrative part of painting, how the rule of thirds satisfies our eyes because of the story it suggests. The variety of paintings were appreciated: a loose sketchy one, a detailed one, and a soft animation-background style one. One thing I did notice is that there are some resources missing. The .psd files are available for the first to paintings mentioned, but the final painting .psd file was missing. Similarly, the instructor mentioned an image she color picked from and said it would be in the resources, but it wasn't there.

For me, this course helped me connect some loose pieces in my technique and previous knowledge - more than actually adding something new to it. But that doesn't detract from the quality of this course. Personally, I had already practiced and worked on these techniques from an early age, BUT being able to listen to a breakdown of the process by a professional rather than doing it myself allowed me to refine my approach further. All in all, it is a great course for beginners and experienced artists alike, though your current knowledge and skill will definitely affect what and how much you will gain from it.

I had such a fun time with this course! If you can't use, or find you don't like, all of the techniques used there is no sense of pressure to do anything but create. That being said many of the techniques are incredibly helpful and put into very simple terms. I am not a beginner artist so I cannot speak to that entirely but I think some entry level art skills, or at least a passion, may be helpful with the course. I say this because of the speed and basic understanding of many of the lessons. While it was easy for me to follow along or get back on track where I can faltered I can see that being less easy for someone with minimal experience. Still I have nothing bad to say about this course! Even if you're just looking to touch up your skills like be it is a fun experience and there is certainly a lot to learn.

After looking the first time, I think this is not a lesson but demonstration how you can do it. It's going very quickly. The teacher say you can also just Procreate. and other programs. I think that wil be difficult. I also think this is not for beginners like me? I have see a few tricks that I can just. So that's why I give 5 stars. She is good. Mayby I can chances this evolution after I draw it by my self

I enjoyed the course and since I haven't used Photoshop for a while, learnt a few helpful techniques (using masks, lasso, simple stylized touches to bring a flat image into life). However, there are a few shortcomings: -Very little theory. While the author goes over the Golden Spiral and the Rule of Thirds which are super helpful, shouldn't talk much about the logic behind painting much. Giving more information about how light works, for example, would've been very helpful. -It is very minor, but some brushes the author uses are not a part of the folder that is included with the course. You can obviously find substitutions, but those brushes were pretty interesting, wish they were included. -Occasionally the author would do changes off screen and never explain them. While some are minor and rely on the same principle that was explained earlier, there was at least one instance with the 2nd scene where the background was changed considerably, and it was hard to figure out on your own how to achieve the same result. Overall, I enjoyed the course. It provided sufficient tools to turn ideas into a scene. For myself though, I still feel I need to go back to the fundamentals of the composition and lighting to learn how to actually design a scene a paint it properly.

Amazing course with a very nice instructor. I wanted to learn the basics of concept art and this course perfectly covered everything I needed to get started, such as working with composition, color rules and perspective scaling. The instructor always gave me feedback and was willing to talk more about anything I needed. The tutorials and tips in the course were really helpful. I had an amazing time! :)

This course experience was way above my expectations! Siobhan delivers such an amazing content in a concise and straight way without being boring. The compositional techniques taught by her are a game changing to any artist looking to work with backgrounds. Also, this course expands the way you can approach a digital painting, since she shows you three completely different ways to work with a background and a lot of interesting techniques. Not only that, but she also gives you a brush pack with a great range of textures that will step up your art to a new level. I’ve learned a lot in this course and I’m really grateful for the experience and totally recommend it for other artists.

Hi Siobhan! Thank you a lot for this course. I was really struggling alot with drawing backgrounds and you really helped me a lot on that front. The way you explain composition and different fundamentals really helped me tackle some barriers that I was stuck on. What this course perhaps could’ve used though was a more detailed explanation of how to draw different textures and objects that can be found in nature. For example, I struggle alot with drawing rocks and water and the texture of trees. And also things like grass and sandy desserts and stuff. You did give some solid advice on using the lasso tool for rocks so that I’m thankful for, but I still miss some key fundamentals on how to draw rocks that actually look good and how to draw waves on water or cracks on the ground. So perhaps you can make another course just on textures and landscape objects if you haven’t already? Thank you!

[ESP] Excelente curso, no tengo photoshop pero usando krita se puede hacer lo mismo, son 3 obras en las que tienes aproximaciones totalmente diferentes, así que estás aprendiendo 3 maneras de hacer las cosas, cada una a su estilo en las que puedes profundizar tanto como quieras, nunca había pintado ilustraciones como estas, sin embargo logré réplicas muy cercanas a lo que Siobhan muestra, quedo muy satisfecho y lo recomiendo ampliamente, no va a decepcionarte :D [ENG] Outstanding course, I don't have photoshop but using krita you can acomplish pretty much everything, these are 3 illustrations with different methods and approaches, so it's like learning 3 ways of doing things, each one with their own unique style where you can be as creative as you want, I had never painted anything like these paintings before but I think I came pretty close to what Siobhan is showing, I feel very pleased with this course and I cannot recommend it enough, you won't be dissapointed :D