Game Art - Character Development Images

Because I might as well. Some early sketches from the first few classes. I initially wanted to go with the cartoon look, but as I continued working on ideas, I've started leaning more towards a space theme... if only because I want to expand my range of art styles. I need to get to work on some actual designs rather than plain ideas.

Game Art - Character Development

Because I figure that writing this here would be better than making notes in my sketchbook.

The first week has now passed, and starting on Tuesday, we're going to be learning some photoshop basics. I know just about enough about the program to know that I have never really got on with it all that well. And certainly I know that I have never really grasped it.

To move a step backwards however, I will be uploading some sketches after the Tuesday lesson. For now, I'm going to write down some details about the characters I have devised based on myself. Because I didn't feel that it would be quite good enough for me to only do one design that I've already iterated on (but never finalised) over the years, I decided to create an alternative based on a vaguely more realistic look. I've gone so far as to imagine game genres as well.

So lets get to it.

1.
Name - Bill Dup
Age - Unknown
Role - Silent Protagonist (Communicates through a pet as well as with expressions of both exaggerated and subtle natures.)
Game Genre - Turn Based RPG/Puzzler
General Genre - Comedy
Occupation - Alteamist (Using the power of tea)
Art Style - 30's Animation.

An individual whom has spent a significant proportion of his life living on the Moon under self imposed exile, Bill Dup is socially awkward and cowardly by nature - although his deeply rooted sense of right and wrong are only just able to counter his cowardice.

After aliens invade the Earth and kidnap his friends, it soon falls upon Bill Dup to make use of his unique ability to unlock the power of tea to try and repel the extraterrestrial invasion. Even if he really doesn't want to be the one to take the lead.

 His actions can appear to be clumsy due to his difficulty in getting on with people, and he is also easily startled in unfamiliar locations.  

2.
Name - Franco
Role - Supporting Character
Game Genre - Horror
General Genre -  Science Fiction
Occupation - Engineer
Art Style - Relatively realistic.

Something of an improviser, Franco has been working on large scale space freighters for much of his life, he has learnt to largely cope on his own and keeps people at a distance from himself - mostly symbolised in the bulky large space suit that he uses.

As a supporting character, he fully cooperates with the protagonist after his trust is fully gained, and he assists in various small ways as required, being nervous about any detours from the chief objective of getting out of the space freighter alive. (I have nothing else to say right now)

Game Art Assignment 1 - 2D Character Art

Not got an awful lot to say about the subject itself so far, what with how surprisingly quickly we burst straight into the first assignment. The first assignment that is frankly a nightmare to me - I have to make myself into a character that is recognizable either literally or in say... traits. Like I said, a nightmare owing to being so far away from being a cool person, and my dislike of idealising myself into something more than I am.


I'm hoping to work on a couple of designs over the next few days. One of which will be a further refinement of Bill Dup, a character that already represents myself and normally cameos on scraps of paper or sketchbook work. Given the fellow has never been finalised, and the opportunity to really run with the Fleischer Studio art style I admire... I think I could do something fun.  I have plenty of ideas for Bill as it is, including his cowardice/nervousness and his occupation of tea making that would lend themselves to a character sheet well.


And after deciding that this assignment could be interpreted in a number of ways, I'm actually contemplating doing a design with a more realisitc art style... on the presumption that this imagined version of myself would be a member of a party rather than a hero in his own right. I feel compelled to do something space based, though whether based on an existing game franchise or something entirely made up, I'm still working on. I like the rougher feel of the future in Dead Space, but I also like the shiny sleekness of Mass Effect 2+.

I'm mainly writing this all down to tide things over until I do some proper writing and include some sketches and drawings. Whoop.

Programming Conclusion / Game Art Initial Thoughts

I thought I'd take the opportunity to really reflect on the last 4 or so months. The main thing to say really is that I'm rather appreciating the break at present, it is giving me time to unwind (despite not knowing how on edge I'd become towards the end of the semester).

Overall, it was a very insightful glimpse into the world of coding for games, and I found myself taking to it a little more easily then I took to Quick Basic back in my college days. I continue to find Futureworks to be an absolutely amazing place to study, almost entirely practical and when written work IS involved, it remains relevent to what we're doing. So no learning about french flaneurs while studying film.

For the most part, I found the lessons to be well paced, although reflecting backwards, we possibly spent far too long working on the text adventure assignment, which made the following lessons seem a little too rapid in comparison. I know I started stumbling and no longer understanding the work quite as deeply as time went on. I also know that the tutor did strive to help us out at all times, which to go back to the theme of the previous paragraph... is a vast improvement over being told to simply look in a book of the work we were doing in Computing. Understanding why something does what it does is a good thing, and fortunately for the most part, it segued into XNA admirably.

And again, as in a previous POST, I'm still not entirely sure if I'm going to consider working much deeper into programming as a career choice. At heart, I'm more of an ideas person as well as an 'artist'... but on the other hand, I'd love to be able to work on my own ideas and create working concepts. My goals have shifted since I started this course in Games Development, and I'm slipping from wanting to work for a larger company to being capable of popping out smaller games that are simply fun to play. I feel I'm learning the importance of games simply being fun, and that there is still a tonne of potential for new ideas and mechanics even within the restrictions of 2D or lower end production. I've always believed that good art design and good gameplay should be valued when designing any sort of game, and to be able to put those ideas into practice would be a dream come true.

Assignment 3 - Magic Conclusion

Because I didn't get much chance to even announce the last assignment, nor go through the work process. Something about programming has made keeping this blog up to date surprisingly difficult. Then again, I suppose there isn't really a lot you can show/demonstrate when it comes to programming besides the finished project. Oh well.

But regardless. Our assignment was pretty much a task of expanding upon some XNA based code work we've been doing in class. Adding a healthbar and an option to restart or quit the game, stop the player moving offscreen et cetera.

I've somewhat felt over the last few weeks that we have covered far too much ground in a short space of time, and as a result it was difficult to get to grips with the task at hand. But by plenty of internet searching and assistance from a programming acquaintance, I was just about able to achieve all of the above tasks in the nick of time, along with the inclusion of an additional platform (Seeing as I opted to make the project into a platformer rather than a four directional game.)

I haven't got a lot else to say. I'm going to go back and try to learn all of this work properly in my own time. While I'm not sure whether I'd ever want to focus on programming as a career choice, it maintains a hold on me due to the possibilities of someday being able to produce working concepts of game mechanics and ideas I've been jotting down over the years (more so since I've been on this course).

I digress. Have some screenshots.

Such an imaginative title screen. As with the previous assignment, I included the controls here for the sake of clarity.

This is the entire game right here. A floor, one platform. No items, Fox only, FINAL DESTINATION.

A jump animation was kind of included... and also demonstarting a functioning platform. I had a fair bit of trouble with said platform at first, from characters falling through them to characters walking on air beyond the platform if they did not jump.

I was too indifferent to make meaningful projectiles.

Demonstrating how the health bar reduces as players are damaged by the black blocks

Shockingly enough, there is a seperate game over screen for if the second player won.

 

Personal Blog - Basic Sprite Tutorial

This is more or less a poor tutorial about how I put together a spritesheet. For drawing spritesheets is one thing, but ensuring that each frame is in sync with the other frames is something else entirely. I'm going to stress that there is probably a quicker and easier way then the way I'm going to be showing today, but providing a starting point for further exploration is beneficial in itself, so~

This will also feature some animation principles which I think will prove useful and informative.

Starting out

Right. So. Sprites. The first thing I'm going to say is to start out with considering the size of your game window and how large you want your sprites to be. Working with pixel art, a single pixel is obviously going to be tiny.

As you can see, this is my first sprite drawn with single pixels. Far too small.

 In my own effort, I decided to work with 3x3 pixel squares to maintain a simple look while increasing the size just enough to make the sprite look right. You don't want to make your sprites TOO large for your game window size, otherwise you'll be limiting how much screen the player can see beyond the player sprite (and enemies, if applicable)

Still not very large, but in a 800x600 screen, it'll be the right size.

Colour is very important to consider also. If you think about Mario or Megaman, those sprites feature very simple but contrasting colours, which is important to stop a sprite looking like a block of pixels rather than a character. I'm using largely monochrome colours, but I've made the shades distinctive enough that they don't blend together.

Starting to make your sprites

The next thing to consider before getting into the work itself is to consider in advance WHAT sort of actions your game will allow the player to perform. In this example, the player is able to walk and jump, as well as be hit by enemies or the environment.

At this point, I wouldn't be too precious about how aligned your sprites are. I tend to make copies of one sprite as a measuring point for height, and a line to keep the sprites on an even level... but that is about it.

An example of drawing most of the sprites I'll be using in my project. Also included are earlier iterations of the Bill Dup sprite.

Another pro tip at this point is to break up your sprites into seperate body parts on different layers so that you can experiment and recycle different pieces of body. This will save you time in the long run.

Animatimg Your Sprites

Ooooh. Animating. Because a single picture isn't going to be good enough in most games. This is where I will be hitting on some animation theory, so buckle up.

In terms of traditional animation, a rate of 24 frames is the standard for movie quality animation while modern standards mostly hover around 12 frames per second. Depending on how fluid and how quickly you want your animated sprite to be, you can easily get away with even less frames... for example, in the original Super Mario Brothers, Mario and Luigi only have three sprites to represent their run cycle.

In my case, I'm sticking with six frames of animation. Animated at a sufficient speed, it will still look fairly smooth without too much work. One must also keep in mind that making individual movements vary too much will make the sprite look like it is moving far too fast. Equally important is to remember to treat the first frame of your animation as also being the seventh frame. Because after the sixth frame, the loop starts all over and so to keep your animation smooth it should flow back to the starting image. Gosh I can't write.

This is also where having copies of seperate pieces of your character will come in handy. And again, I don't consider this point to be especially important in terms of syncing all of the sprites into precise frames. You will want line to keep your character's level consistant, but that is about it.

Animation in progress.

 And yes, the above should show why it isn't that important to keep your sprites in frames just yet. Some will take up more space than others. Hopefully it also shows why it is a good idea to draw an individual sprite for each state before you try and animate them - you have an automatic starting point to use as a basis for the rest of the frames you'll be animating.

Making Consistant Frames

Because it is really easy to end up with each picture accidently jumping left and right during an animation cycle.

My way of countering this is to find which of my sprites takes up the most space, which will then become the standard point for the rest of the sprites to fit into.

In photoshop, I cut and paste this sprite into a new file, and then changed the canvas size to the size I want to animate at. In this case, I'm sticking to 160x160 pixels. The sprite should remain in the centre of the file, and voila. I change the colour of the background so I can place multiple copies of the same image into rows and columns.

Then it becomes a case of aligning the other sprites over the newly created template. In my case, I mostly used the head as the basis for where I wanted to place each sprite.

This isn't 160 by 160. I can't seem to open the file with the correct size, but the principle remains the same.

With this done, I can then delete the template and be left with a clear background and all my sprites perfectly placed so they don't bounce about between frames. Success!

The mostly finished spritesheet

Of course, now you can stick it in game and see how it animates. You may find some small mistakes that need correcting or iterating on, but you know what to do now, so. V:

Personal Blog - An Aim For The End Of The First Year

Because I'm awake diabolically early today, and I have absolutely nothing better to do in a world where Visual Studio refuses to work on my current PC, I thought I might as well write this up.

I have a noble goal that I hope to achieve either by the end of the first year of Games Development, or maybe in the beginning of the second year. I wish to take an element of each section of Game Design, Programming, and Game Art to create a working one level game. Nothing elaborate.

So essentially, I'm going to take my level design from Game Design (As well as the game rules, so that would involve a character that goes from walking to running after a few units, sliding, and swinging), use C# and XNA from programming, and probably use some art from Game Art if it is applicable and/or possible.

Am I optimistic about it? No, I'll probably fail. But I'd like to at least try. It'll also be nice to use my unofficial mascot/alterego Bill Dup once again, a little fellow that tends to appear in my sketchbooks and some older projects.

Programming Assignment 2 - Conclusion

And some screenshots as well. Because I'm just that generous.

I shall recap the assignment in question, if I have capped the assignment in the first place. Our task was 5 fold -:

• Use a two dimensional char array to create a maze
• Use classes to seperate functions while still running the program
• Restrict player movement to left and right directions unless there is a ladder to climb, and add environmental hazards that send the player back to the start if touched.
• Add enemies that move two squares left and right, which also push the player back to the start if contact is made
• Add a title and display the player's X and Y coordinates.

I had a lot of trouble with this assignment, I won't lie about it. Mostly due to not grasping how classes function and interact with one another. Thanks to collegues in the classroom, I was able to eventually wrap my head around this particular difficulty.

In the end, I was only able to achieve 4 of the objectives, and the one I didn't manage was the addition of enemies. Any attempt to add one ended up creating an alternate map. Maybe if I'd had a little more time to play around with the coding, I may have been able to find a way to resolve it, but managing four out of five tasks is nothing to be too disappointed by.

Items, Doors, Ladders, Title, Environmental Hazards, Coordinates, and as a bonus, Controls and Objective

  
I actually designed the level in such a way that each room would have introduced new elements, like the first room simply featured opening a door with a key, and then the second room introduced the ladder... the third room introduced spike hazards, and the fourth room would have featured an enemy to avoid before the fifth room being all about combining everything into one challenge. As mentioned, no enemies made it and so this idea more or less flew out of the window.

I also made elaborate use of ASCII symbols to create something a little more visually complete... I wasn't content with using default dashes or dots to make up the game. I suppose that is the artist in me trying to break free once again.

Just a screenshot demonstrating that the keys/hearts disappear when picked up, along with the doors. Also showing off ladder use.

And that is pretty much all I really have to say. I'm going to take a break and finish off the last aspects of the programming course before the holidays, and then I'll try to get to grips on this and see if I can finally work out the enemies.

Victory screen. And credit to those who helped me out in the assignment.

I may go back and take some screenshots of the first assignment, the text adventure. I may. Or may not.

Programming, General Blog

Writing this post because it has dawned on me that I've really failed to do so of late.

Even now, there really isn't all that much that I can say that would prove enlightening on what I've been up to for the last month. The way of working has been very different in Programming from the way we worked in Games Design, as fundamentally different subjects as they are.

I thought that I'd at least say that some of the fear I originally had with programming has dissipated. Not to say that I'm necessarily finding the subject easy, more that it appeals to my problem solving obsessive compulsive streak, and the only difficulty I can really say I'm experiencing is trying to do things without actually knowing the code necessary. If I know what code I can use and how/why it functions, then I can code and use it in many more ways... if I have no idea what I'm doing, obviously I'm not going to get anywhere.

It is all fine and dandy to say Google is good for helping out, but I've not been finding that to be the case exactly. There are only so many ways to phrase something you're trying to work out, and eeeeh.

Right now, we've been set a task to make a primative 2D game in a C# Console Application. I vaguely understand the base code that allows the program to function, but I have no idea about many of the things we've been additionally asked to do, like making things disappear when the player walks over it, or enemies that move 2 spaces back and forth. I can't see any of that particularly working with the knowledge I have at present, nor have I really been able to solve the problems via google. All I've found is that there is no way to change the contents of an array, and that can't be true. It would help to know what to be looking for rather than gunning blind. At least until there is enough knowledge to actually be able to confidently search for extra knowledge. I feel like I'm missing pieces of a puzzle.

The only thing I really did figure out on my own was making the player only move left and right apart from when ladders are present. Even that isn't really very useful to me right now, and I'm planning to work out if there is a way to make the code function by observing what is one cell UNDER the player character instead of directly behind the player character. Which would resolve the issue of being able to move left and right in the air... but I have no idea if it will even work.

Ughuhuh. I'm sure I'll work it all out eventually.

Assignment 1 Part 5 - Nearing The End

With the hand in date occurring at the end of Thursday's lecture, I've still got a fair amount of work to get on with. It is going to transpire that my game isn't going to be very big, but that being said I have been viewing this assignment more as a test of being able to make use of the various statements and loops.

This is the chief reason I decided to make a game based on Mass Effect. It gave me a reasonably challenging task in working out how to replicate the various functions of the actual game series.

And as I write this now, I have succeeded in making conversations that loop and and advance the events of the game. One conversation will conclude differently if the player first speaks to another character that reveals the betrayal of the individual being spoken to. And I'm about to finish the conversation that triggers this option and try to include a brief section of the player escaping from their prison cell. I'm not too worried about this failing to manage the latter though... I'm more pleased that I managed to work things out so that the player's status bar remains in place, a problem that I solved after finding that the screen cleared in the character customization section, which I wanted to avoid for the game itself.

I'm satisfied. Finding creative ways of using ints, strings and bools has made the assignment a productive one.

Assignment 1 Part 4 - Choices, Choices

I'm making a fair amount of progress within this assignment, although I remain convinced that I'm probably not going to be able to make a full adventure. It might just be one of those things where I'll want to continue adding to it even after the hand in date. I'm increasingly seeing the work as a test of how I can use the knowledge from college then as an attempt to make an actual text adventure.

With character customization neatened up and complete, I've been able to start on the story itself, which I've mapped out in an Open Office document. While this was going to be quite the quest, I'm lowering my scope to dealing with three areas, each testing a particular mechanic I want to include.

I have been using ints and if/else statements to help with the character conversations I'm drafting out at the moment. Chiefly, if I want to add bonus points to paragon or renegade stats, I don't want that to be exploitable. I've been able to use switch cases with if/else statements to successfully carry out basic conversation... and after each conversation ends, an int is changed so that if the player inputs "Speak to Teammate" for example, they will speak... but if they do it for a second time, it will say that that command has already been used. I've gone a little further with this in regard to not allowing event progression until at least one other person has been spoken to. 

Probably not all that necessary, but I mostly wanted to see if I could do such a thing.

Furthermore, I'm working out small ways to change certain things in the game depending on choices the player makes in the customization screen. For example, in the second area, an enemy may be observed at a distance. Unless you are an infiltrator, you will have to encounter this enemy once you reach the other side of the room.... of course, if you ARE an infiltrator, you will be able to use a unique skill to take down said enemy from a distance and avoid that event entirely.

So yeah, I'm perhaps being a bit elaborate. The only thing left that I really need to do is to create a game over screen with the option to restart or quit. I doubt I'm going to be able to allow the player to restart at a previous point without screwing up the player stats, so I'm going to just try and look everything around back to the main screen. A bit of a cop out, but I don't know how to do otherwise for now.

Assignment 1 Part 3 - Text Adventure Rising

//Thought I'd write an update so far. I'm basically at the point now where I can get started on the //actual adventure, for all it is worth. I don't think I'm going to be able to make too much... man.

//If I'd known what I know today over the weekend.

//Martin was kind enough to look over the massive amount of code in the program I put together over //the weekend, and showed me an alternative way to achieve the same aim without the sheer amount //of lines I'd used... and sitting at a far more respectable 1000 lines, it functions exactly the same way. //It really has been amazing to see how much more efficient one can be with just a /little/ extra //knowledge.

//Making an int for the number of questions asked and increasing it's number by one for each //question answered was truely beautiful... so of course, I have to thank Martin heartily for helping //me improve my work. I was able to complete the rest of the character customization, as well as //create a seperate loop at the beginning of the game that would allow me to offer the option of //starting with a default character instead of going through the customization. (Well... most of it. It //ties in nicely with the last customization loop which allows the player to start the game or reset their //customization and start over).

//So now it is onto the game proper. I know I'm probably not going to manage anything particularly //long (if I can even achieve THAT), which means that I'm going to focus more on making those //decisions made at the start of the game visible.

//I've also been inspired by the brief coding exercise at the start of Tuesday's lesson. I wish I'd written //it down, because ugh... I got the greatest idea for a little sequence where a player has to escape //within a certain number of turns, and if they don't make it, GAME OVER. Hmm...

Assignment 1 part 2 - Character Customization

Thought I'd make a quick update before I start the jobs I have to get on with today.

It took near enough the full weekend, and rather a lot more lines of code than I really though, but at this point now I've succeeded in recreating the character customization feature in Mass Effect in do while and switch statements.

This involved an awful lot of branching as the choices stacked up. As mentioned in the previous entry, I have

name    

• name (ccname + "Marshall");

gender  

•  male = (+1 male);
• female = (+1 female);

history  

• spacer = (+4 paragon, +1 spacer);
• citadel born = (+4 renegade, + 1 citadel);
• colonist = (+2 paragon, +2 renegade, +1 colonist);

profile   

• sole survivor = (+1 survivor);
• war hero = (+2 paragon, + 1 warhero);
• ruthless = (+2 renegade, + 1 ruthless);

class      

• Soldier = (health = (health + 25), soldier + 1);
• Infiltrator = (infiltrator + 1);
• Adept = (adept + 1);
• Engineer = (engineer + 1);

And so gender branches out in two directions, and then each of those branch out in three directions... and then each of THOSE branch out in three directions... and THEN THOSE branch out in four directions. And at the end, I put in an option to start the game or reset... which wipes out all the int changes involved with the individual choices and returns you to the beginning of the customization screen.

I cut down the number of classes to 4, and while they won't act all that differently, I hope to use the ints to provide extra options for the player to choose as they interact and travel through the area I'm going to be doing. For example, a soldier may get an exclusive option to kick down a blocked door that the other classes may not get, and a character with high renegade points may get an extra conversation topic.

***

Long story short, I got more done than I thought I'd have done by now, it works, and I'm taking a day off to try and relax. I want to put in an option to skip the character creation with a default load out to allow a player to quick start.

It is likely that I'm doing something overly complicated, (Over 8000 lines for this section alone!) but I generally follow a rule that I'll try and take my learning as far as I can. I have to look into a couple of things that may help me make things look a little prettier (And work out how to make the window bigger), but I also want to avoid trying to use commands and lines/code that I'm not yet familiar with.

 I'm also compensating for the complexity of the character creation by making the story itself not so wide branching. It really will be a choose your own adventure, I don't intend on allowing back tracking (Although I will be allowing for some investigation)... something like that WOULD be beyond my present skills.

Assignment 1 - Text Adventure

I just thought that now we've got an actual assignment on hand, that I can resume blogging. I've had no real reason to do so up to now, partly out of desire not to clog the blog up with irrelevant topics.

(And also, I don't actually have a copy of the assignment. I only honestly recall that it has to be able to restart without exiting the program, and involve a combination of if/else and do/while statements.)

***

And so it begins. Or rather, it began on Tuesday but I didn't touch the coding until I had a clearer idea of what I was intending to create. It was a relatively simple choice between doing something more easily achievable and complete, or trying to use the knowledge I've acquired in class over the last 4 weeks to build something more complicated.

"Bill Dup Adventure"

Simply been an expansion on a task we did in class a week ago, with the tale of my sketchbook alter ego Bill Dup in his attempt to find out exactly why he can't open the door to his flat. This idea would have largely followed what I call a Frankensian logic with some surrealist/black humour... and that is more or less all I can really say.

"Mass Effect - Untitled Side Adventure"

A more complicated text based adventure set in Bioware's Mass Effect Universe, with segments of exploring, talking, and combat. Players can choose a default character or create their own to affect their path through a shorter adventure, and even gain a team mate or two as they break out of a prison under siege. Because I didn't want to use established characters, the player character will be a mercenary or similar such things that won't involve the System Alliance Navy or N7.

***

And I sided with complicated. Which I just know is going to come back and bite me on my pleasantly plump posterior somewhere down the road, but the idea excited me more, and I still feel that it will be a real challenge and thus also a learning experience.

The theory of how it will work remains rather sound, at least in my head. I will have to prepare for plenty of cut and paste depending on choices.

But so far, I've made a title screen (With coloured background and font no less) and I'm in the process of creating the character customization page which will consist of

• Name
• Gender
• Pre Service History
• Psychological Profile
• Class

As far as how these are going to work is concerned... as in the real Mass Effect games, History and Profile are mostly for bestowing early points to a player's Paragon/Renegade stats which I am presently using ints for. I have created further ints for each of the selected profiles and histories which I will randomly use for conversation or exploration options... and the Paragon/Renegade stats will allow for further conversation actions. Player Class will affect combat sections of the game, from what sort of weapon a player uses to any further actions I can come up with.

Unlike the title screen, I've not yet finished this section, and I'm going to be trying to niggle out the finer details further in. I think I want to make this section back trackable as well in case a player wants to change any details they've put in place. Using the Default character will set stats and name to a standard loadout.

Soon as I feel I have enough work to warrant it, I will be uploading some screen grabs.

For now, peace out!

Personal Blog - Life Drawing

Hey guys. Can't remember if this is the first blog of the new year, and I can't believe I've neglected this for so long. Hopefully I will pick up the pace again soon.


But I thought I'd make this blog entry today on the offchance anyone is interested in what I'm going to say (Unlikely, I know, but I don't want to take the chance.)

I'm going to be going on a short course in life drawing in February at a cost of £180, and I wanted to leave a link on here. Because I think that this could really be something others that want to draw could benefit from.

http://stockportartguild.com/realistic-drawing-courses-with-chris-clements/

And I know it says Stockport Art Guild, but the lessons are running on a Sunday in Manchester (Deansgate)... the Stockport Art Guild is a group that operates in Stockport, and their members do run little courses as well as life drawing and portrait sessions every week

In short, if you have the money and you want to learn the fundamentals, I think it would be well worth considering this course. Learning basics, gesture, lighting et cetera... the sort of skills that you don't really find in most art courses in this day and age (Given the massive emphasis on abstract art, which I imagine does help in an anything you do is still good sort of way)