Chris Legaspi is a concept artist who has worked for companies like Cryptic Studios, Bottlerocket Entertainment, THQ.
Recently he’s been releasing courses on New Masters Academy in addition to his own site Draw with Chris and Gumroad.
Draw with Chris
Drawwithchris.com is the free mentorship site that acts as a hub for Legaspi’s other teaching content. How it works is you sign up for email updates, introduce yourself, and connect with Chris on Facebook. Then you will receive sporadic emails throughout the year with short lessons and updates. There’s not much here, but it’s free and serves it’s purpose well.
Shading Techniques in Photoshop
As far as I know, this was the first course that Chris Legaspi released on Gumroad.
Using a simple still-life of a skull, he touches on several fundamentals of drawing, such as edges, blocking in a drawing, and rendering.
While he uses Photoshop to execute the drawing, most of the principles taught in the course are applicable to traditional mediums. The section on how to set up Photoshop is obviously very specific and the texture section uses techniques that won’t be available to someone using a pencil, but the course is general enough to appeal to both traditional and digital artists. I think it would be an excellent bridge for traditional artists to start using Photoshop. Coincidentally, Chris taught a course on New Masters Academy on Photoshop for Traditional Artists.
Laws of Color vol. 1 & 2
I’m always skeptical of supposed “laws” in the arts, especially when it comes to color. Color is such a dynamic thing, and so dependent on context that it’s difficult to talk of it in absolutes. In his book Alla Prima, Richard Schmid wrote that the only thing he could consider a law when it came to color is when there is a warm light source there will be cool shadows and vice versa. Even then there are scenarios where that won’t be true.
I guess “useful suggestions” or “guidelines” of color doesn’t sound as catchy though.
Each of the laws is presented and explained in the first chapter, and the rest of the chapters are used to further demonstrate each law. Depending on which package you purchased, the demonstrations will either be in oil paint or Photoshop. If you’re struggling with color this is a very useful resource.
Check out Shading Techniques in Photoshop and the Laws of Color courses on Chris Legaspi’s Gumroad page.
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- Chris Legaspi’s Draw with Chris, Shading Techniques in Photoshop, and the Laws of Color - August 9, 2017