Reasonable tuition fees

S

Smiler65

Guest
looking at trying to get some tuition,had a look around and the general fees seem to be £120-£130 for a days beginners course.

Here's the catch, the fee is not a problem, but what I am going to be looking for is tuition with my equipment,my paint,how to use my Ab's.

Most of the classes advertise they provide all the materials, equipment etc,but they obviously sell the equipment they use,I wouldn't be looking at changing mine.
Do you think it would be asking to much of them?
 
If you are looking tuition to learn yo use and care for your own equipment, contact them and tell them that.

The problem is that on any course you will get general pointers about equipment and paint, but unless you could specify exactly what your intentions are in the long run, they can't offer you much more.

I think you should save your money and just try to get to know both your brushes and learn what they both can do, experiment with thinning and pressures as already discussed and don't be afraid to try other paints.

130 quid is probably based on a class of between 6 - 12 students, a course tailored to your specific needs would more than likely cost a lot more so be sure about this before you decide on anything.

I can understand if you think it's going a little slow for you or you feel that you are getting nowhere fast, but a little patience and determination as well as regular practice will pay off, how soon it does is upto you.

Set yourself a a practice schedule of an hour every day or less even, and outside of that try to enjoy messing with little paintings or doodling with your brush, it's all relevant.

Most proper courses would assume that you have some basic experience and or knowledge of your gear.
 
If you pay to go on a course you are under no obligation to buy anything. It may be different ab and paint but it all helps.
 
Madbrush said:
If you are looking tuition to learn yo use and care for your own equipment, contact them and tell them that.

The problem is that on any course you will get general pointers about equipment and paint, but unless you could specify exactly what your intentions are in the long run, they can't offer you much more.

I think you should save your money and just try to get to know both your brushes and learn what they both can do, experiment with thinning and pressures as already discussed and don't be afraid to try other paints.

130 quid is probably based on a class of between 6 - 12 students, a course tailored to your specific needs would more than likely cost a lot more so be sure about this before you decide on anything.

I can understand if you think it's going a little slow for you or you feel that you are getting nowhere fast, but a little patience and determination as well as regular practice will pay off, how soon it does is upto you.

Set yourself a a practice schedule of an hour every day or less even, and outside of that try to enjoy messing with little paintings or doodling with your brush, it's all relevant.

Most proper courses would assume that you have some basic experience and or knowledge of your gear.
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As you know I have been given loads of info and suggestions of what to try, how to do it etc etc.

I'm just frustrating myself trying different things, pressure ,distance ,trigger control, paint reduction etc etc.
I fooled my self into buying a cm-b,but I trully glad I have as I think I have better trigger control,also buying a better inline Mac valve gave me better control of my pressures as well.
This is was proved tonight,once again your suggestion to switch to opaque,this proved I had better control as I could pull light intencity, and do narrow lines to reasonable fades( well I think so).
Tip dry, now I know what that is, something never encountered before. I'm starting to think the paint might be the prob as the age etc not known, so was thinking poss change to etac, but is that just another excuse.
I do practice 1hr a night if not more and I'll prob get 3-4 each day this weekend.

Am I expecting to be further along, definitely yes, what do I want out of it, fine illustration is mine one goal,am I trying to go to quick to small in a short time,probably.
This is the same with anything I do,I expect to have the best I can afford,the knowledge to achieve my aims,theoretical, and the determination to get the practical side the best i can.

My biggest challenge I have ever set myself was to breed and raise wild clown fish( nemo) but different species.this I achieved in 2yrs,dedication yes, reading everything I could yes,failures yes but I got there in the end.

This is no different but I just thought that a class might get me over that hurdle I keep falling at, your right that no one can teach you better than experience.
 
You would definitely benefit from a class, that wasn't my point, just don't go into it for the wrong reasons, I think a one day beginners course would only teach you want you already know, you would get a lot more out of 3 or 4 day course which I'm sure would work out cheaper per day.

When I said an hour a day, I mean don't keep going till your sick of it, basically practice while it's still fun and when you think your going backwards it's time to rest.

Do whatever you wish with your paint until you can see some consistency in flow, when this happens everything after that really does become fun and you will notice your control will come by itself.

Tip dry is unfortunately part of the the deal, we all get it, but there are special retarding additives to help, or you could add the tiniest drop of glycerine to your paint, I'm talking a pin head to a cup here.

I may well be wrong but I think you may be allowing yourself to become intimidated by some of the material you from other artists, but try to remember every single one of them were in the same place are now.

Have look around at different courses, find out what they offer, you perfectly at liberty to ask for extra attention to what you think you need maybe at a little extra cost but still worth, the one thing everyone who takes a course takes away from is the extra confidence just because they have knowledge they didn't have before.

Take a break for a couple of days to settle down and just that time gathering info on the possibility of courses.
 
stay strong it is a challenge especially if you do not have an art back ground the ond thing I can say the more you do it the better you get. Fighting your paint is tough but when you start to win you will be happy.
 
This might sound a bit blunt, but I think you are expecting too much from yourself and your equipment. When starting out (and oppinions can differ on this :p) a one -two day cource can be of a lot of help to avoid the initial pittraps. After that, one first has to learn the basic control (muscle memory) before further clases will be worth their money (you will probably learn stuff but get even more frustrated as you will just lack the skill to implement what you learned).

A lot of what you describe is stuff that you can't learn in a class it's stuff that took everyone here years of practice, messups and failures to come to grips with. Airpressure, reduction, trigger control, distance are all things we or a lesson can explain the basics of, but from what I have read from earlier posts from you you seem to have more than a basic understanding of that now. After that it's nolonger theory but something you need to develop a "feel" for.

I know its frustrating when starting out at this as things won't work as you want and you keep wondering why but that is the road we all had to travel, having things not going the way you wanted and figuring out what went wrong and how to fix it is basicly the learning curve. And to depress you a little more it never ends, I've been at this for 7-8 years now and still pickup new stuff :D

ps This was certainly not meant to discourage you from asking questions, keep doing that (wheel has been invented a gazillion times already no need to do it again), but don't expect "miracles", learning this just takes time :thumbsup:.
 
I'm just frustrating myself trying different things, pressure ,distance ,trigger control, paint reduction etc etc.
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Welcome to the game of airbrushing LOL, that shiz will be frustrating you everytime you paint-It just gets a bit easier with experience.

I do practice 1hr a night if not more and I'll prob get 3-4 each day this weekend.
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No offence but you only get out what you put in and honestly tat may sound like a bit but its actually very little, especially at the start. Time is key to learning how fast.4 hours a week really isn't much painting time.Double or triple that and you will notice a big improvement very fast, any skill is the same but airbrushing especially so, hand eye co-ordination is key and for many one day that just clicks in when you learn to turn your brain off a bit, for some that aspect clicks within a few months, some take much longer but normally it simply equates to how much time you have to teach that muscle memory and hand eye co-ordination..

I trying to go to quick to small in a short time
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That's likely the problem, many can get to a pretty good standard pretty darn quick with the airbrush but I'd hazard a guess that many have more time available to themselves as many of us are semi-retired or trying to be LOL, trying to force it though can be detrimental..Learning any skill does rely on paitence and also the right frame of mind to produce a confident learning environment, not only outside but also inside your head. Moral prob is relax, take your time to really not only practice the strokes but also study them, no point being away with the faries whilst say doing practice sheets, you should be constantly upping and lowering pressure to see the effect it has, changing angle, distance and note what each movement does, study it...

Not aiming that at you but just those in general wanting to learn, often you see an particular belief or thought in people that is blocking their potential, once you let that go, often good airbrushing follows..

On the course I'd say go for it but such courses may help or may not, depends what they show, how many are in the class etc. They may just show you how to get past your issues but once you have the strokes down the only thing to understand about airbrushing is the layering and there is a crapload out there on that aspect of airbrushing..Generally when I do community courses I'll have someone by the end of the day painting quite a good little portrait or skull thats never seen an airbrush, so it can be done with the right tools and knowledge. ABT does Skype, why not organize a one on one with him, I'm also happy to fill in gaps through such means that I may be able to help with, point is there is a lot of potential help around if you want specific lessons on a particular element, have you looked in your area to see if any artists want to catch up and have a paint session, most may just be happy to have a visitor that likes talking airbrush stuff or is happy to show you a few things. Good thing about such one on one is you will be the focus so it may be worth considering. There is also an array of tutorial videos out there, perhaps trying a project from one a few times may help cement that understanding you need as its all demonstrated and explained in detail, best of luck..

Oh sorry about the long post- I have a habit of that...:)
 
I'm thinking the reason they want to provide equipment is (apart from the fact that total newbies may not have bought anything until they've tried it) that as it is probably a small group and they will have everyone using the same paints, same reductions and same airpressure, which will be dialled in to work to a tee. This probably won't be the same for a different system/brush etc, so they may not want you to bring your own.

Also I do wonder about some of these courses ( and it is only a wondering as I've never been on one) whether they teach you to paint in general, or do they just show you how to create that particular thing they are doing. Is it going to be knowledge that is going to be something you can take away choose any ref and get going? And if you do use their equipment how much will that help you learn yours? It could be though that it is exactly what you need to give you that boost that is going to save you months of struggling on your own. Maybe see if you could go along as an observer to a couple of different classes before you commit to spending any money. Or maybe if you are already a bit of a step ahead, ask them if they would consider a one to one more specific to your needs
 
Squishy said:
I'm thinking the reason they want to provide equipment is (apart from the fact that total newbies may not have bought anything until they've tried it) that as it is probably a small group and they will have everyone using the same paints, same reductions and same airpressure, which will be dialled in to work to a tee. This probably won't be the same for a different system/brush etc, so they may not want you to bring your own.

Also I do wonder about some of these courses ( and it is only a wondering as I've never been on one) whether they teach you to paint in general, or do they just show you how to create that particular thing they are doing. Is it going to be knowledge that is going to be something you can take away choose any ref and get going? And if you do use their equipment how much will that help you learn yours? It could be though that it is exactly what you need to give you that boost that is going to save you months of struggling on your own. Maybe see if you could go along as an observer to a couple of different classes before you commit to spending any money. Or maybe if you are already a bit of a step ahead, ask them if they would consider a one to one more specific to your needs
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I have had my own doubts in the past Squishy, but seeing the difference it made to Ad fez, Matwes and even Cordyke, I know for sure they all took something away from it, even Andre despite already having immense talent got something out of it even if that was only a boost to his own confidence, so any doubts I had have been proven unfounded, I don't deny that there are maybe one or two lesser known instructors taking the cash and offering little for it in return, but I would would advise a little contact with others who followed the same courses before just jumping in.

I'm sure you are 100% right about the reason for using there equipment, everything will be finely tuned and ready to go in order to ensure the smooth running of the course for the benefit of the whole group, but I doubt any decent instructor would deny any student a little extra attention to help them with their own equipment unless they turned up with Chinese knock of, lol If I was unsure about my equipment I wouldn't mind paying for an extra heads up on my own brush, it could after all be the difference between successfully using my brush or ignorantly trashing it.

And as little Rick said absolutely no one is under any obligation to buy anything other than the course itself.
 
So far, I've done and Airbrush Action Getaway and a Dru Blair portrait class. I've gained a lot from these courses and I signed up for another Dru Blair class later this month. For me, little thing that I learn makes it worth it. The Dru Blair classes are expensive, but its like a 4 day vacation doing something I love so, it doesn't bother me one bit to shell out the cash.
 
Smiler I think what everybody is saying is that you have to do what you feel is right for you. I (like everybody else) think you are being to hard on yourself and have your expectations set to high. You have to set the ultimate goal that you want to achieve, yet set the mini goals that get you there. Like anything else in life, you have to be honest with yourself doing this. I also wish I was as talented as the many other folks on this forum (and there are many phenomenal artists here); however, they didn't start out that way and it gives me something to aspire to. Be thankful for the time you can spend practicing, because it is all a learning experience and spend more time practicing if you can. Relax and enjoy it - this shouldn't stress you out. Not to say that there wont be times that you want to throw the AB - just step back and take a deep breath. Enjoy and keep practicing my friend. Best of luck on your decision on whether to do a class or not.
 
@Madbrush If I could afford one of Marissa's classes I would be there like a shot!!!!!! I can't think of anyone who hasn't taken one of these classes and then not blown me away with the massive leaps they have taken. (I'm gonna have to sell a kidney or something to get there one day LOL :D I could offer my services in other ways, but it would take a lot of 50 p's to get there, and I'm not classy enough to charge more:laugh:) It's expensive, but seems so worth it.

Some classes I have looked at in my price range though, (i.e cheap LOL) I'm not too sure about. I'm sure the people running them are fab artists even if not well known. But after looking into a couple in my early airbrush adventures, I felt they seemed a bit limited, just enough to get you through the particular subject you were painting, which was fine, but not for me. The artist running the course obviously is hoping that you will want to come back and take further classes and learn more, again nothing wrong with that. But as a tight arse and a skinflint I wanted to learn an array of techniques that I could take away and apply to my own art, rather than learn to paint a specific picture. I guess I wanted the world on a plate for as little money as possible. PMSL not too much to ask lollollol. But for someone else those kind of classes could be just what they need.

So I guess it's what everyone has been saying, do it if it's right for you. Think about what you are hoping to get out of it, and what you think you will be able to take away and then achieve on your own by the end of it. If the course content looks like it's going to offer you that, then go for it. If you've got to a certain place on your own and it's just cementing that knowledge, well it could still be worth it for a confidence boost and to refine things, but if it's not going to take you to the next level then there's probably no point. Maybe talking to the teacher, they could evaluate what you already know, and you could jump up to an intermediate class.
 
im sure glad i took the time to read all these posts....i been pondering finding a course here...i dont know anyone locally that does any AB-ing...not even sure if i can find a course but as with everything i do i know i have to slow down long enough to let the paint dry which is hard for me cause society has taught me to hurry up and get the job done....so the lesson i learned...yes i learnt something from this thread. LOL... i need to slow my roll...and be patient and most of all practice practice practice....thanks people for all the insite....thats why i joined this forum is to learn from those that came before me..(just as the indian learns from the wolf ).again thanks :) :) i myself only been AB-ing about 70 hrs now so....thanks
 
Thanks for all the thoughts peeps.:thumbsup:

I have decided, with the imput of your selfs and a very special member on here,who has taken the time out of their own schedule, to help me with great advice in all aspects, that a beginners course probably is not the right way for me to go.

Of course courses are beneficial and have there place, but for me I have put a course on hold until I'm a bit further along my adventure and will then look at one of the multiple day courses. Plus I'll have to save for this at £40o-£500ish it's not something I can just pull out my pocket.

With all the advice I can get on this form and looking further back through all the threads and taken the time to study and not just read them I'm sure I can progress through these trials.

Finally I would just like to thank the member publicaly for all that they have done for me.:thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
Smiler65 said:
Thanks for all the thoughts peeps.:thumbsup:

I have decided, with the imput of your selfs and a very special member on here,who has taken the time out of their own schedule, to help me with great advice in all aspects, that a beginners course probably is not the right way for me to go.

Of course courses are beneficial and have there place, but for me I have put a course on hold until I'm a bit further along my adventure and will then look at one of the multiple day courses. Plus I'll have to save for this at £40o-£500ish it's not something I can just pull out my pocket.

With all the advice I can get on this form and looking further back through all the threads and taken the time to study and not just read them I'm sure I can progress through these trials.

Finally I would just like to thank the member publicaly for all that they have done for me.:thumbsup::thumbsup:
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Very wise, but remember, questions, questions, questions and a lot of (FUN) practice.
 
I'd definitely recommend courses. I practise and develop what i've learnt in courses, you can get by without them, but you would have to be following other tutorials, reading all the magazines and understanding what is happening. A course can boost you years of practise ahead, as I know that they have me.
I started learning airbrush control and the effects approach then i learnt about color control, erasing and realism. Now i mix what i've learnt and push myself with every artwork. I slowly improve.. but nothing compared to the giant leap i've gotten out of any course i've done.
it's always worth it.
 
Being unable to attend a course , Even a short 1 or 2 day one in Chicago I can say it does take longer to learn different effects and how things are done. I have known Cuda for a long time and I can say with out doubt that his painting skills grew a lot after he attended a course . Just like in school with someone guiding you on what you are doing first hand learning with an instructor is worth it.
My trouble is not the money to attend but duty to my wife who has been ill for a lot of years now and her needing someone around close by all the time.
So if you can budget a course take them they will make a huge difference .
 
Mr.Micron said:
Being unable to attend a course , Even a short 1 or 2 day one in Chicago I can say it does take longer to learn different effects and how things are done. I have known Cuda for a long time and I can say with out doubt that his painting skills grew a lot after he attended a course . Just like in school with someone guiding you on what you are doing first hand learning with an instructor is worth it.
My trouble is not the money to attend but duty to my wife who has been ill for a lot of years now and her needing someone around close by all the time.
So if you can budget a course take them they will make a huge difference .
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Yep, I been at for three years, no courses and all I've leaned is that I am as stupid today as I was the day started, but at least I haven't got worse right?:thumbsup:
 
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