Recommended
Why Are They Recommended?
The artists below may or may not necessarily be a part of one of our communities but have long established professional careers. They also have large amounts of both paid and free educational content including simple tutorials, courses, classes, and advice. They usually have a range of content from beginner to professional level. Most also offer resources such as brushes, textures, models, references, etc.
Aaron Blaise
Aaron Blaise was an animator at Disney for over 20 years and also has a well established career in the fine art world doing drawings/paintings of nature. He offers a large amount of free content on his Youtube channel covering all sorts of topics from animation, drawing, painting, and more. He does both digital and traditional art in these videos. He also runs a site that has courses covering things much more in depth and offers other resources such as brushes/reference photos. His site also offers courses from other artists he met through his contacts at Disney including 3d artists, storyboard artists, etc. His site also frequently gives away free content and regularly discounts things into the range of $1 - $15 per bundle. This includes some of his 30+hour courses.
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@AaronBlaiseArt
Website:
Bobby Chiu
Bobby Chiu co-founded Imaginism Studios, LightBox Expo, Schoolism, and is a co-owner of Magma Studio. He worked on Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland as a character designer and co-created the animated tv show Niko and the Sword of Light. He offers a large amount of free content on his Youtube channel, with videos covering a large range of various topics both from himself and featuring other artists. Schoolism itself is probably one of the better known online course sites with a large amount of courses from a bunch of different industry professionals. Schoolism has free content but also has various paid tiers ranging from access to all the courses all the way up to a 1 on 1 class with an instructor.
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@BobbyChiu
Website:
Proko
Stan Prokopenko, better known as Proko taught at Watts Atelier. He now runs a site with both free and paid course. He also offers a large amount of free content on his Youtube channel. Both his site and channel feature content from other artists besides just himself. There are a large range of topics from basic drawing skills and anatomy classes all the way up to sculpting in blender.
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@ProkoTV
Website:
James Gurney
James Gurney is the artist and author best known for his illustrated book series Dinotopia. He has had a career working with the paleontology and archeology industry and specializes in painting realistic images of scenes that can’t be photographed, from dinosaurs to ancient civilizations. He offers some paid video courses on his website and also offers free content on his Youtube channel ranging from painting to modeling and anatomy.
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@JamesGurney