ART School at Cubebrush: Who Is It For?

Introduction

I'm Marc Brunet and my background has always been in art, from the time I was born. I started my career as a game developer when I was offered a job as a concept artist for a game studio in Montreal. I worked there for two years before being recruited by Blizzard Entertainment to work on their new game Titan/Overwatch, where I was offered a 3D artist position. I took the job and migrated to the US at 22, working at Blizzard for around 8 years. I've always had the entrepreneurial spirit so during my time there I had been planning my next move. Ever since I was a kid selling handmade bracelets in front of my parents' house, I had dreamed of having my own business. My career in art and my business ambitions eventually combined and Cubebrush was born - the first and largest online marketplace for everything CG. Things started off well so it gave me the confidence I needed to leave my career as a game developer and transition to leading my business full-time, right before I turned 30. 

Cubebrush has grown a lot since then and I've been able to find more and more time to work on my personal art, one of my biggest passions in life. I'm quite fortunate as nothing has gone terribly wrong yet!

About ART School for Digital Artists

ART School for Digital Artists is meant to be a full art education program like what you would find at traditional art institutions, but with an optimized curriculum better suited for digital artists and at a fraction of the price. It's an online program so students follow the pre-recorded classes (31 in total, over 100 hours) from the comfort of their own home, at their own pace. I host live feedback sessions with the students every weekend for a few hours to help keep their progress on track, then there are assignments and a dedicated forum section on the Cubebrush website where students can share their progress and grow along with their peers.

I'm happy to say I finally finished recording the content for the classes - something I've been working hard on for the last 2+ years. I'm lucky I've had a lot of students right from the start who have been following the program's development over the last years as I've been releasing it term by term. I might be done with the classes, but I still have a lot of big things planned for ART School! The cool part is that existing students get all future updates for free.

Curriculum & Skill Level Required

My curriculum was partly inspired by other existing curricula I dug up from some of the top art schools around the world, and partly - by my own personal experiences as an artist who's had the privilege of working in some of the best teams in the world. It was important for me to structure the classes logically, starting from more simple concepts to help complete beginners get started, and then building up to more advanced topics towards the later terms as students develop more advanced skills. I have a significant number of working professionals from most of the top AAA studios as students so it works for established artists too. Everyone's got holes in their fundamentals, so the program is relevant for all artists. 

Each term relies on knowledge from earlier terms so there's a natural progression insuring students are continuously challenged and improving fast.  

The program was built with a wide range of artists in mind, starting slow for beginners and ramping up to more advanced classes, for more advanced students. I highly recommend students (amateur or pro) follow the full program without skipping any of the content since it's all carefully connected, but I do have each of the individual terms available for purchase in the Cubebrush store for those who prefer purchasing them over time, rather than all at once.

Class Size & Communication

The content of the classes comes in the form of pre-recorded videos to watch from home so there is no class size limits. A lot of students like to share their progress on the dedicated forums or via the ART School Discord channel, but the main interaction we all have is through the weekly live streams. I currently have over 3000 students in total but only a small fraction of them attend the live streams, so it's been easily manageable so far! We've been having these weekly streams for over a year now, and I plan to keep going for many more to come. I also post the recordings on my YouTube channel so anyone can have a look at what they're like.

Afterword

Complete beginners should expect to learn the tools to draw/paint/sculpt anything they can imagine and build a solid portfolio. More advanced artists will enjoy a different take on the subjects they might know and 31 different classes to brush up on skills they might be lacking in. What I focus on the most in my teaching style is simplicity. I LOVE tackling difficult topics and finding the simplest possible way to explain them, reaching a broader audience. All in all, ART School for Digital Artists exists as an extremely cheaper alternative to traditional art colleges where you can expect to learn just as much, or more.