Thanks to the New Masters Academy and Rey Bustos I’m very excited about learning anatomy and tonight I worked on head anatomy with Rey. I have to also thank Jana Bouc for her suggestion to sign up for NMA, as it was a great purchase and well worth the monthly fee.
Tonight I started on the first of 6 videos all about anatomy, and each video is about 2 hours long. The first video was packed so tight with information that watching it several times is necessary to fully assimilate all the details.
I approached the video with one rule. If he draws it, you draw it. These are not movies, although they are enjoyable, they need a deep understanding and a better connection with your memory and the best way for me to do that is to draw it myself.
I need to re-draw the head again and label all these parts, repetition is key here, head anatomy is very complex.
So far the New Masters Academy is very well done. The website is professional, easy to navigate and they have a ton of content. I was looking through their image library and they literally have 1000 photos of each model, plus animals, facial expressions, the Bargue course plates. Their library of images is so vast that it could keep me supplied with poses for the next 5 years easy.
Then you take a look at the 3D viewer. Now I don’t think this is the greatest to draw from because it does some weird stuff that I can’t explain with perspective, but if your trying to learn how the muscles look on a scull from any angle check this out.
And you can control the transparency of each layer, skin, bone, muscle. Currently I’m going to be paying $40 a month but there are cheaper options if your willing to commit to a whole year, which after seeing all the content it is very tempting.
A critique is not complete with a negative side though. I have two small complaints about NMA. First, they don’t have a curriculum setup, it would be really nice if they had a specific order to watch the videos in if one so chooses. They have levels of classes all the way from beginning fundamentals in drawing to advanced painting, but I think knowing where to start would be a perfect addition. My second complaint is that the site is a bit slow for me, which is not a huge deal, once your watching a video your watching it for a long time before it switches to the next. It would also be nice if I could auto hide the chat feature they have, but this is not really a negative because having a chat feature to talk with other artists is great.
I will continue with NMA for a while and try and soak up as much information as I can, but if your on the fence, or if your looking for an online solution to learning art I highly recommend New Masters Academy.
