Last Update - 21.01.15
Videos, Tutorials and Online Education
- Ctrl+Paint
A simply awesome website with loads of free digital art training! Scott Robertson Design
Scott Robertson's channel with loads of free videos about digital and traditional art and design.Art Cafe
Art Cafe mission is to open the world of art to everyone. Livestream is hosted by industry-leading conceptual designer Maciej Kuciara.Ross Draws
Extremely fun YouTube Channel, created by talented Ross Tran will make you learn and laugh!FZD School
FZD's channel has loads of videos with painting demos and knowledge about the entertainment industry.Sycra Art Videos
Art videos that inspire, instruct, and entertain!Digital Tutors
Training videos for teaching artists and creative professionals how to make movies, games, digital art and more.Robot Pencil
Affordable tutorials for aspiring digital artists by Anthony Jones. Must watch!The Collective Podcast
The Collective Podcast brings you weekly episodes of entertaining, informative, and honest discussions with creative industry leaders from around the world. Created and hosted by designer/director Ash Thorp.Ben Mauro
Ben Mauro's channel has some great tutorials, be sure to check out all the ZBrush goodies.How to Draw-Proko
Interesting Youtube channel where you can learn how to draw with Stan Prokopenko.Gumroad Tutorials List
Compilation of all gumroad tutorials released to this date, formatted into an easy to browse list on the polycount.com forums.Reddit: Art Fundamentals
A subreddit to help those who are either entirely new to drawing, are self taught and stagnating, or otherwise feel that their understanding of the fundamentals of drawing are lacking.Struggling with value - Marek Okoń
In this tutorial Marek Okoń explains the basics of values structure and shows some indispensable knowledge about working in values.
Photoshop Brush Sets
Royalty Free Images and Textures
- CGTextures
The industry's number one website for free high quality textures! Cheap memberships grant you even more downloads. - ProREF
Affordable references for digital artist! 6K images, royality free! Also check out free packs! - TextureMate
Free texture packs, stock images, brush packs and more. - Matte Painting Resources
Free, high resolution photos, ready to be used in your matte painting projects. - 3D.SK
An amazing and massive collection of human photo references and textures.
Recommended Art Books
How to Draw: drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination
- Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist
- Creative Illustration
- Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers
- Figure Drawing for All It's Worth
- Mastery
- Sketching from the Imagination: An Insight into Creative Drawing
- The Visual Story: Creating the Visual Structure of Film, TV and Digital Media
- Drawing and Painting Fantasy Landscapes and Cityscapes
Animals Real and Imagined: Fantasy of What Is and What Might Be
Art Related Facebook Groups
Level Up!
Our homebase! Level-Up is an educational art platform mixed with livestreams, interviews and more!Sketchbook Challenge
Group focused on sharing sketching practice and improving your drawing skills.- Daily Spitpaint
Daily speedpainting challenge with limited time and tools. Great for learning. - Super Speedpainting Funtimes
Daily speedpainting without tool restrictions. Great for just having fun! - Team Awesome
Group that focuses on improving your art through constructive feedback, critiques and overpainting. - Art Buddies
This group allows you to share art and resources with the community. - A Pint Of Special
A nice group where artists share daily designs, paintings, sketches and other projects with each other. Digital Art Tutorials
Share tutorials, demos or any other art content with the purpose of getting better. A great educational platform!Urban Sketchers
A group dedicated to raising the artistic, storytelling and educational value of traditional location drawing and sketching.Virtual Plein Air
A group to share "Virtual Plein Air" paintings based off google street view.Brainstorm
The group that focuses on thinking, problem solving, story, function, purpose, and staging. For more info: http://brainstormschool.com/
Art Related Blogs
- Muddy Colors
A Fantasy Art Collective - Amazing articles from the top of the industry! Gurney Journey
Weblog by James Gurney with practical studio tips and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.The Temple of the Seven Golden Camels
An online repository for knowlegde about storyboarding, filmmaking, drawing and animation!CTRL+Paint
The Ctrl+Paint blog is an opportunity to expand beyond the scope of it's huge video library. Wheter it's workflow, career topics, or inspiration, these weekly articles explore the broader world of digital painting.Parka Blog
A very helpful blog with a lot of book reviews. You can find the reviews in the List "Instructional and Reference Art Books" featuring +1000 Art Book Reviews, Anime Artbooks, Animation & some Pop Culture.
Inspirational and Must Watch Documentaries
Life
Stunning BBC series about the fauna and flora of earth.Planet Earth
Another beautiful BBC series focusing on life in different environments of the planet.Frozen Planet
This series takes you on a journey through the beautiful arctic.Africa
Gorgeous series about wildlife on the African continent.Samsara & Baraka
Two jaw-dropping films with world imagery shot on 70mm over the span of several decades.In Search Of Moebius
Documentary about Frenchman Jean Giraud, one of the most influential comic illustrators and authors of all time.
Various Links & Resources
Hundreds Of Sparrows
Some really nice custom tools and scripts for Photoshop and C4D by artist Sergey Kritskiy.Verve
A little, but powerful painting application which features amazing color blending and fluid simulation. Short video about some of its features - Watch.Anatomy for Sculptors
Human anatomy overview with useful tips on different bodyparts.Lazy Nezumi
Lazy Nezumi Pro is a Windows app that helps you draw smooth, beautiful lines, with your mouse or pen tablet.List Of Livestreams
Live updating list of the most popular livestreams from illustrators and concept artists. See who's streaming now!Alchemy
Really cool tool to create abstract shape ideas and concepts.RefBoard
RefBoard is a simple, lightweight image viewer designed with artists in mind. Display as many referance images as you need simultaniously and over any windowed application!- Brusher
Photoshop plugin tool that allows you to organize your brushes more easily. - Carapace
Carapace is awesome, free and simple tool that lets you place vanishing points around an image placeholder to flesh out the shell of your drawing. It also lets you create and check perspective on existing photos/pictures. - Pureref
A great lightweight and sleek tool to load references into when working on your art. - RadioLab Podcast
Incredibly interesting radio show that focuses on topics of a scientific and philosophical nature. Now you can paint and explore world around you at the same time! - Radiotopia
Radiotopia from PRX is a collective of the best story-driven radio shows on the planet! Extremely interesting to listen to while painting or studying!
References and Visual Library Sources
Prime Portal
Guns, tanks, jets... The most extensive collection of military references on the net!MJRanum Stock
Incredible gallery filled with quality human poses in different outfits and costumes.ARKive
A non-profit website dedicated to gathering photos and information about all life on earth.CinemaSquid
Blu-ray screenshot galleries of hundreds of movies.Art Of Swords
A beautiful Tumblr filled to the brim with swords, blades and daggers.OSF Costumes
This rental website has a large catalog of historical clothes and armor. Great for dressing fantasy characters.SkyscraperCity
Awesome forum for all your architectural reference needs.Earthporn
Reddit selection of high-res photos from all around the planet!QuickPoses
A tool for artists to help with practicing gesture drawing and building a visual library of characters and models.PoseSpace
Great website with high-res photos of poses for digital life drawing and character art.Washington Dept. Of Transportation
It may sound random at first, but actually it's a great resource of high-res tech reference. Over 21.000 photos!Insect Library
Awesome collection of insect photography, beautifully shot by Nicky Bay.Real Monstrosities
Great source of inspiration for creature designers. Check out some of mother nature's weirdest and creepiest creations.Rocket Tumblr
Plenty of tech/vechicle refrences! All high-res and great quality!Iceland 2.5GB Ref Pack
Noah Bradley uploaded all of his photo references taken on a couple of trips. All of the photos are released under a creative commons license and are free to use on whatever you'd like!Hard Surface Enthusiast
Huge collection of HQ photos of hard surface stuff.References Collection: Bryan Wynia
Outstanding pinterest collection of sorted references by Naughty Dog character artist-Bryan Wynia.References Collection: Katie Pfeilschiefter
Another recommended collection of carefully sorted references.English Russia
Tons of interesting HQ pictures (military mostly) directly from Russia everyday.Melvyn Yeo
An incredible macro photography collection of insects and other invertebrates.References Collection: Alaska Reference Photos/Textures
Tons of amazing pictures by Emily Chen from her trip to Alaska. Most of them are snowy/icy pics, but there is also a lot of green/spring photos.Old Masters-8GB of HQ pictures
Amazing dump of old masters paintings prepared by Dylan Safford. Package's weight is 8GB and includes 44.758 pictures from 758 artists.
Websites Featuring Portfolios and Art Resources
ArtStation
ArtStation is the network for the media & entertainment visual arts industry, that enables you to showcase your images, videos & models in a slick way.DeviantArt
The world's largest art site ranging from digital art to poetry and beyond. Work from all levels and talents can be found here.- IT'S ART
This site offers a wide range of art related content such as interviews, tutorials, inspiration and much more! - Polycount
A great art forum focusing almost exclusively on 3D art. - ZBrushCentral
The official ZBrush forum showcasing stunning 3D sculpting work. - CGSociety
A large online organization for digital artists featuring portfolios, workshops, forums and more. - Behance
Adobe's online portfolio platform for all forms of digital art. - 2DGeek
A great website with featured art, industry news, interviews, resources and more.
3D Models and Software
3D Warehouse
A massive free collection of downloadable models for Sketchup.TF3DM
Great user based community with a wide variety of free 3D models.3DArchive
A massive collection of free 3D models, mostly focusing on interior design.TurboSquid
Undoubtedly the most extensive collection of 3D models on the web. There is also a large collection of free models available.Sketchup
The easiest 3D software to learn. Limited modeling tools but great for quick blocking out of scenes.MODO
A powerful and user-friendly 3D package, rapidly becoming the number one choice for concept artists.ZBrush
Simply the best and most common 3D sculpting software out there!Eat3D
Feed your brain with some of the best 3D tutorials out there! Tutorial recommended by Ben Mauro!
Color Tools and Apps
Gamut Mask Tool
Interactive color harmony tool for painters and visual artists.Color Scheme Designer
Really cool color theme tool that is super easy to use!Adobe Kuler
User based color theme tool from Adobe with Photoshop integration.ColorRotate
A very different take on the color wheel. Take a look yourself!Pictaculous
Upload your picture and get the color palette.Color Test
How well do you see color?Coolorus
Amazing Photoshop color picker plugin with lots of options and control.MagicPicker
Another great color picker plugin for Photoshop to replace the default one.
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