Gary Meyer teaches fundamentals of perspective drawing.

The Gnomon Workshop has released a great new set of DVD's with illustration master Gary Meyer, explaining the disciplines of one, two and three point perspective drawing as he teaches you how set up things accurately to render a realistic image accordingly. This brand new set consists of three volumes and gives you the opportunity to join Gary Meyer at his drawing table in his studio while he goes into great detail about the concepts and terminology of perspective drawing.

Gary Meyer has served as a professor at the Art Center College of Design for 23 years. He was the recipient of the first Faculty Award (elected by the faculty of Art Center) and received seventeen Great Teacher Awards. Gary has also taught at Otis College of Art and Design, Universal Studios Design and Development and the Animation Institute of Los Angeles. He earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles.

Above: Gary at the drawing table, as he teaches you the skills to draw a complete city accurately for commercial illustrations or even architectural designs.

Above: the difference between one and two-point perspective, is that in the latter, the center of vision is not a vanishing point. Gary explains that the distance from a measuring point on the horizon line to the vanishing point must be equal to that of the vanishing point to the station point.

Aviation Art.

Meyer's love for aviation led him to join the Marines after high school. He served in Korea during the Korean War as an aviation electronics technician assigned to the First Marine Air Wing and made many drawings of military aircraft.

His ability to create highly realistic imagery of aircraft and actual combat scenes during the Vietnam war, gave him the opportunity to work with all major aircraft companies. Starting out working for North American Aviation as an illustrator for the Apollo program, he was involved with the first Moon landing and created a series of 40 illustrations that were photographically edited into a film, depicting one of the planned lunar missions.

Below: On May 10, 1972, the US Navy and Airforce bombed the Paul Doumer bridge across the Red River in Hanoi, North Vietnam. Meyer's painting depicts two F-4D Phantoms using new laser-guided bombs (LGBs) in the operation called 'Linebacker'.

Below: A Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet attacking harbor shipping and a pair of F4 Phantoms after departure from the USS Forrestal, the first American Aircraft carrier, launched on December 11, 1954. Named after the first ever secretary of defense, James Forrestal, it became known as the 'Zippo', because of a number of on board fires. In 1967, 134 sailors died and 161 more were injured during a fire that destroyed 21 aircraft.

Meyer became famous for painting aerial views of buildings and cityscapes, beginning with his award-winning album cover illustration for 'Chicago 13' in 1979 (the thirteenth album of the band 'Chicago'). Meyer says his aerial views are, in a sense, simply aviation art, except that the viewer is in the aircraft.

Below: A perfect example of three-point perspective in one of Gary Meyer's paintings. This illustration shows two Navy SH-3 Sea King helicopters above the 1986 Dupont Hotel fire in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

As Gary has done so much work for so many clients, chances are you've across some of his artwork without even knowing it. From left to right: iconic artwork for 'Jaws 3' (1983), sci-fi vehicles in 'Battle Beyond the stars' (1980), the Roger Corman remake of Akira Kurosawa's famous 'Seven Samurai', which featured special effects direction by James Cameron. Meyer's ability to render highly realistic aircombat lend itself perfectly for George Roy Hill's 'The Great Waldo Pepper' (1975) poster artwork (with Robert Redford).

Above: in 1983 Meyer was involved with the production of John Badham's movie 'Blue Thunder' starring Roy Scheider. The above image was commissioned by a toy manufacturer for packaging use. The famous helicopter was a modified version of the French SA342J Gazelle, a single-turbine, 200-mph light utility machine featuring the Fenestron shrouded tail rotor design. It was modified for the film with a moveable, six-barrel, 20mm minigun.

The Gnomon Workshop.

Alex Alvarez's Gnomon Workshop is mainly known for bringing high class instructional video's on the creation of 3D computer graphics and Visual effects for the games and movie industry. But they've also got quite an interesting library of instructional DVD's on the creation of traditional artwork, which tends to be more on the technical side, like industrial design. Below: Meyer teaching eager students the disciplines of traditional painting.

I highly recommend getting this set if you want to learn how to draw perspective or just want to learn more about the creation of art from a true master. If you're into technical drawing, you should definitely also check out Scott Robertson's DVD's at Gnomon about the creation of Spacecraft, airplanes and cars. I think Meyer's instructional video's are a great addition to their library and I for one, am grateful that they've made the effort to record his lectures. A real gem!

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• Gnomon puts Star Wars designer in the hot seat!
• Gnomon: The Art of Sex appeal with Joe Benitez.

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Aaron Sims new website up and running.

Hey guys, just spreading the word here! Aaron Sims, the guy you all love for his amazing work on recent hit movies like 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon', 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' and 'Clash of the Titans' (still one of my favorites) has his new 'Directors' site up, where he shows the projects he directed himself. You should definately check out the trailer of his upcoming short 'Archetype'. On the site you will also be able to watch his full short 'Paralyzed'.

Aaron is a character designer or conceptual artist and digital effects artist. He has worked on all the major Hollywood blockbusters of the last two decades. He worked with Rick Baker's Cinovation Studios and Stan Winston. Working with SoftImage and Photoshop, and combining his knowledge of computer technology with his experience as a sculptor made him the lead character designer on Spielberg's 'Artificial Intelligence', which changed the the industry's design process. He co-created Stan Winston Digital and led the studio, working on films as 'Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow' and 'Constantine'. He now runs the 'Aaron Sims Company', which worked on films such as 'The Incredible Hulk' and '30 Days of Night'. Among his team are Jerad S. Maranz (lead artist), Alex Mandrajiev (concepts/storyboards), Tsvetomir Georgiev (main modeler) and Joel Chang (head environment designer).

If you like to learn more about Aaron Sims or his approach to creature design, you should definately check out the training dvd's he did for Alex Alvarez' Gnomon Workshop. They include demonstrations with Photoshop, XSI (SoftImage), Deep paint and Z-brush. Excellent stuff!

Gnomon puts Star Wars designer in the hot seat!

Ever wanted to learn how to create characters like in Star Wars, well now you can! The Gnomon Workshop just finished a new DVD with Sang Jun Lee, concept artist on Star Wars 'Revenge of the Sith', 'The War of the Worlds' and 'The Hulk'. Lee was also involved in Blue Sky's latest 3D animated feature 'Rio', so he's not exclusively into heavy-weight monsters and creature design, he's got a funny side too!

The DVD runs for 183 minutes showing Lee while he's creating his designs on paper while letting you in on some exclusive insider tips. Afterwards he completes his sketches in digital form using Adobe Photoshop and teaches you some secret of the pro's. It's pretty cool and if creature design is your thing you should absolutely go and check it out! It's one of those cool rare tutorials you just gotta have to see!

Being in game design for Lucas Arts, EA and Sony, Lee also developed a strong sense for costume design, so the DVD also covers a lot of insights on that part of character design. It's on order now for $ 49,00 you either get the DVD or a digital download so check it out at the Gnomon Workshop or visit Lee's cool website and check out some of his amazingly weird creatures! Cool!

The Art of Sex Appeal with Joe Benitez

Fresh of his 'Lady Mechanika' succes, comic book artist Joe Benitez has created a great new DVD for Gnomon, showing his skills and teaching you how to draw sexy pin ups and great looking female characters comic book style!

Hot off the press, the first issue of 'Lady Mechanika', the brand new series from Michael Turner's Aspen Comics sold out instantly and is in need of a second printing. Written and drawn by Joe Benitez, his creator owned new title fits perfectly with Aspen's comic book line up, along with Turner's 'Fathom' and 'Soulfire'.

The Gnomon Workshop, known for it's in-depth tutorials and DVD's on 3D modeling and sculpting, started a new series of instructional DVD's on comic artwork with celebrated artists like David Finch, Alvin Lee and recently, Phil Noto.

Beside penciling, comic book colorist Steve Firchow shared his insights on digital coloring using Adobe Photoshop while inker Joe Weems tackled non-digital inking comicbook artwork.

Joining the ranks now, is Joe Benitez. In 20 chapters, Joe shows how he captures allure and sex appeal in his work. His 'How-to' title contains 150 minutes of footage and can be downloaded from the Gnomon site. alternatively, if you prefer, there is the possibility to purchase it as a DVD.
Check out the Gnomon instructor galleries, go for more details and watch a sample clip here or check out Joe talking about his latest project in the Comicvine clip beneath!