HOW DOES IT WORK?
This is an 8 week private mentorship course with limited slots.
The course costs £666 (approximately $850 USD)
Semester 2 begins November 4th.
The goal of this mentorship is to produce a single, highly polished fantasy illustration. The entire course is framed around the journey from sketch to final, and you are going to learn a ton about the process.
This is an evolution of my previous private mentorships, building upon lessons I learned teaching over 70 students, and streamlining the process. The overall concept is as follows:
Each week begins with a pre-recorded video covering a step of the illustration process, and ends with a live group review in which I will critique your work. The group setting means you’ll get to see lots of reviews as well as your own and have the opportunity to ask questions and chat with your fellow students!
In addition, I will be taking the course too, walking you through my entire process for creating a detailed illustration, following the same steps as you. These will be released in parts every week in their entirety, and available to download any time.
You will have access to a private Discord where you can share your work with your fellow mentees, collaborate and hang out in chat channels, and ask questions/chat during the live reviews. Many mentorships or courses can feel isolating, but I really want to foster a sense of community here - you’re all in this together, and the Discord will be home for all of these activities.
If you are unable to attend the live reviews, that’s okay! You can post questions for me to cover and they will be recorded and posted in the Discord for you to view any time.
The course topics include interpreting a brief, deep dives into thumbnailing and sketching, different ways to gather and create references (including shooting photos and creating basic 3D models), using studies to improve your understanding of how artists work at a high level, rendering and finishing an illustration and so much more. These topics are laid out in a way I find intuitive and repeatable for future projects. Along the way I will also discuss best practices for building a portfolio, applying for jobs and other relevant subjects.
This course is suitable for both traditional and digital artists. While it does mostly focus on digital art since that is the most common medium used for professional work, the skills and lessons are all transferable and I actively encourage people to explore both!
MIR is going to be suitable for artists of most levels, however I won’t be covering the absolute basics here. Some understanding of perspective, basic anatomy and experience in rendering an illustration is recommended. If you are unsure about your suitability for this course, drop me a note below - I’ll be looking over all submitted portfolios to pick suitable candidates!
WHY THIS MENTORSHIP?
I have worked as a concept artist, illustrator and art director in the entertainment industry for 15 years now. Throughout that time I have worked with basically all of my dream clients across a huge variety of projects, and enjoyed a very fun, challenging career. I’ve also made a ton of mistakes and learned from them.
Many great artists offer mentorships or courses, but I think that my blend of experiences and teaching style brings something different to the table. I don’t take myself too seriously (I’m already cringing writing this), always aim to be personable and friendly, and will always do my best to support you. I also strive to foster an inclusive, safe space for all artists and to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to develop their careers.
Teaching artists is my passion, and I don’t mean that in a cheesy way. It rules. I love helping artists grow and enjoy their work. Helping them improve their skills and get paid fairly. That’s why I run my art community and teach on Twitch (spoilers: you don’t make much money from that).
Oh and hey, 4 of my previous students have gone on to work on Magic: the Gathering already!
While this mentorship is framed around creating art for Magic, the real goal here is just pushing your illustration work to an incredibly high standard. It will be suitable for any illustration portfolio!
TESTIMONIALS
Here’s what some of my previous students had to say about my mentorships.
Paul's mentorship was a great experience, providing a ton of useful insight and context into illustrating for pro-level clients.
More than just technique, Paul helped me to adjust my thinking and approach to painting, expanding my scope of influences in a really positive & constructive way.
The confidence (and portfolio pieces) I got through his mentorship were invaluable to getting my start as a professional fantasy illustrator back in 2021, so I'm glad I signed up!
Paul’s mentorship accelerated my artistic growth so rapidly; his feedback, and the briefs he set, were all tailored to push me exactly where I needed to go.
2 years on and I can still point to specific parts of my style and say “Paul taught me to do that.”
You can really feel Paul’s experience as an art director when he’s working with you - his feedback is professional and kind!
I can’t recommend Paul as a mentor enough!
I had a fantastic experience with Paul's mentorship program! Paul is awesome at giving clear, specific, and actionable feedback on in-progress illustrations, and he coached me through new process improvements that helped me make better art faster than ever before. He's also super friendly and easy to talk to, and I cannot overstate how essential that is for a successful mentorship!
Paul's mentorship helped me go from being a passable artist to an ENNIE-award-winning illustrator, and the portfolio work I did under his tutelage helped me land interviews at Wizards of the Coast and Darrington Press for full-time art director roles.
This mentorship program was the support and kick in the pants I needed to kickstart a fresh career in tabletop gaming, and I'm so grateful for every minute of it!!
Paul's mentorship has been the best thing I've done towards my artistic development.
As a result of his guidance, I created a number of portfolio pieces that I'm truly proud of, and which pushed my skills beyond my expectations.
But most importantly, he emphasized the importance of building an artistic process that worked for me, breaking down each project into manageable, repeatable steps that I still regularly apply to my paintings.
Whether your focus is on concept art or fantasy illustration, Paul's deep expertise and experience can help to clear the fog and provide a map for you to reach your individual art goals.
This is accompanied by a humour and empathy rarely found in any other art programmes that makes unearthing your art weaknesses easy and ensures you spend the time focusing on building the skills you need.
If you have the opportunity to work with Paul, even for only a short while, take it with both hands!
Paul's mentorship was exactly what I needed to reach a professional level of illustration.
Over two years, he helped me figure out my goals and gave meaningful, actionable steps to reach them.
Many of the pieces he guided me through are still in my portfolio and I truly think that his mentorship was a big part of helping me kickstart my own freelance illustration career.
COURSE STRUCTURE
This structure for this course is derived from my experience in making high quality illustrations. There’s a heavy focus on preparation: making sure you have everything you need up front, to make the painting experience more relaxing and enjoyable.
WEEK 1 - Briefs, research and thumbnailing
It begins! I’ll set the class brief, you interpret it. I’ll cover best practices for getting started, what art directors are looking for and how to actually thumbnail with an eye for strong, bold compositions.
WEEK 2 - Preliminary studies
Now that we have a strong thumbnail and concept for the illustration, we’re going to do 2 preliminary studies: one painting, one relevant photo. This is an amazing way to get into the right mindset for the piece and to solve some early issues. I’ll help you choose these based on your goals.
WEEK 3 - Colour roughs & values
A strong understanding of value and colour is crucial in creating dramatic illustrations, so we are going to spend a week focusing on this. Exploring colour and lighting ideas on top of your sketch to really nail the look of this piece. At the end of week 4 you should know exactly how the final painting will look.
WEEK 4 - Reference shoot/prep and refined sketching
Time to gather some references. I’ll show you how to shoot your own reference with your phone/camera, and/or block a scene out in 3D. The better your references, the more realistic a painting you’ll be able to create, and it’s a key skill which many people overlook. From this, we’ll work on the final sketch for the illustration.
WEEK 5 - Painting begins!
With our preparation out the way, we can finally get started on the painting. I’ll cover blocking out the piece and using your references to get a strong start. We’ll look at traditional painting techniques to help keep things loose at this stage.
WEEK 6 - The Ugly Stage
A few hours/days into the painting you’ll encounter the dreaded “ugly stage”. We’ll cover how to push through this and deal with any troublesome areas. Finding additional references and how to incorporate small studies into your workflow. Also dealing with the mental side of this process (spoilers: everyone struggles at this stage at first).
WEEK 7 - Pushing to final.
Maintaining your momentum. Bringing the piece to a near “final” stage. This is one of the most crucial phases of the illustration and it’s where a lot of artists stop and call it done. We’re going to talk about making lists, managing your time and checking back on your sketch to ensure we’re not going off in a different direction (this happens a lot, trust me).
WEEK 8 - The End (and next steps)
A crucial part of the process: finishing the illustration. How to render all the details to a super high quality, where to place that detail and how to create a finished look for the piece. Painting effects, atmosphere, zooming out and bringing it all together. Taking the illustration to the next level.
HOW DO I SIGN UP?
You can sign up for the first Semester right NOW!
The course kicks off on November 4th, but I’m opening it up now so that I have time to review applications. Please note that there are limited slots available so do get in contact ASAP to secure a slot - my mentorships tend to fill up fast.
I’m planning to take on around 10 students for this first semester, but I may expand that if there’s a lot of interest.
To get started, simply fill out this contact form. Please include the following information so I can look over your work and make sure you’re a good fit for the program:
The word “Mentorship” in the subject line.
A link to your portfolio.
A sentence or two describing your goals as an artist and a little about yourself.
Any questions at all, I’ll do my best to answer them.