Thank You Massive Black!

[focus]

I just wanted to send a huge thanks to everyone at Massive Black that made this event possible. All the instructors were awesome and everyone I met was very friendly. This event for me was life changing, I have no doubt in what I want to do anymore, and my direction seems more clear to me than ever. I'm sure I'm not the only one that was changed by the workshop either. I've never been so inspired by anything in my life. I also have a new goal in life... save up enough money to go to Italy next year:) Thanks again, MB!

-Adam

[Gory]

In the three and a half years I've been at art school, I have never had an educational experience quite like the three days I was at the workshop. Not only were the instructors earnest, forthright, and eager to help people, but they were chock full of invaluable information. I'd like to thank all the instructors that I spoke to directly, as well as all those that helped me out indirectly. (Watching HPX do speedpaintings was... wow)

You guys can't ever stop doing these things, they are far too important to stop. As artists, we will all stagnate if we don't have actual interaction with other artists that we respect.

With the forums, the workshops, and now the atelier, I see conceptart.org becoming a huge force in art education in the future.

This is the stuff that needs to happen at art school. Thank you again.

[silvestri99]

I just wanted to add my appreciation for everyone who helped to make this workshop happen. This was my first time to one of these and it will definatly not be my last. When i was standing around on friday night listening to Loop Station and watching the areobatics and dancing chicks someone asked me "Is this what you expected". I replied that i had expectations for the workshop but that this blew those out of the water.
I still am so excited about it that i can't stop telling the rest of my artist friends about what they missed out on and how they c
CAN NOT miss the next one.
I've set my goals and am still trying to absorb everything that happened and that i learned. I'll be more than ready for the next one. And guys, if you do come to Seattle for one in the future let me know, I'll do whatever you need done on this end to make it happen. These workshops need to keep happening and this community needs to keep growing. Although there were some problems and things I'd like to see improved, I'll be at these yearly from now on.
Jason, Andrew, Kevin, Coro, Marko and the rest (I'd be typing forever)...thank you, thank you, thank you. This was a life changing experience that has helped to cement my path as an artist.
Cheers!

[Jason Manley]

You are entirely welcome. I am glad that you all came with an open mind and were able to understand and learn and see what it was that we had most hoped to do with the event. I am thankful for everyones help, attendance, instruction, demonstrations, performances, and all the words of inspiration I heard over the past few days.

The Massive Black team is thankful too. I saw a lot of smiles and great conversations being had...art being made that I did not know could be done like it was, and all the inspiration is priceless.


J

[Atlantis]

Yeah, major thanks to MB and all the instructors for making this awesome experience possible. The amount of knowledge and inspiration that I took from this was truly mind-blowing, whether it was listening to William Whitaker's lecture at the Legion of Honor, pouring over Coro's (un-fucking-believable) sketchbooks, talking with Wes Burt and Kevin Llewellyn about drawing, listening to John Mueller's seminar on the state of the art world, or anything else. Just a fantastic experience all around, so again, truly, thank you guys.

I realize now that I'd been stuck in a rut before this event, but I'm already seeing major improvements in my work. And I only got home last night.

Thanks. :bashful:

[Alex the Red]

I still wear my red CA armband as a badge of honor.

[joelhinxman]

yes thanks a bunch was great already started saveing for the next one.

[Burnt]

i spent over a grand just to come to this and if anyone were to ask me if it was worth it, i'd have easily paid another grand. for me to explain the first moments of insomania would be to say it's like walking into the best parts of hell, face melting!! seeing how andrew jones works live is totally different from seeing his steps in that d'artiste concept art book. it doesn't even come close. hpx too, omfg crazy shit. thanks MB and especially marko for signing my xmen comics (i got them in a plastic case on my cabinet now :D). i can't wait til the next one!!! byaaah

[Darktwin]

Wow, thats all that comes to mind when I think about this passed weekend. Christmas definitely came early. MB, thank you all, it was a huge wake up call. I just can't put it into words. Thank you very much.

[archnemesis dbal]

I said it once, and I'll say it again, Thanks Jason and everyone at Massive Black for one of the greatest weekends of my life.

[DannySketch]

one of the saddest things for me is that this thread has 9 hits and the crit thread has 66, for me the workshop was a way for me to pay for a service that I have been using daily, and for free, for over half a year now.

conceptart.org

I can think of worse ways of paying for a service than one that includes personal crits from Coro Kaufman and Jason Manley, one to one advice from Wes Burt and William Whitaker, fantastic demos from so many amazing oil painters it hurt my brain, and a chance to meet up with a group of the most fantastic people I have ever met.

so I say, thank you conceptart.org for inventing the best way ever, of allowing me to pay you back.

[max xiantu]

what a truly wonderful experience.

from the moment I arrived on thursday night and fell right into sync with fellow cAers, I even had a killer time waiting on line to get in; meeting new people and feeling the general excitement.

I'd say there was a flavor of Utopia to the whole thing. An event where we were thrown into 3 floors of people sharing the same passion, teachers and professionals who answered any questions you threw at them and invited you to sit with them and draw or paint (or party). Beautiful dancers and great models to draw from (how about that contortionist? holy moly!).

Whitaker took us on a great museum trip and we gained new insight on how to learn from the masters. A bit of dinner as a group and we headed to the workshop. A very intense welcome ensued. Gymnast dancing clown beauties ushered us in and we got to see some refreshingly original and skilled live music.
I even used the opening party as a chance to work out some blind gesture drawings. Watching Andrew Jones, Marco, James Kei, Jason Chan and Kevin Luellyn digital funk to some bangin music was highly enjoyable.
And then there was a question and answer session with Marco, Andrew and Jason Manley that covered all types of ground. All that while the third floor traditional painting and life drawing was in full effect. Instruction and painting demos galore. Frank Wade also gave us tips on character creation and life drawing and showed us how he works. And that was only the first day!

Saturday we were so pumped we woke up after only a few hours rest and started drawing again. Dirty_C gave us a metal reflections tutorial in painter at brunch and we did some drawing and checked out San Fran until 6 when insomania recommenced. Ron Lemen proved to be an amazing teacher. He pulled out two great painting over the weekend and taught in full force while he painted. There was so much going on, along with multiple models posing for life drawing in some crazy unique costumes. Jason Manley gave us a mini lesson on how to work out gestures and light and shade from the model and how to layout environment thumbnails. All chock full of information. We were definitely envious of the CA Atelier students by this point ;) Coro showed us some photoshop by way of a vulnerable, Sasquatch streetwalker - the 'Sass-squatch'. Dan Milligan's storyboarding presentation was a great look at the field and proved to be quite the performer. An hour flew by in what seemed like minutes. I tried to cover all the bases; watching a bit of Barber painting incredible tattoo portraits, Kevin painting right next to him (with Hussar doing some touch ups), Whitaker teaching and painting, Carl Dobsky on the floor flexing some oil chops. That was only a slice. Hardcore Pix and Aleksi did some serious speedpainting demos on the second floor; I learned tons just from watching in silence. The night wrapped up with Andrew Jones showing us how to create fresh ideas from seeming abstract chaos, using unorthodox approaches with ZBrush, Painter and Photoshop. We were so inspired we headed back to the hostel and had a mini Thunderdome.

Sunday was John Mueller's highly motivational 'Creating a Portfolio for Video Games' lecture and then everyone was off to porfolio reviews, critiques and impromptu interviews. Andrew airbrushed models for us to draw from while the painting continued and we wrapped up the day with a huge group photo after Manley did some generous giveaways.

I made some tremendous friendships with ease and quickness. We ended up doing an all night drawathon - passing around sketchbooks on Sunday night until people were literally passing out on the page. It was a tremendous investment in something I passionately enjoy. I am extremely appreciative to Massive Black and the whole conceptArt.org community for this opportunity. Thank you.

:yayca:

[sweetoblivion314]

The whole thing was amazing. The greatest weekend of my life. Thanks so much Jason, Coro, Layil, Andrew, all the instuctors and everyone else involved and all the people i made friendships with!

[arechiga_tony]

thanks for blowing my mind out the top of my head!!!! its still in San Francisco!!! guess ill have to find it in March when my apartment lease is up. If you see a lil black rock that is probably still smoking DONT THROW IT AWAY because its my brain!!!!! But i still have my heart and its overloaded with inspiration!!!!! thank you guys soooooo much!!!!!! See you in italy!!!!!

[Wade Felt]

Totally rocked!

Thank you, everyone, for making Insomania such an enjoyable and educational experience!! So glad I went. Thank you Thank you Thank you!

[rlederer]

Thanks so much for putting this event together MB. A time to remember and learn from to be sure. Absolutely amazing. I keep saying to friends how I feel like we'll be having little epiphanies for the next few months from this experiance. Can't wait to see you guys again at the next one! Thanks again! - Ray