Im right now on my Graphic Design Course and i would like to expand my study
to Illustration course after my graduation.

anyone able to enlighten me with good colleges and fees info of particular college?
i was already looking into The One which is what most ppl adviced me to go (fees is about 50k for diploma yeh?).
problem would be its so far, i stay in KL area. Setiawangsa LRT to be exact and
going to Sunway everyday will be a tiring trip i believe and im kinda settled down at my current condo.

so any help and advice is much appreciated, thanks =)

the closest art colleges to you would be dasein (wangsa maju) and MIA (melawati) i suppose. neither are exactly famous for digital art, but you could always go check it out for yourself first. in the one, i think you'd get kinsun and leo in the illus. department. many others have left since the hey days. kinsun was my mentor too back in those days, and personally i think there's a lot you can learn from him. many principles that he taught me back then, i still uphold in the working world today.

alternatively, i suggest you just pick it up on the side by yourself.

in general i feel art colleges locally are a big waste of time and money. that being said, i was from the one academy back then. how much do you honestly learn if not for your own effort to look up design magazines and books, surf the net and see how other people did it? the basics in the foundation helps, because that gets you started on principles of basic design knowledge, color study and all that. beyond that, how good you can get, is not what the lecturer feeds you in class anymore, its about exposing yourself to the outside world, and hone your own senses. its like someone telling you about a good movie, and you watching it for yourself. its completely different, and truth be told ... irrelevant. i can describe to you how good a movie really is, and u might be a bit awed, but you could never truly know and feel, unless you experience it yourself. but hey, if i DIDNT tell you about the movie, and you went ahead and watched it yourself, you'd still get the same feeling no? thats the creative world for you. this isnt engineering or chemical science. there's no formulas you NEED to know. its all about your own senses, and no amount of teaching can build that. its something you need to know and feel for yourself.

as such, you've already went through basics once. majoring in another is quite a waste of time in my opinion. of course there's no denying that knowing how to paint and draw ON TOP of designing, it will undoubtedly give you an extra edge over the rest of the competition. but its something you can learn yourself

Right, I have some opinion about SENSES, unlike Fine Art, commercial art does not rely on inspiration, the term visual senses is too abstract to define drawing especially for Illustration need.

Digital illus is not the same as conventional art materials and lecturers from the older time is not experienced enough in digital as they do with art materials, if you merely replace the tools, then you are not benefiting from software technology and everything about the Principe is true except technique.

If you only want to explore digital illustration than design, you must learn all about RGB to CMYK, file type and compression. A lot of people still don't understand the relation between dpi resolution to pixel ratio.

Some one who worked as a multimedia artist in a publishing firm for five years still confuse about this issue because they thought what you see is what you get.

To see if you really understand colours, why is red = hot or blue = cold? Don't tell me because you lecturer told you so.

This post has been edited by 3dassets: Dec 2 2009, 04:53 PM

mmm i beg to differ. i'm a fulltime freelance artist myself for the past 8 years now, and i do commercial illustrations too in order to survive. and in paintings, i still need to judge the look and feel, the overall mood of the picture, what would suit the situation best. the actions and reactions of people in the picture if any, what would someone do, if placed in that situation, that scenario, at that point in time. what kind of clothes they wear, what kind of accessories. is it night? is it day? is there music playing in the background? is it windy? is it cloudy? the colors of everything, does it go together? do i want something to stand out? there's still a lot of these little things, colleges will never be able to teach you, and regardless of fine art or commercial art, it will still be applied. these are the things u need to build on. ultimately, its the same whether you learn design, illustration, web ... your design sense plays a pivotal role. and on a personal level, i like to google random images, listening to music that suits the mood of the painting, to inspire me to paint. of course, this doesnt mean i take my own time to do this, in commercial work, time is always of essence. u'll need to able to judge and act and start sketching out ideas within a few minutes. but one step at a time. again, its all about the art and design sense that you build up. the more you understand, the faster you can work.

digital or tradional, it makes no difference really. its just a medium. of course, there's many more shortcuts in digital granted, but i always thought it better if someone learns the long way and knows how to do it manually first. to me, its just about understanding how to do it. even up to today, while i know quite a lot about photoshop, i try not to resort to filters to achieve some effect, simply because of one thing ... it WILL look more rigid and fake, as opposed to painting it. the quality, the identity of the painting is an important factor to me, as an artist, and in such, i practice a same style of painting either in fine art or commercial art.

3dassets made a good point tho about knowing file types and compression. if your work is to be printed, know how big the final print will be, because you will need to adjust the size and resolution of your digital paintings accordingly.

of course, its all dependant on what you plan to do in the future. generally digital artists nowadays end up doing comics or concept art, occasionally matte paintings, for only that few various industries. not to say there's no other jobs, but these are the most common. in either of these, there's really not much need to know about intricate processes of printing. its good to know, even i read books and learn from printers about how things are done. but there usually will be other people thats going to handle these processes for you in the end

CMYK channel can achieve 4 colours black, you may paint in RGB spectrum to gain all the colours of light and convert to CMYK and manage the channel manually, if you do it in CMYK instead, you won’t achieve certain blending effects because the colour mode prevent non printable colours and it falls in the category photo enhancement after painting, particularly Photoshop (its intended purpose not a disadvantage).

Why paint in non printable colours in the first place? This is the difference between software and conventional material, digital imaging is written based on the science of light while art material is deflected from a surface by chemical and pigment which does not glow like light, thus layers of opaque and transparent colours is used to achieve consistence atmosphere / mood otherwise the painting will look like patches of colours than a coherence scene.

Material based painting technique involve mixing on the canvas and glazing as final touch and commercial illustration tends to lean towards airbrushing rather than oil or acrylic but no such difference in digital where you can achieve both effects, in short, if you pick the colour you need and apply to the area then blend, you will lose its brilliancy exactly like using art material which defies the advantage of software technology, instead, you can paint in grey and convert them into full colour using layer blending and colour filter.

Achieving the best result in the shortest time is a must in commercial illustration not replacing conventional art materials with computer and practice the same technique, digital does not have the physical and chemical limit of art material and need to capture / scan where the result is deflected lights.
Relying on the printer / colour separator to determine the final reproduction is an excuse where there is “icc colour profile” matching monitor to print, the reason of low wages is because of the production time and its market value, if the job scope revolved in books, comic and print commercials and I wonder how long can an artist remain in such industry.

Create own publication when you are up to it than rely on existing market is where the hope is or risk repeating the same cycle like another Illustrator, I heard a familiar artist from my time committed suicide, his name is Peter Yong if not mistaken.

ah yea sad isnt it. bottom line is still that illustration is a very limited market here. but luckily, hiro has a background in design, which will open up the limits. unlike myself haha

From a student POV:

I was studying in graphic design (diploma ) and in the midst of my FYP, I realized I didn't know what the hell was I going to do after graduating. Illustration was my passion back then , heck , all the projects and assignments I did had very little photography elements to it.

I was initially thinking whether to get a degree in illustration/animation seeing I already have somewhat of a safety net with the graphic design background -OR- take 1-2 years off and spend a lot less money by just getting a whole bunch of art materials, books , etc and study everything myself.

In the end , I decided to get my degree in Graphic Design. It seems like a safer choice in Malaysia and all my spare time is used to study illustration personally.

yea it is the safer path honestly. there's still a lot of demand for designers locally. and it helps if you do web and flash as well.

I'm a web designer and personally I don't think TS should spend too much on learning design and digital illustration. At the end of the day, it is the passion and self motivation that allow use to create better artwork. Cert play minimal role and portfolio do the talking . 50K to study illustration and it might not contribute to your income... IMO it is not worth it.

Another reason is that web knowledge expired fast and there are a lot to learn. Put visual sense and interface design aside, the codings like HTML, CSS, Java Script, Action Scripts 2.0 3.0 evolve like crazy. As a web designer we cannot say "No, I don't care about technical, it is not my area". The moment you graduate from your school the knowledge is half-expired. Reminds me that MMU teached me Macromedia Director & Freehand and that's the time adobe stop releasing new version. Luckily that I self learn Macromedia Flash back then.

my bf was graduated @ TOA...diploma in illustrations...honestly it's really spent alots of $ 2 study tat...he work as graphic designer now...but he not alwiz use da illustrations skill in his work...cos it's unnecessary...

but...he do use illustration drawing skill on da tee design...tat he sell da design on9...like tee fury...design by human...etc.

since u've study graphic design dy...after grad...actually u can start working dy...gain more experience better than waste $ n time 2 further study...

interesting. i'm an illus grad from TOA as well. batch of 2001. what's his name?

I was the first batch from Tatsun Studio in 1988, that means I am your grandpa. The second batch formed another art college named Dasign, they are your former lecturer.

So you are doing the job I left behind since 1996 and I became a lecturer too at other art school, TOA is too proud of themselves and never wish to share, and in the end I am sure you heard the story.

I am certain Tatsun or Loong Wun would be very surprised that I am still alive and advancing, They thought I was gone long time ago and they fail to secure international client with their illustration studio.

The fact is when your pair of hands stop drawing / working so as your income and do you have to buy your way in? That is why I gave up, cannot compete and are you represented by anyone? They are the one who kill most of the illustrators.

Maybe the cloud is clear when you came into the illustration scene but the money culture in advertising agencies remains. I have no example because I am among the pioneer and the one who die first, but I prevailed and took so long to proved that I was right.

lol we all know that story i guess. no love for them indeed. in fact i remember when dasein first started off, and a lot of students from the one caught wind, and jumped ship, it caused a whole uproar in the one lol. so much so tatsun and all had to personally see all the students that were thinking of leaving.

um anyway i dont always try to associate myself with the one. to me, people like tatsun sold out himself. an illustrator to a businessman that cares only for the money imo. the only person i really learned anything much from while in the one was from kinsun. i still have a lot of respect for him as a mentor and a friend, and many principles about work and life i've learned from him i still practice to today.

for myself however, even when i stepped into illustration, i was already well aware of the kind of crap i'd have to take out there lol. but i went ahead, but drawing and painting was something i had loved since i was a kid, so its not about the money nor the fame. my passion is my only driving force. hence i dont make a lot of money, i dont get to buy houses and nice big cars, like perhaps most of our other friends who are now art directors, creative directors, or lawyers and doctors and the likes. sometimes in fact, i just barely get by ... but i'm just happy being able to do what i love and love what i do. although ... occasionally i DO pick up a couple of logo designs, ui design, icons, etc. to make some money to survive

granted some agencies have offered me jobs as art director and the likes before ... but i dont really think its my thing. the pay is really good, the job is secure, but i just just love painting so much XD there's only 2 places that i hope to settle down in one day ... either with wizards of the coast or arenanet. if i had a fulltime job paying me 20k/month, and either one of them comes knocking offering me a job for 2k/month, i'll leave and head over without so much so a thought ...

but yknow this is just me. if you guys (3dassets aside, you would probably know better than us ) want something more secure as a career, make more money, dont consider being a fulltime artist lol

of course, learning something extra is ALWAYS a good thing. no matter what u learn it doesnt matter. knowledge is power (speaking of which, i feel its very useful for designers and such to pick up business and marketing. goes a long way) just dont feel like you have to pay 30-50k for it.

he's ur junior lah...grad on 2006~

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Added on December 6, 2009, 8:37 pmwah....really grandpa leh...so u r my grandpa oso lah...although we r not same major course...but we got same principal...

i agreed wat u said lah...TOA is really too proud of themselves...almost all lecturers oso like tat...but still got some r gd 1...but tat 1 is not Tatsun lorrr...hahaha~...

This post has been edited by bbjess0223: Dec 6 2009, 08:37 PM