Your opinions on Art schools

[someguy216]

Ye man another opinion from someone who went to FZD would be great. Tbh it sounds the right kinda course, the only thing concerning me is the stories of bad business/teaching practises there. Syn studios also sounds great but it seems like a place aimed at people already close to professional level. So ye Orange I'd love to hear about syn studios if you care to share! 

As mentioned I "can" do self taught, but If possibly I'd really like a descent formal education at least for a short while.

Hey Amit, stop outing me! I thought we were friends!!! QAQ

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I also know some people who went to FZD after studying at Syn, so maybe I can ask them some questions on differences, though they are pretty busy at the moment. Also know some people who came from other schools with similar positions in their respective fields (film schools, animation schools, etc.) to Syn.

At Syn there are 3 types of students: part-time students, full-time students and diploma students. Syn has 2 options: one is you choose your own courses, the other is a complete diploma course.

The teachers for the courses that you can choose yourself come on and off depending on their schedule, so one course may be offered one semester and not the next. These courses start from the absolute basics, aka what is a horizontal line, what is a vertical line, what is a shape, negative space, what is a pencil and eraser, etc., to advanced courses that focuses heavily on theory and workflows. You can choose to be a full time student, basically you take 5 courses of your choice, and the classes are usually not that big (never over 20). You can also select individual courses under 5 and be a part time student. Full time students do have access to some stuff, such as using spare classrooms to paint in, as well as attending the bi-weekly figure drawing workshops, couching workshops from invited pros and art jams for free.

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The foundation courses (drawing the human form, anatomy, perspective, constructive drawing classes, etc.) barely have any theory. If you buy Scott Robertson't book on perspective and read the first section, you already know much more theory than the entire perspective course. Listening to one or two episodes Feng Zhu's podcast will give you much more industry insight than all the foundation courses combined. The thing you are doing in foundation courses at Syn is draw draw draw. That's it. You can do it at home, but there will be a teacher staring at you and making sure you are on track even when your head is about to explode with pain. It's funny, because for years, I've been trying to read about theory and techniques, as well as how to work in the industry, yet in two months, I have seen more improvement with instructors that can't even speak English, because I am constantly drawing, and the teachers are always checking up on my process while I draw. If you have the discipline and the right connections, you have all you need to cover a year's worth of classes I took. However, that discipline is very hard to acquire and you need someone to make sure every stroke you do is correct and efficient. I personally had to deal with many frustrations for months because I wasn't directly learning anything new. I was unlearning bad habits, muscle memory, and inefficient workflows, all small details that kept messing up my work.

So about your doubts on who Syn Studio is targeting: no, the school is not just for professionals. Yes, I have a few classmates who are literally art directors in companies they founded themselves (common in advanced courses), but the basic courses are for people just starting out. All you do is draw, and you may feel that you are wasting your money at first because you can do that stuff at home. You can, and there are many people who did so, becoming very successful through self teaching. You also need to be very lucky in this case because everything you learn on your own must not conflict with each other and develop bad habits. Every person teaches differently, and every system of teaching is designed to work together as a whole. If you take different parts of different systems, it is easy to go with what you like (the most simple, lazy solutions), and not practice things that are hard, but are crucial to completing the system that a person is trying to teach you.

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The advanced courses are where things start to shine and you really feel like you are learning stuff. It's all theory and knowledge, and it opens up whole worlds that you never knew existed. However, you should not take these courses unless you drew countless hours and is very familiar with drawing everything both traditionally and digitally. If you can't keep up and express directly your ideas in these advanced courses, you are wasting a lot of practice opportunities and the instructors cannot really give you much feedback aside from...well, work on your understanding of anatomy and perspective first.

Then there is the Diploma program. It is a 18 month full curriculum designed to take a person from a fairly amateur level to a semi-pro that can start working in companies right after they finish the program. Unlike the full time intensive program, the courses and teachers are set and they instructors are paid to be there. As a result, it is extremely intensive and expensive. If you choose to take it, you will have no life. This is a serious decision. If you want to take this course, you cannot work part time. You cannot have other time consuming hobbies or hang out with people often. If you have off time, you do homework. That's it. You can choose to not do it, but it shows and you will get kicked out after a few times (2 times of not doing homework, I think? Not sure). Accidents will happen, your computer will break down and it is not your fault (happened to people I know!). You have to get the work done anyways, and if you don't, you are wasting the teacher's time as quite a few quite a few left their jobs to teach full time at the school. Your health will drop at the end. The program is fairly new and so far they only accepted 20 students (they tried to accept 10 max, before, but they decided to bump it up to 20). I've already seen people break down after the first few months (but I think they are doing better now). I intentionally chose not to join that program because there are still other stuff I do in life that I don't want to give up. I don't mind going slower, and I think this is the case with most people, as art isn't the very definition of life for the average person. The very few who do want to make a break for it are the ones that this program targets.

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That's pretty much it. This is a small school (basically the guys rented a floor in an old building in Montreal and people teach there. I think there was a time the founder had the school in his home, where people will teach  in his rooms and he will hide/work in his closet but I am not sure? XD ). Not fancy, the tables fall apart while you are working on them all the time, the floor creaks, there are AC problems in the hot summer and if you use more than one appliance in the kitchen, the whole place will blow up if you don't turn them off fast as the wiring has issues, resulting in the plugs not actually rated to power more than one appliance at the same time. It's not a high-tech place with fancy tools. The computers used for lectures crash all the time and USB ports on them get fried often in the past due to static. Don't expect the school to impress you visually. It's a place for people to come in and learn/teach. That is all.

The basic courses pretty much just make you draw, something you can do at home. teachers that talk a lot in long lectures on foundations (unless you are taking the gesture drawing class, cartooning class or comic class. That teacher is a whole other beast with sharing knowledge).

The difference from working by yourself is that the courses are 3 hours long (except for the most basic one, which is only 2 hours), meaning you will be drawing for 2 to 3 hours per course, and they slowly build you up to draw about 3 to 8 hours for the homework. If you take 5 courses, after a year, expect to draw about 6+ hours for school, as well as just drawing for fun in your own time. These courses are usually taught by the older, more experienced teachers and they watch over you (kinda depends on the teacher. Trying to keep up with every student is an extremely difficult skill and although all teachers try to do this, only one teacher I know here, someone who can't speak English all that well, really does it best and it feels very liberating taking his courses) the entire way.

The advanced courses focus a lot more in things like design, theory, techniques storytelling elements, etc. These teachers often are a bit younger in nature and work in the specific industry. For example, the teachers teaching anatomy and perspective may be illustrators and fine artists but not concept artists. For the storytelling course, the teacher is a storyboard artist, comic artist, and film director. The teacher for visual development for games is an art director for games. They tend to talk a lot more and the courses are paced faster as by now, students should be comfortable with visually expressing their ideas so that has less priority.

The diploma program is a structured course for people willing to have no life and/or have their back against the wall for whatever reason they have (I know someone who is like this in the program).

I personally love the school and am willing to study in it for another year or two. Maybe in the future, say 5 to 10 years after I work, I will choose to retake some of the courses as some of them have so much to offer and I can only grasp so little.

Something I tried to fight at first but now accept as a strength of learning in good schools is that every teacher is different and teach differently. One may add a perspective that you never thought of before, or make you do some exercise that simply "clicks" things in place. Even if the teacher makes you do stuff you hate, do it.  That's something you will most likely not do by yourself and that is where you will learn the most, as it is taught for a reason, and being uncomfortable means you have more to learn about it.

Sorry for long post. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing and there aren't too many typos.

Hey thanks for the in-depth experience of syn! Amit's right, there isn't many student experiences of syn studios out there, being such a new studio and all. But it's very impressive that such a small studio has quickly started to be compared with FZD. Overall Syn studios sounds perfect for me! The full time diploma would be ideal, I'm ready to sacrifice health and life in general if the teaching quality is good. Unfortunately the next intake is not till next year in October, which is too long to wait for. Of course If possible I'd love a student's experience of the intensive diploma.
However for now, I was considering the full time program, However how does it work? I'm a international student so would it be sensible for me to go there for a year? It does sounds like a great place to study though. I want to go full at doing concept art, which I can't get from self study, since I'd have to take a day job which will slow me down a lot. 

Otherwise there's not many other good concept art options, artcentre ofc looks solid but I don't shit money :p. CDA is non accredited. The other options are simply staying in my country (UK) and going to an atelier, but atelier's really only teach muscle memory.

Or of course there's FZD, but what puts me of that is the rumours. Lots of people are saying about bad teaching/business practises coming from that school. Teachers not actually offering much input, visa's being withheld, and high-school drama. As far as I know the only confirmed thing is that there was in fact a spat between long and Feng as well as Feng and Ben Mauro; but who knows which side was in the right or if it was a simple misunderstanding. For my mind set, the course sounds great, but its VERY expensive and alot of hard work; I don't want to sacrifice all that to find out its actually a rather inefficient school. So if you do know any students I'd love to have a chat with them if possible, that would be fantastic (I've talked to one guy but that's a small sample size).

Otherwise all this feedback you guys are giving is fantastic, I've been juggling education options for a while and ideally want it sorted soon; don't wanna end up staying another year at my current uni (The course is pretty awful). In the mean time I'm doing lots of self teaching so If you guys are starting any art hangouts please lemme know, wouldn't mind a chat and to do some art!