Self-taught geniuses?

[Shadow Major]

Hey guys, I was wondering if any of you know of any famous, well-known artists in the world today, who earned their reputation entirely self-taught. Like, they never attended art classes or anything. Just read books and studied themselves without a tutor. If you happen to do, could you send links to some of their works for everyone to see as well? Thanks

[cn3wton]

I instantly thought of this guy when you said it twitter.com/gregcapullo

He never went to school, and right out of high school tried to break into the comic business. He was turned away over and over. He kept pushing himself, drawing from life and reading books. And now hes the artist for the new 52 batman series and one of the most popular comic book artists right now.

How do I know this? I met him and spoke 1 on 1 with him for over 20 minutes. A great guy, really inspirational.

Heres the thing about so called "self taught" artists. There really are none anymore in my opinion. If you read a book about how to draw that's like being taught by someone. I prefer to just say that they didn't go to school for it.

What classes can do is accelerate your progress and introduce you to great artists who can push you to get better. They can also open your eyes and introduce you to artists work you may never seen or heard from.

The best thing you can do is find people who are better than you and have them give you an honest critique and guidance.

[Shadow Major]

Thanks for this! I never knew there would be people like that out there, but I guess there must be more than I think...

[PJCzar]

I had a friend who was self taught and so good she could have gotten published if she was ever to transition from just drawing random one off pictures to an actual comic. Sadly though she was assaulted by someone with a baseball bat and woke up in the hospital with complete amnesia, didnt remember her name, who or where she was. When she came back into school and I tried to get her to draw things she remembers from school, she didn't know how to hold the pencil. Then all she could draw with her shaky hands where circles for heads and bodies with stick figure limbs. It was crushing. She ended up not going to college for 3D animation like she had intended. I kept a record of my interactions with her the first 3 days of her return to school and will one day produce a comic or short book from it, which of course she gave me permission to do. It was probably the sadest thing I have seen.

Thats my (short version of the) story about one of the self taught geniuses I know.

[Shadow Major]

May 25, 2013 2:45:13 GMT -5 PJCzar said:

I had a friend who was self taught and so good she could have gotten published if she was ever to transition from just drawing random one off pictures to an actual comic. Sadly though she was assaulted by someone with a baseball bat and woke up in the hospital with complete amnesia, didnt remember her name, who or where she was. When she came back into school and I tried to get her to draw things she remembers from school, she didn't know how to hold the pencil. Then all she could draw with her shaky hands where circles for heads and bodies with stick figure limbs. It was crushing. She ended up not going to college for 3D animation like she had intended. I kept a record of my interactions with her the first 3 days of her return to school and will one day produce a comic or short book from it, which of course she gave me permission to do. It was probably the sadest thing I have seen.

Thats my (short version of the) story about one of the self taught geniuses I know.

Wow, that's a really saddening story. How could someone do something like that to her?!! I'm sorry, my thoughts are with her, man.