For those looking into paid online art education, I’m here to share my short-lived experience with Pencil Kings. Pencil Kings is a site that intends to give affordable online art education for all skill-levels. It took me a few days of thinking if it would be worth it. After so, I decided to give the 1$ trial a go.

They offer a variety of courses which was nice, but too bad that it isn’t exactly structured. When browsing for course, there’s this filter found at the side of the site. Sure, there’s this “Foundations” filter, but where do you start when you’re a complete beginner?

As for the quality of the videos, it wasn’t all that appealing. The videos had a resolution of 720p which is fine, but the audio quality needs some improvement. The artists’ narration is also being disturbed by some background music that at times can be annoying. What I mean is that you get this epic sounding background music when it doesn’t really fit.

As for the information they offer, it can be insightful at times. I tried finishing some courses, hoping that it would be worth my time. But unfortunately, some of what I took failed to actually teach me something. Most art instructors fail to put some philosophy in their classes or courses and ends up just demonstrating how they do it than deconstructing the skill.

The most helpful course I took was Color Theory and Speedpainting. I did in fact learn a thing or two from it especially that I somewhat got better in picking out colors.

Well, that’s all for the moments I won’t be pursuing another month of subscription in this site, but check out the courses if it’s really for you. A little side note: some of the instructors have already free tutorials available in Youtube and I didn’t really see that much difference.