My current top Commercial sites
- cartoonsmart.com The best resource for learning cartoon drawing and all things flash. Apart from Flash training and cartoon drawing lessons there are also quite some other topic such as Blender 3D training, PHP scripting, Actionscript training and even some games design training for Flash.
- lynda.com A wide range of software topics explained in videos. Topics include lots of software packages, not only graphics software training but also training in animation, productivity software, office software, webdesign and operating software such as Windows Vista and Mac OS.
- The Gnomon Workshop A great resource for hands on training. I have bought dozens of training dvd’s from Gnomon. From when I was a teenager I have been a fervent fan of the works of Syd Mead. Luck has it that Gnomon has a series of four dvd’s featuring Syd Mead showing how he creates an illustration in the traditional way with gouache paints.
- Safari Books Online Read your books online and always the most recent versions. I have a very extensive library of physical books but sometimes it’s a better idea to opt for an on-line reading and study solution. Safaribooks from o’ Reilly and Pearson Education have created an on-line library for lots of currently published books and even lots of books that have yet to be published. The great thing about it is that you can, for a very moderate fee (mostly the price of a single real book), have up to ten books every month that you can read and study from. Since many technology based books can age very rapidly this service keeps you current all the time without you having a house or office full of totally useless aged books that have no technological relevance anymore.
- Tuts+ A variety of stunning free, and commercial tutorials for illustration, 3D, webdesign and Photoshop. The paid service gives you many of the original files and resources that are picked apart in the free section of their website. This is great because you can both follow along with the turorials as well as disect the files themselves to really study and learn how the end result was created.
- Screencasts Online Mac tutorials Very clear screen casts on wide range of Mac software topics. A Mac centric on-line service, it contains very thorrough sessions on a diverse range of software packages that range from productivity applications to use of on-line services. The nice thing about Mac Allister is that in many of his videos there are promotional codes to get a nice deal on the software that is featured. He also has a nice screen cast on Rapid Weaver, the software that I use to create this website. But apart from that he has lots. Topics range from social networking to podcasting to planning, to using mobile me and much more. If you are a Mac user it’s really well worth a visit.