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How to Draw Comics Academy is an online learning platform dedicated to teaching aspiring artists how to master comic book illustration. Founded by Clayton Barton, a veteran in comic illustration, it offers step-by-step drawing tutorials, live classes, personalized feedback, and a supportive community of artists.

Anyone interested in comic art can benefit, from absolute beginners to advanced professionals looking to refine their skills. This includes those wanting to illustrate comics, manga, graphic novels, webcomics, storyboards for movies or games, or character design for various media.

No problem! Our course starts from the basics, so even if you're new to drawing, you'll find lessons tailored to beginners. We guide you through the entire process from conception to completion.

The Academy Course offers a wide range of lessons covering topics like character design, anatomy, perspective, inking, coloring, and storytelling. It also includes tutorials on specific techniques like crosshatching or shading, and workshops for creating full characters or scenes.

Learning at How to Draw Comics Academy involves:
• Live Classes: Real-time instruction with step-by-step guidance.
• Video Lessons: Pre-recorded tutorials you can watch at your own pace.
• Personalized Feedback: Critiques and draw-overs to help improve your work.
• Community Support: Interaction with other artists for mutual growth.

New content is added weekly to keep the curriculum fresh and aligned with current comic art trends and techniques.

Yes, our lessons are downloadable. You can access all video lessons from the Lesson Library, where you can download them for offline viewing.

Yes, the Academy Course is designed to be accessible on various devices, including desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones, ensuring you can learn from anywhere.

Yes, there's a supportive community of like-minded artists where you can share your work, get feedback, and collaborate. This community helps keep you motivated and accountable.

Yes. Academy Pro includes four one-hour, one-on-one mentoring sessions with Clayton every month, booked straight into his open time slots, plus priority feedback and the chance to request lesson topics. Pro is limited to five artists at a time. On Academy Live, the live classes give you real-time interaction and the critique sessions give you personalized feedback on your art.

Academy Essentials and Academy Live come with a 7-day money-back guarantee: email me at claytonbarton@howtodrawcomicsacademy.com within 7 days of joining and I’ll refund you. No hard feelings. And whatever plan you’re on, if something isn’t working for you, tell me and I’ll do my best to fix it.

Yes, you can unsubscribe from your membership at any time. Just go to your account settings and follow the cancellation process.

Academy Essentials is the full lesson library, yours to keep for a one-time payment. Academy Live adds the live side: weekly classes, feedback on your own work, studio sessions where you can come on camera with me, and the forums. Academy Pro is everything in Live plus four one-on-one mentoring sessions with me every month. Not sure? Send me a message and I’ll tell you straight.

Yes. Academy Live comes monthly or yearly. Yearly is one payment of $290 a year, which works out to two months free, and you get exactly the same things as the monthly plan. It renews once a year until you cancel, and the 7-day money-back guarantee applies.

That’s fine. Every session is recorded and the replay goes into the library, so you can catch up whenever it suits you. The Live Classroom shows every session in your own time zone, so you can see which ones you can make.

No. You can watch in the Live Classroom, draw along and ask your questions in the chat. If you’d like me to look at your page, you can come into the studio and share your screen, but only when you’re ready.

A pencil and paper is enough. The lessons work just as well for traditional and digital drawing, so if you have a tablet and a drawing app, use that. A computer is best for the live sessions, but you can watch the lessons on any device.