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James Van Schaik and Fire For Effect Studios are proud to announce the launch of their kickstarter. It is an exciting initiative that brings the world of sculpting techniques to everyone through comprehensive, easy to follow, sculpting classes.

The courses offered are high quality courses filmed in HD without time lapse on techniques. You see everything as it is done, clearly and concisely, so you can learn the skills you need for adding to existing models and miniatures or sculpting your own. The courses will include a virtual classroom, several modules for each course, PDF quick cheat guides, module notes and references for students. There will also be a course forum for one on one attention from James Van Schaik while you are learning.

These courses are designed for everyone, whether you are new to using putty to enhance your models and miniatures or not. All skill levels, all jobs, learning that is easy and enjoyable.

The kickstarter runs from November 19th until December 9th and we are offering great incentives to backers of the project. Courses are offered at over 75% off what they will be when released to the general public. In addition, some great miniatures are being offered to backers including a chance to have your own private commission from James Van Schaik. Stretch goals are planned with the opportunity to receive free courses and special add ons.

For more information on our sculpting courses, you can read the descriptions at http://f4estudios.com/f4e_studios_009.htm or back our kickstarter today at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1389554987/modeling-and-sculpting-course-videos-by-james-van

Man, clearly a talented sculptor, but I could not stand how he talked- repetitive, felt talked down to, slow, awkward slang.

Pretty good argument for why the voice over industry exists.

Glad you like his work. He would agree with you and had wanted to hire an actor to play his part in the main kickstarter video but didn't think that would be good.

The video was finished up after a lot, and I mean a lot, of takes and his nervousness is what you are seeing on the main video.

The actual courses will have voice over as well as him talking during the videos. And the final courses will have power points going over every step that the video covers plus additional content. He will also have Q&A's and each course has a virtual classroom and forum to connect with the instructor to make sure that everything is clear.

The videos are just one portion of the total course.

Cool, thanks for the response.

No problem. If you have any questions about it, I would be happy to answer them.

Why does this need to be a kickstarter instead of just selling the videos from your website?

They are not just videos. They are entire courses so the kickstarter is to fund the production of the courses, the videos, editing, pdf's, etc. Kickstarter is for funding creative projects like this one.

A lot goes into producing the course content, which is why we set up funding. It is explained on the kickstarter in greater detail.

This is a great idea and I am seriously considering signing up. One question I have is around the timeline for the course. Is it going to be built as a semester etc? How long through this process do you have access to the instructor for help? The discounted kickstarter price is great and that's partly why I ask the question. I have taken e-learning courses before and typically you take a class and have access to from begining to end of that class. Just wondering if I should expect the same kind of system.

thanks,

Palmer

Hi Palmer,

The courses are going up as quickly as production is done on them. Then we will be sending you an invite/password for the course. You have 30 days to take the course from the time that you activate your password but we are allowing students to download the content so they can take it at their own time. The classroom is through WizIQ so that is where all the content will be held. You can see a virtual tour of the actual classroom on the kickstarter.

The forums are where we can connect to review homework, yes some of the courses have homework if you want to do it, critique work, and James will be there several times a week to do Q and A. If he finds that something is not clear in a section of the course, he will schedule a live event on the WizIQ classroom for all the students so he can go through it in person.

The forum itself is a lifetime access to that courses classroom. For instance, if you took Basic Sculpting Techniques, took the 30 day course and downloaded it but couldn't do anything with it until 4 or 5 months down the line, you could still go on to the Basic Sculpting Techniques campus forum, ask questions, submit homework and take the course at that time. Then whenever you need a refresher on a few questions, you will still have access to it.

Hopefully, that answered all your questions but if it didn't, let me know. The main goal was to make it as accessible to the students as possible so they have continued support, even after the course is over, through the online campus forum. Basically, after the course, you simply become an alumni.

Thanks for the response. I neglected to see that a lengthy FAQ is included at the end of the kickstarter which has a lot of info. Thanks again.

No problem. If you have any other questions that I missed in the FAQ, let me know.

I was able to convince my wife to let me pledge by explaining to her that it was more of an online class and less of standard series of videos. This should be interesting.