Artist
Educator
Founder of Revels Atelier.
I built the studio I wish had existed when I was coming up.
I Know What It Costs to Build Without Support
I wanted to be an artist when I was young. Badly. But I was scared, and the people around me made it worse. My mother did not support it. Teachers who should have been mentors competed with me instead. Nobody showed me how to do anything.
“So I found my own way.”
I lived in the library. I bought every magazine I could find. Step by Step Graphics. Communication Arts. Every book on technique I could get my hands on. I would go home and try every technique until I understood it completely. Then I would do it again.
“I had a teacher early on pull me aside and tell me I should be at Art Center. I did not have the money to go. So I built Art Center inside myself.”
I drove hours before dawn to find the one teacher who would actually let me develop. I slept in my car between sessions. I stayed up until the jazz station played Around Midnight and then kept working after that. I cold-called my heroes through a phone book because I had no other way to get in front of them. I slid my painting under a stack of submissions for the Society of Illustrators Student Competition when the office told me I was not ready, because I knew I was. And I got in.
I did all of this not because I was brave. Because I had no other option. I was hungry and the door was closed and I refused to accept that.
And then in my senior year something happened that changed the direction of my life.
A teacher called me into a meeting and looked me in the face and told me he was giving me a C+. Not because my work deserved it. Because he decided I was going to be successful and he wanted to give me a setback before that happened. He said I was going to be a golden boy and everything was going to come easy to me. So he was going to make it hard right now.
“I sat there in silence. Not because I had nothing to say. Because I was looking at a man who had power over young artists and was using it to diminish them. And I was thinking about every student in that building who was not mentally strong enough to survive what he just did to me. The ones who would believe him. The ones who would go home and start to shrink.”
That was the moment I decided I was going to be a teacher.
Not because I loved the classroom. Because I looked at what that man was, and I said someone needs to be the opposite of this. Someone needs to be in these rooms who actually gives a damn whether these people make it.
That someone was going to be me.
When I was coming up, I had no money. So I paid in every other currency I had.
“Time & Resiliency.”
Sitting in silence while teachers competed with me instead of teaching me. Taking the feedback that stung and going home and fixing the work anyway.
“Everything worth having costs something. The question is never whether you are willing to pay. The question is what you are willing to pay with.”
Revels Atelier is not free. Neither was anything that made me who I am. But every dollar and every hour you invest here will be met with the full weight of someone who paid every price before he ever asked you to pay anything.
Clarity is earned. Progress is built. Neither is given.
Everything Has a Price. I Paid Mine.
To Every Artist Who Is Afraid Right Now
I see you.
The layoffs. The AI tools. LinkedIn feeds are full of talented artists posting their portfolios with the words “looking for work”. The feeling that the industry you sacrificed everything to enter is pulling the floor out from under you.
I am not going to tell you the fear is not real. It is.
“But here is what I know.”
If you are an artist, you are an artist. AI did not put that inside you, and AI cannot take it away. The world you carry, the characters that will not leave you alone, the story that has been building in you since before you had the language to describe it. That is yours.
The artists most at risk right now are the ones who spent their careers executing someone else's vision and never built something they owned. The artists most protected are the ones who own their IP. Their world. Their story. Their creative identity.
“That is what this studio is built for.”
We do not know if your vision will become a financial success. But we know this. If it is inside you, it has to come out. And the only real failure is leaving this world without releasing what was yours to create.
That is the real reward. Not the money. The knowing.
Twenty-Five Years Later
I spent 25 years as one of the highest-rated professors at Academy of Art University. My students went on to become art directors, production heads, and working professionals at Pixar, Disney, Marvel, Crystal Dynamics, Wizards of the Coast, and across the industry.
But I never forgot what it cost to get here without support. And I never stopped thinking about every artist out there grinding alone the way I did. Talented. Hungry. With no real guidance and no clear path forward.
“Revels Atelier is the studio I wish had existed when I was coming up.”
Not a replacement for school. Not a shortcut. A place where serious artists and serious creators come to do the real work with someone who has been exactly where they are and made it through.
Two paths. One for the artist who is ready to develop. One for the creator who is ready to build something they own. Both built on the same foundation.
“The belief that if you are willing to pay the price, you can make something real.”
And the promise that you will not have to pay it alone.
Carolina Tello
"Robert is a fantastic teacher. He is a wealth of knowledge and he knows exactly how to present the material so it is easy to follow and implement as you learn. He was instrumental in getting me started on digital painting and it is now what I love and do for a living."
at·el·ier
Sounds like [uh·teh·lee·ay]
Noun
An Atelier is a workshop or studio where artists, designers, or craftspeople create and work on their projects. It’s often a creative space for making art or learning.
Find Your Path
Two paths. Both lead somewhere real.
Nextgen Artists is where you develop your craft, build your foundation, and grow alongside serious artists who push you forward.
IP Forge is where you build your world, develop your characters, and create the intellectual property that belongs to you and no one else.
Both are built by someone who paid every price before he ever asked anyone else to pay anything.
