It goes without saying that one of the best ways to get better at your craft is to watch others do it. Unfortunately, this hasn’t necessarily been easy in the digital age with software tools. Of course, we’ve seen our fair share of CAD or Photoshop tutorials on YouTube, but something usually gets lost when you’re not watching the finished product unfold in real time. Now, a live streaming platform that’s best known for streaming platform video games is about to change all of that.
The platform, Twitch, has been actively live streaming video games to millions of fans since it was founded in June of 2011 by internet entrepreneurs Justin Kan and Emmett Shear in San Francisco. Similar to YouTube, it’s relatively easy for anybody to setup their own “channels” and broadcast various aspects of their life. In this case, it happens to be playthroughs of various videogames that adoring fans can comment and watch them play in real time.
Twitch, now owned by Amazon, is currently looking at expanding their unique live-streaming spectator platform to let others watch the creative processes of, well, creatives – regardless of any design or artistic disciplinary background. Considering the popularity of digital painting videos on YouTube alone – videos that document the process of creating complex scenes over hours, but are sped up to reveal the process in less than five minutes – the move towards turning this into more of a spectator-friendly experience shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
“Today, we’re happy to announce our official support for the Twitch Creative community,” said Bill Moorier, Head of Twitch Creative. “There are a few things that make the Creative category unlike anything else on Twitch, so we, along with our launch partner Adobe, are excited to see what you dream up.”
Although Twitch had previously allowed creatives to broadcast their processes, the announcement also includes the launch of a new Twitch Creative landing page and a unique tagging system for viewers to organize their favorite artists and designers – a feature that will no doubt be significant for navigating and bookmarking favorite artists and designers as the network continues to grow.
https://youtu.be/cmjVqWirrZU
“We encourage you to broadcast your creative process on Twitch, be that visual art, woodworking, costume creation, prop building, music composition, or any other process in which you entertain and connect around a creative activity,” added Bill. “We understand that this is vague. We expect to learn much about what is, and is not, appropriate for Twitch as the community grows.”
To kick things off, Twitch has teamed up with Janson Media and BobRoss Inc. to broadcast every episode of the original Bob Ross show, The Joy of Painting, in an epic marathon of “happy trees” over the next 8.5 days. Needless to say, Bob was among the first to make “watching the artist” entertaining:
If you’ve ever wanted to start a 24/7 live streaming CAD channel, this is your calling. Find out more about starting your own channel or just simply seeing what others are doing with the platform over at Twitch Creative.
