Monthly Archive: June 2009

Jun
12
2009

This weekend: Defining the Project

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Reminder, this weekend is the adult level cartooning class I am teaching:

Defining the Project
Instructor: Brian Kolm
Level: Beginning/Intermediate – Adult
Days: June 13-14, 2009

Are you thinking about working on a personal comic or cartoon project? Do you need some motivation to get the ball rolling? Come to this hands-on workshop where like-minded creators can work on their projects together. We will go through exercises that will help you explore ideas for stories, settings, and characters for your projects. We will then learn how to take our projects to the next level. We will learn how to outline our stories, as well as design the characters and settings that will help bring the story and character ideas to life.

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Jun
10
2009

Update 6-10-09

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Hey all. Time for another update on whats happening with the ever tall Brian Kolm.

- I will be teaching an Adult level class on this weekend June 13-14, 200:

Defining the Project
Instructor: Brian Kolm
Level: Beginning/Intermediate – Adult
Days: June 13-14, 2009

Are you thinking about working on a personal comic or cartoon project? Do you need some motivation to get the ball rolling? Come to this hands-on workshop where like-minded creators can work on their projects together. We will go through exercises that will help you explore ideas for stories, settings, and characters for your projects. We will then learn how to take our projects to the next level. We will learn how to outline our stories, as well as design the characters and settings that will help bring the story and character ideas to life.

- The following week is my first Cartoon Boot Camp at the Cartoon Art Musuem in San Francisco. A second class and one in July follow:

Intermediate ages 10-14:

June 15-19: Designing Superheroes

Superheroes are a big part of American pop culture with characters as diverse as Batman, Wonder Woman, Mr. Incredible and Diaperman. Students will learn to draw these and their own brightly colored lads and ladies who fight crime. The class will teach the students how to draw humanoid heroes in pose, physique, personality, costume and presentation.

June 22-26: From Storyboard to Animatic

In this class students learn to draw storyboards just like the ones used in movies and television shows. Once the storyboards are created students will develop them into an animated piece. The class will explore drawing, camera moves and lighting, timing and communication, and applying simple animation and camera moves to give a simulation of what a final film would look like.

July 13-17: Storytelling for Comics

Students will explore the process of creating a story including writing an outline, developing the structure of the story, creating characters, and making rough layouts.

Beginner level ages 7-14:

August 3-7: Cartoon Craft

Young students will participate in a fun week of cartoon and crafts combined, including the creation of projects that explore collage, flipbooks, zoetrope, paper dolls, puppets, and robots.

- I am now AllAbouttheMouseketeer  #857. ‘All About the Mouse’ is a Disney podcast I really enjoy listening too. Find out more at: www.allaboutthemouse.com

- I am also a fan of Window to the Magic, Mouse Station, and Mousetalgia!

- I have a few new freelance art gigs coming up and that makes me happy.

- I will be at the San Diego Comic-Con Thursday through Sunday at the Cartoon Art Museum booth or wondering the floor and networking.

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Jun
10
2009

‘Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland’ production work

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I am doing production work on Alexis Fajardo’s second graphic novel “Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland”. This is a sample of one of my favorite panels that I watercolored for the prologue to the book. The actual printed book will be in black and white, but the art was created in color for multiple uses in the future.

Check out more samples of the prolog on Lex’s blog: http://www.kidbeowulf.com/?p=821

Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland production work

Click to see more. Artwork is ©2009 Alexis E. Fajardo

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Jun
07
2009

JAM Idea: Sticky Note Comic Jam

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Sticky Note Comic JamHistory: We first did it at the Cartoonist Conspiracy meet on Thursday May 28, 2009 with added printed template layouts on May 31, 2009 at the Cartoon Art Museum Jam.

Idea:This Jam was following up from the Index Card Comic Jam in which we had groups of two or three people join forces to create a story in a non-linear way by drawing each panel on a separate Sticky Notes and then deciding what order to put them in and sticking them to the template that is available on our download section. These type of jams’ strength lie in having less people and more control of the order of the panels helps make a more solid finished story. This might be a good way to develop a story you will re-draw with more elaborate panel boarders or just just what you make.

How does it work: Two or Three people get together and decide on a basic idea for a story. The original time we used the theme “Starting a Band”. Since the creators have no idea going in what will happen they might want to start by drawing a close up of a character or a establishing shot of the setting in pencil. The group works together to shape a story with sometimes having each artist focused on drawing one specific character (like in animated films). After the story is done or close to it another artist (or one of the creators) can go over with pen to solidify the drawings into consistent style.

Materials:

- Light colored Sticky Note
- (optional) Printed comic templates to ‘paste’ down your panels to give them boarders. You can just stick the Sticky Note panels on a sheet of paper and draw the boarders on top.
-  Regular or Blue pencil. Note the blue pencil on the yellow Sticky Notes with out inking made it very impossible to get a good scan.
- Inking tools.
- Two artist at least.
- A clean table to work on or someplace to stick the notes while your rearrange them.
- (optional) Way to get a random idea. We had printed slips of ideas generated from the website http://seventhsanctum.com/

Sample

- The artist sit down with there idea/theme.
- Decided if each artist will handle only a single character on each time it appears or that all the artist draws everything. It’s your choice.
- The group starts. We recommend having artist start with a close up or establishing shot to show the characters and setting.
- Have a sheet of paper or a clean surface to set down each Sticky Note Panel and you can rearrange them as you go to make a story.
- You might want to wait on adding dialog till after you have an order to place the Sticky Note Panels.
- Once you know what order you can stick the panels to the custom template of sheet of boarders or on a blank sheet of paper. If you work on blank paper, decided if you want to draw the boarders down too.
- Scan and/or copy the art to your website, zine, etc.

Sample Images:

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Jun
07
2009

Comic Jam Idea: Speedy Comic Jam

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Speed Comic Jam

History: First done at the Cartoon Art Museum Comic Jam on May 31, 2009

Idea: The idea of this jam is to work fast. Some of us artist have a habit of getting stuck on our comics projects and spending too much time. The jam produced interesting results and has some different variations. I could see this being a way to develop an idea with out getting stuck. You sort of just try to draw in ‘real time’.

How does it work: The idea of the jam is that each artist only takes a minuet or two to draw each panel We recommend that artist draw with pen since it forces us to not get too careful and work faster. We worked in a format based on Darwin Cookes’ “New Frontier” which features 3 CinemaScope panels per page. The wider panels requite some more details and storytelling sometimes, but also make the project go faster. We made copies of the template and then tapped them up on an easel.

We did the first jam in pencil with four artist, but that seemed to make it harder to follow, but it might be worth a try. See the variations below.

Materials:

- Printed comic templates. You can use any format you like or none at all, but we are not experience with it that way.
- Art materials, we recommended pens. Sharpies work well.
- Two artist at least
- Someone or Something to keep time. Watch, iPhone, Clock Watcher, etc.
- Easel or wall to put up the pages on. I think it’s better to stand and get lots of energy flowing.
- Way to get a random idea. We had printed slips of ideas generated from the website http://seventhsanctum.com/

Sample:

- Tape up 2, 4 or more of printed templates on the easel or the wall. Make sure you won’t damage the wall with your pens of choice.
- Pick one to a couple of random ideas, or just pick them from the audience or non-participating artist.
- Pick who goes first.
- The first artist draws for two minutes (one minutes is harder) the first panel.
- The second artist continues in the second panel.
- The first artist draws the third panel etc.
- Continue to the last panel on the last page. Can you have the story end on the last page?

Here is a sample of some of our jams by way of Flickr.

• This is my Mike Hales and Roberto who alternated panel by panel…

photo by Rick Lucy

• Variation: (below) Each artist drew their panels at the same time, but only on two pages per person. The theme was “Glam Rock Beach Party”…by Brian Kolm and Mike Hales.

photo by Rick Lucy

• Variation: Lots of people.

More then two people draw. One person per panel.

• Variation: Faster or slower. Use less time per panel or more time.

• Variation (not tried yet): Layered.

One person draws on the panel with a light pencil for one/two minutes. Then another artist goes over with ink for one/two minute. Then another artist adds the word balloons. Another adds the background. It really can be any variation mixed with the ideas above.

and You can have it so one artist starts with the first step and goes panel by panel at one/two minutes of time each and then the second person does not start till the first person moves to the next page.

– by Brian Kolm

P.S. please let me know if try this type of Jam and how your experience was.

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