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Cartoonist Jeffery Brown (jeffreybrowncomics.com) has a new book called Darth Vader and Son, which the trailer above promotes. I wanted to post the trailer here at MotionComicMagic.com since it’s a great example of taking existing art from a book and re-purposes it for animation, plus it’s really cool.

What if Darth Vader took an active role in raising his son? In this hilarious and sweet comic reimagining, Darth Vader is a dad like any other—except with all the baggage of being the Dark Lord of the Sith. Celebrated artist Jeffrey Brown’s delightful illustrations give classic Star Wars® moments a fresh twist, presenting the trials and joys of parenting through the lens of a galaxy far, far away. Life lessons include lightsaber batting practice, using the Force to raid the cookie jar, Take Your Child to Work Day on the Death Star (“Er, he looks just like you, Lord Vader!”), and the special bond shared between any father and son.

Jeffrey Brown is the author of numerous graphic novels and comics, including Cat Getting Out of a Bag and Cats Are Weird. A lifelong Star Wars fan, he lives in Chicago with his wife and five-year-old son.

Plus: You can see the artwork for the book at the Cartoon Art Museum this summer (in San Francisco) April 28 – August 5, 2012!

…the 18-piece exhibition Darth Vader and Son, featuring artwork by award-winning cartoonist Jeffrey Brown. This exhibit opens on Saturday, April 28. Brown will sign copies of his book at the Cartoon Art Museum on Thursday, May 17, 2012 from 7:00-9:00pm.

A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

(via http://blog.sciencefictionbiology.com tweet) My posts here at MotionComicMagic.com are all about re-purposing art created for different purposes into animation. For example: Motion Comics take the art from comic books and repurpose it into animated. Well, this cool example that I am sharing with you today is the same idea, but taking the art of children and animating it to help tell a tale of Evolution. Animator Tyler Rhodes did this with some young artist to great effect.

From scientificamerican.com…

How do you make an authentic evolution animation? Quite simply: you allow it to evolve. Tyler Rhodes, a student in the animation program at Virginia Commonwealth University, wanted to create an animation that wasn’t simply linear, but instead represented the true ‘tree-like’ process of evolution. So he enlisted the help of elementary school students from William Fox Elementary School and the Patrick Henry School of Science & Art, and involved them in a type of game.

“Much like the whispered game “telephone” where one person whispers a message down the line until it’s very different by the end due to small “mutations” along the way, I would create a game of telephone using visual imagery.”
…
He then had various groups of students make copies of this sketch, knowing that the copies would contain subtle differences. The natural variation in the ‘progeny’ created from the first salamander sketch was used to determine the survival of the fittest. Tyler would ‘kill off’ 98% of the organisms and start the process again…

The video below is the final result which is lively and very fresh. The animation is the kids drawings brought into after effects and animated with the puppet tool to great effect. It’s a great example of the animator repurposing the kids art into animation. You can see the kids drawings on the official blog HERE.

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

I have been busy on some projects, but I took a break to try a new script for Adobe After Effects … RigIt. I am always looking for tools that can help an artist animate their artwork whether the artwork is from their comic/illustration or created specifically for a protect. RigIt is a script that can take a bunch of parts  that build up a character and use coding to rig them together to allow you to animate it with inverse kinematic. The script is in a Beta Tdest right now so there still might be some bugs, but all-in-all it worked very well. Here is a sample I created in about 2 hours last night (including some trial and error on setting up the figure).

Download the script HERE

RigIt After Effects script test from Brian Kolm on Vimeo.

The script features a window to set the art layers and buttons to set each step of the process. For the final product the script will actually set null objects to control the limbs, but will hide the clutter with the ‘shy’ function which makes the animation space really pleasant to use.

The main hurdle I had was figuring out that you have to place a null object for any parts you don’t want to have as a segment of your figure (for me that was the finger on the hands). Another element that is a bit weird was that you only set the arm and leg on the Left side and then it flips the images and code in the ‘Build’ phase to create the right side. So if your figure has different art for limbs on both sides of the body this could be a problem, but I am guessing you can simply replace/adjust those layers with different artwork before the last step.

In the future I would love to see support for layers that use the Puppet Tool as well as being able to switch which direction the bones work in the middle of an animation.

All in all this has been the easiest character rigging script I have used so far, and it’s only in Beta so it’s not even official done yet. There is a good chance I will be using it on some future projects and I look forward to seeing where it goes from here.

Here is the official video…

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

A few NEW trailers for publications, with the actual published art brought to life through digital animation. Some are more elaborately done and some are more simple.

BONE: Quest for the Spark BOOK 2 Video

Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 Movie Intro (fan made) – with art by Dave Peterson.

“a Monster Calls” – animation by Eric Guémise. Illustrations by Jim Kay.

Zero the Hero book trailer

Any Empire Trailer

Bande annonce Pablo – Max Jacobs T1

Continue reading »]]> I have written in the past in my Motion Comic Magic posts where I talk about re-purposing artwork from comics and books into animation, but today’s post is about re-purposing architecture with animation using video/architectural mapping. Basically a high-tech technique in which video is seamlessly projected on unusual surfaces to wrap it in animation and visuals.They have been using this technique in the last decade years for planetariums and for theme park shows like this one at Disneyland in Anaheim CA…

Even some home holiday light shows are using this technique since it allows you to do a lot more then just flashing a string of lights on and off. So…

Last night I headed into San Francisco not to shop, but to experience all the holiday decorations, spirit and displays. By chance I saw a sign for a new holiday show: Illuminique  at Westfield Mall a.k.a San Francisco Center. The mall was open late for Black Friday and so I headed up to the top floor to check it out.

When I arrived at 9:10 pm there was Christmas music playing and a ‘screen saver’ of video outlined the architecture of the historical Emporium dome that was re-built after the 1908 earthquake from the previous 1896 one. There were a few variations of visuals that changed every few songs.

The schedule for Illuminique is 6pm to 8:30pm (running on the half hour), but I guessed that since the mall was open late they would just keep running the show as well. So I walked around a bit then found a nice chair to sit in and waited to see what would happen at 9:30pm.

Sure enough the 4 min show started as I expected. The show transforms the dome into a whimsical mechanical music box with the architectural elements open and close like a coo coo clock. The animation was done with CGI 3D images.
when projected CGI animation transforms the historic dome into a whimsical mechanical musicbox.

Some of my photos had the flash on and so the actual show will look a bit darker and richer.

Pretty neat stuff and a great way for them to re-purpose  the classic space in a new way. It might not be worth a special trip just for this holiday show, but there are museums (Cartoon Art Museum, Moma, MoAD, Jewish Contemporary, CA history society), Yerba Buena Gardens, shopping and restaurants all right off the BART line to make the day special and meaningful along with this unique show.

The show was created by: obscuradigital.com

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

For today’s Motion Comic Magic post I just wanted to share a few nice trailers for comic books from France/Belgium and Germany. I am still surprised that the  major US companies don’t create more trailers for their books.

The first one is a Franco-Belgian BD comic trailer that features a story of three comic artists and their trip to America. Jijé is the creator of Spirou et Fantasio and Jerry Spring, Morris is the creator of Lucky Luke, and André Franquin is the creator of the comics Gaston and Marsupilami.

Gringos Locos (editions Dupuis)

The journey of Franco-Belgian artists Jijé, Morris and Franquin throughout the United States and Mexico.

Concerned about the advance of communism in Europe, artist Jijé decided to leave the Old World with his family. Franquin and Morris decided to follow him, with them all arrived in New York in 1948. Having acquired a Hudson Ford, they travel the U.S. from east coast to west coast, hoping to get hired by Disney Studios. Not a chance, at a time when Disney has laid off more than he was hiring. Seeing his tourist visa expired, Jijé decided to move several months to Mexico with his family and is soon joined by Franquin and Morris.

After the success of “Groom verdigris,” the duo of Yann and Schwartz addresses the picaresque adventures of three monuments of the Franco-Belgian comics.

The next two trailers are from the Berlin based company Stenarts who are a studio that creates art for all sorts of projects including comics. Where the first trailer for Vol 1 below features art from the comic the second trailer looks as it’s art has been created specificly for it. Both of the trailers are especially nice with the second being really impressive.

Ria: Lightclan Chronicles (by Stenarts)

And lastly we head back to Franco-Belgian BD comics  this one featuring the classic comic cowboy character Lucky Luke as a kid. That’s right, it’s Kid Luck which should not be confused with Alexis Fajardo’s comic Kid Beowulf (which I do production work on BTW) though I would love to think they stole the idea for him.  The creator of Lucky Luke is Morris is who is a character in the trailer for Gringo Loco above.

The trailer does a nice job of animating the characters from the comic art with quite a bit of cleaver movement.

Kid Lucky (from Dargaud)

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

To me Motion Comics and Motion Illustration is about taking material that was not designed for animation and bringing it to life with modern multimedia technology. In my previous posts here for Motion Comic Magic I have looked at how illustrations and artwork can be animated for music videos, motion comics, trailers for books, and to simulate what never existed. In fact I first talked about the idea of recreating what had never been built thorough motion-art and motion comics in my post a while back….re-creating the ‘Western River Expedition’ ride. That example used concept art, photos of models and other elements that Disney had in their archive, but it was mostly a slide show.

Recently I discovered the work of  animator David Witt (quasi-interestingparaphernaliainc.blogspot.com) has done it one better with actually animating the characters in the Concept Art itself. It also brings up an interesting idea of how using multi-media could be pre-visulized how an robotic figure for a dark ride could move in the real world.

So here are some animations of Marc Davis’ concept art for the Western River Expedition ride that was never built at Walt Disney World…

Western River Expedition: Last Roundup from David Witt on Vimeo.

Western River Expedition: Horse on the Roof from David Witt on Vimeo.

Western River Expedition: Saloon Singer from David Witt on Vimeo.

David also just release a video that features the art and audio from the Story and Song from the Haunted Mansion. You can read more about it on his blog HERE.

To see all of David’s videos, visit his VIMEO profile.

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

For those who are new to my Motion Comic Magic posts, I am very interested in how art/comics can be re-purposed into animation and multimedia.

I just saw this awesome video (via Monster Brains blog) from Jason Willis  that re-purposes a a spooky record from 1973 with the cover art of Eerie magazine.

The Cast of Eerie Publications perform the Johnson-Smith Novelty Company “Horror Record”

A parallel universe alliance between Eerie Publications and the 1973 Johnson-Smith Novelty Company “Horror Record.”

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

I just saw this great music video by Jascha Hoffman for the song “Some Hungry Guy” in which artwork from Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay. The strips are from the turn of the century and are in the public domain. The animation is by Benjamin Ahr Harrison.

It’s nice to see someone re-purposing such classic material with love and respect, especially since McCay had such a profound effect on Comics and Animations. The art was used from comicstriplibrary.org.

Check it out…

Continue reading »]]> When I was at the San Diego Comic-Con 2011 (July 20-23) I got a few sketches to add to my collection that were drawn in a cool blank picture book I got at Artist and Craftsman Supply. Some I got from the booth of certain artists and some I bought during the Cartoon Art Museum Sketch-A-Thon. All are very cool.

The art is by Chris Giarrusso, creator of the all-ages comics G-Man. The comic is really fun and a good read.

- www.chrisgcomics.com/

The art is by Dan Goodsell creator of Mr. Toast. I got the sketch when I bought a small book of the Mr. Toast characters as superheros. (BUY IT HERE)

- www.theimaginaryworld.com

The art is by Chris Houghton the artist on a great new all-ages comic series about Reed Gunther and his best friend and steed Sterling the Bear. I got the first three issues of the comic and have read and re-read and keep enjoying them.

- reedgunther.com/

The art is by T.Cypress who is the creator of Rodd Racer, a new graphic novel. I love Toby’s style which I feel inspired by with my own work with brush and ink. This drawing is marker, dry brush, splattered ink, and charcoal. It was really great to watch him create it.

- www.tobycypress.daportfolio.com

The art is by Scott Shaw who is just super-dupper-awesome. He has done everything from storyboards and animation to comic books. See more of her work on this post on the Sketch-A-Thon.

- www.shawcartoons.com/

The art is by Jamaica Dyer who is a talented bay area artist. See more of her work on this post on the Sketch-A-Thon.

- www.jamaicad.com/

The art is by Travis Hanson the creator of the web-comic “the Bean” which you can buy from his website or even better, help out with a current Kickstarter fundraiser.  The comic is really a great read for all-ages.

- www.beanleafpress.com/

The art is by Kostas Kiriakakis is just amazing. I saw his first sketch during the Sketch-A-Thon and knew I wanted one. I had to quickly figure out what I wanted him to draw and so I had him draw Samurai from the Superfriends cartoon series. He has work in the new issue of the comic anthology Flight.

- wwww.kiriakakis.net

AND as a bonus, here is a cool drawing of Sabrina the Teen Witch last weekend at the Cartoon Art Museum’s Archie Family Fun Day. The exhibit that it celebrates is really good and here is a review.

The art is by Rich Koslowski who did free sketches to everyone who came to the event which was really really cool. He is a very versatile artist, so go check out his work at the URL below.

- www.richkoslowski.com

Continue reading »]]> So here is the second chunk of photos from the first day of the Cartoon Art Museum Sketch-a-Thon at the San Diego Comic-Con 2011. We were doing a fundraiser to help the museum by having artist rotate ever hour and create original art pieces for donation of $10 or more. As you can tell that most folks got their money’s worth.

To go back and see PART 1, FOLLOW THIS LINK.

Anthony Hon busy drawing.

Scott Shaw’s Captain Carrot.

A drawing I got of Fred Flintstone as Batman.

Another amazing drawing by Mike Dubisch.

Scott Shaw and Chari Pere busy drawing for their fans.

Anthony’s awesome Hulk drawing.

Dirk Tiede draws Batgirl.

Museum Curator, author and artist Andrew Farago draws his version of Daffy Duck.

Brad Rader’s drawing of Goliath from the TV show Gargoyles which he worked on.

Wow, someone got a drawing by Chari and Scott. Lucky lucky lucky.

My first ‘kick butt’ Disney Princess drawing.

The amazing Jamaica Dyer gives us the mysterious adversary of Batman, Poison Ivy.

And one more from Seamus Smith.

To go back and see PART 1, FOLLOW THIS LINK.

Continue reading »]]> This year I again volunteered to help one of my most favorite organization at the San Diego Comic-Con 2011, the Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco. I can only wonder around the convention so much before getting burned-out and this was a way to also promote my art as well as help a great non-profit.

The idea is that the Museum has artist scheduled every hour to do original art for a donation of $10 or more. The art was amazing and it was great to hang out with other artist.

These photos are from the first full day of the convention Wen July 21, 2011. I did not get photos of everyone and every drawing I am sad to say. This is just the start of posting a lot of images of the artist at work as well as the final results.

Enjoy.

a drawing by…Me of Adventure Time characters

a drawing by Seamus Smith

Rick Lucey and Renee making art

The fabled Hat Box Ghost from the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland by…Me.

Andrew Farago draws Captain America

Mike Dubisch painting a very cool dragon.

World famous Captain America from Marvel Comics and the new movie.

Continue reading »]]> So, for my first post on the San Diego Comic-Con 2011 (SDCC) I thought I would post some pictures and talk about an exciting trend that, to me seems to be altering the convention forever.

These pictures are from my first day in San Diego, Wen July 20, 2011. The convention was going to kick of with it’s Wednesday Preview Night and I had arrived early enough to sight see and take some time to explore. I arrived at where I was staying in the Gas Lamp district and the first thing I saw was this…

note: click on the images to see a bigger version at Flickr.com

At the top of the building is an inflatable of two of the most popular animated characters on TV today, Jake the morphing dog and Finn a funny kid with a hat with bear ears from Adventure Time! They are best friends and live in the land of Ooo where they have adventures fighting monsters and rescuing princesses. The show is one of the best things on TV today and it’s fresh and original and attracts fans of all ages. I am myself a big fan.

Let me take a few steps back to the last time I was at the SDCC, in 2009. One of the new things that year was that the Sci-Fi Channel (SyFi) had partnered with a local restaurant a block from the convention center to transform the business into Cafe Diem from the series TV Eureka. That meant that instead of having a big booth in the convention center, they choose to basically have a restaurant as their temporary home. That meant that they were not dictated by the rules and hours at the convention center and the business they partnered with stood out even more then they would with out the new branding. CLICK HERE to see what it looked like this year.

The idea of breaking out of the convention center into downtown was so cool and different…fast forward to this Summer, 2011. Now there are many of these temporary pop-up businesses that have skipped the convention center and partnered with local businesses. This year there was the 3rd year for SyFi Channel  joined by Spike TV, Conan O’Brian, South Park/Comedy Central, EA Games, some Marvel monster truck thing, a stand alone video game convention and more. But there are two pop-up businesses that stood out to me…

The characters above were part of Cartoon Network’s take over Ciro’s Pizza to the hit show Adventure Time. Outside you are meant with graphics that feature a graphic of Lady Rainacorn (a magical creature and girlfriend of Jake the Dog) and an inflatable candy person (the Candy Kingdom is a major location in the show). Inside all the walls were covered with a digitally printed mural of the locations and characters and enhanced with colored lighting and TV’s played clips from the show as well as interviews with the creators and fans. Here on the walls we see images of the snowy kingdom of the evil Ice King bathed in blue and purple lighting by the Soda Machines and then transitioning to more bright and sunny lighting at Finn and Jake’s tree house and over to the Candy Kingdom.

And to even stand out more, they had a group of young guys who were dressed as Finn and passing out tokens for a free slice of Pizza and a Drink from 2pm to 4pm every day of the con, how cool is that.

And they also have a parade of characters from the show twice a day for a meet and greet.

Most of this would have been impossible to do in the crowded convention center, but this temporary business was one of the stand-out elements of the event.

Another of the standout elements of the SDCC was Trickster, a pop-up store featuring the art, comics and other goodies by some of the hottest artists today. The Trickster was set-up by a group of artist frustrated with the heavy movie/TV heavy attention at the convention and wanted to focus instead on art and artists. Inside a converted wine shop there was a FREE retail space filled with drool worthy merchandise and room for small classes that cost extra. At night they had live models, drinking and partying and someone outside was selling sushi. Words can not explain the energy in the place. Here are some photos at a quieter moment on Wednesday before the crowds invaded.

During the convention they had great artist signing books and meeting and greeting peers and fans alike. HP was on hand to print out files for free and the publisher of the Trickster hardcover book was on hand to discuss printing services. Simply an amazing achievement and possibly a game changer for the identity of the convention.

So, the question on my mind is where will this trend of pop-up businesses for the convention go next. I can clearly see it being doubled by next year as some of the biggest players forgo the convention center for a more visible spaces in the Gas Lamp district. That is good since there will be more room in the hall for some that could not get a space and the big companies can take their brand to new levels on the outside. We’ll see what happens in July 2012.

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

Hey all, it’s time for some more trailers for books. Today we get one picture book and two comic books. What do you think, would you read them after seeing these trailers?

I posted a trailer a while back for Lane Smith’s book It’s a Book! which was really well done. Well there is a sequel now It’s a SMALL Book! as well as a simple animated trailer for it.

Kagan McLeod (http://www.kaganmcleod.com) is a super great artist with a portfolio of amazing ink and brush work that contains not only illustrations for editorials, fashion and music, but also comics. His Infinite Kung Fu is pretty sweet looking comic and there is a pretty slick trailer to promote it. It’s amazing that he had sequences of drawings in the comic that could be timed for animation pretty smoothly. You can read a sample of the comic HERE.

Sardine in Outer Space is a series of fun looking books for kids with art by Joann Sfar (Little Vampire, Vampire Loves, and Le Chat du Rabbin) who is known for his distinctive style of art. The book was released in the US by First:Second, but this trailer is for the French edition. The trailer to promote the book features quite a bit of animation and is quite lively. It is released in France and Belgium by Dargaud.

Continue reading »]]> Week 1 of Cartoon Boot Camp is coming to a close today.

links to 2011 FINAL ANIMATION FROM THIS CLASS: “Alien Attack”, “I’m not going to Mars”, Cut-Out Animation, Action Figure Animation, “Danger Alley” and “Box Head’s new friend”

First off we have some of our group exercises… note: they are all silent since we did not have time to add sound.

Cut Out Stop-Motion and other stuff – Cartoon Boot Camp 2011 from Cartoon Art Museum on Vimeo.

Action-Figure Stop-Motion tests – Cartoon Boot Camp 2011 from Cartoon Art Museum on Vimeo.

“Danger Alley” stop-motion – Cartoon Boot Camp 2011 from Cartoon Art Museum on Vimeo.

And then the final projects from our three groups…

“Alien Attack: the Moon” stop-motion animation – Cartoon Boot Camp 2011 from Cartoon Art Museum on Vimeo.

“I’m not going to Mars” stop-motion animation – Cartoon Boot Camp 2011 from Cartoon Art Museum on Vimeo.

“Box Heads new friend” Stop-Motion – Cartoon Boot Camp 2011 from Cartoon Art Museum on Vimeo.

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

The line between Art, Commerce, Marketing, and Storytelling is getting thinner and thinner all the time. Here are a sampling from around the web of using animation with art (mostly) created for another format and brought to life to promote and entertain. Like a trailer for a movie, an animated promotional video can quickly sell the idea of what a publication or product is about and sometimes is part of the product itself.

“A 30-second book trailer for The Spiderwick Chronicle’s bestselling centerpiece, “Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You” by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. 2006.” Tony is an amazingly talented artist and he has a brand spanking new website for you to check out. The trailer is very simple, but has a lot of nice touches that sells the story.

The comic Thorgal by Jean van Hamme and Grzegorz Rosinski from German publisher Splitter. Really nice movie style editing that conveys the epic quality of the work.

“The Sixth Gun is an epic supernatural western by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt.” Published by Oni Press. The trailer just sells the story and theme really well.

A trailer for the latest book featuring the classic BD characters Blake and Mortimer “The late Rene Sterne, author of the series Adler, Chantal Spiegeleer, author of the series Madila, and screenwriter of Largo Winch sign a story to match the myth of the 9th Art!”

“It’s a COMIC. it’s an APP, It’s a GAME – It’s Teenage Satan, created by Stephanie Buscema, Marsha Cooke and Candis Cooke. Animation by Darwyn Cooke . For more information visit http://teenagesatan.com …” A great example of media going in all sort of new directions by way of digital technology.

Hell-O Teenage Satan

The Sexy Spy YUKI 7 returns in another melding of art+animation featuring retro digital illustrations from Kevin Dart which are brought to life in a special animated short.. “The brand new Yuki 7 Adventure Book, written by Elizabeth Ito. Every copy comes with a DVD which includes both Yuki 7 shorts, “Looks That Kill” and “A Kiss From Tokyo”, as well as several bonus features. 72 pages, Paperback with Acetate Dust Jacket” Sexy! I wonder if the art is created in layers in Photoshop from the start so they can be animated?

Looks That Kill – HD from Yuki 7 on Vimeo.

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

Here are some new comic book trailers I have discovered on-line…

Mangaman by Barry Lyga with illustrations by Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil). A boy from a Manga (Japaneses Comic) universe somehow gets transported to the ‘real’ world and goes to an American high school. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing http://www.hmhbooks.com/
Just a nice trailer that gets the idea across.

A trailer for dave lapp’s CHILDREN OF THE ATOM with animation by Michael Darmanin and Dalton Sharp. Published by Conundrum Press http://www.conundrumpress.com
I just saw this trailer posted on the Canadian comic website/blog: Sequential and found the animation worked pretty well, but the music does get a bit repetitive.

This BD(French language comic) by the artist Stanislas and based on a famous radio drama by Jacques Tardi and Michel Boujut that was broadcast in France in the late 1990s. Published by Dargaud http://www.dargaud.com/
Wow, lots of animation in this one. Very nicely done with good music.

I just discovered Reed Gunter by Shane and Chris Houghton while looking at the latest art at Comic Art Fans. I was surprised I had not seen the comic before and I hope to be able to pick up some copies soon. The art is clean and full of appeal in the tales  of a cowpoke and his bear.
I really like the animation in this trailer.

Continue reading »]]> I will be representing the Cartoonist Conspiracy San Francisco in organizing a third year of CAM-JAM events with the Cartoon Art Museum Bookstore. The event is on Sunday May 22, 2011 from 11am to 5pm and the theme will be ANIMATION.

Yes, you heard that right! Our challenge will be to produce 30 seconds of DIY animation goodness that will use technology and old school art skills together to make something cool. We will have stations to do: Flipbooks, Wipe Board Animation and Sketchbook Animation.

The technique I am most looking forward too working with is the Sketchbook Animation which I blogged about HERE and HERE. The technique is to draw all the art for a couple seconds of animation in your sketchbook which is then composited on the computer into a short video.

In fact I created this sample the other night by drawing about 4 pages of art on 8.5″x11″ card stock (I need a new sketchbook, sigh) in about 2.5 hours and then spent about 2 to 2.5 hours scanning and compositing the work together. I am very pleased with the results.

CAM-JAM 2011- No1 Animation Jam – Sunday May 22, 2011 at the Cartoon Art Museum from Brian Kolm on Vimeo.

So come on out and join a bunch of crazy cartoonist and make some animation. Artist of all levels are welcome.

The final work will be posted here on my blog after the event.

On May 22, 2011 the Cartoonist Conspiracy San Francisco and the Cartoon Art Museum Bookstore will be kicking off the third year of CAM-JAM’s, cartoonist collaboration events. The CAM-JAM’s have tried different themes in the past such as Tikis and Samurais, but this time we will go with something a bit more challenging…Animation. With a mix of old school drawing goodness and desk top video technology we will attempt to collaborate and create 30 seconds of animation within the length of the event from 11am to 5pm.

Will you come and join us?

When: Sunday May 22, 2011

11am to 5pm

Where: Cartoon Art Museum – 655 Mission St San Francisco CA

Cost: FREE for participating artists

What to bring: Sketchbook and any drawing tools that you like. There will be materials available to use at the event, but it’s always fun to share how you like to draw with your fellow artists.

The event will feature…

- Wipe Board animation – filmed with a digital camera and stop motion software artist will create animation by drawing on that office favorite the wipe board.

- Flipbooks

- “sketchbook” animation – inspired by the technique used on the short film animated “Nosy Bear” created with small drawings on a few pages of a sketchbook that are then composite digitally.

- Samples of animation by local artists

- Prizes

- Networking

- Treats

- Fun

Our hope is that cartoonist and artist of all caliber will join in the fun and help create animation on-the-spot.

To sign-up ahead of time, email the Cartoon Art Museum bookstore at bookstore@cartoonart.org or sign-in the day of the event at the front desk

BONUS: ANY ARTIST who shows their sketchbook on the day of the event will receive 10% off their purchase in the museum bookstore. Note: a few items are not applicable for discount.

For more information or questions contact:

Brian Kolm from the Cartoonist Conpiracy – staff@atomicbearpress.com

Heather at the Cartoon Art Museum Bookstore – bookstore@cartoonart.org

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

Following the techniques of Fran Krause (Moonraker, Utica Cartoon) who created the art for a short film “Nosy Bear” in his sketchbook, Julio del Rio did this short film with similar techniques. The artist drew all the images on one sheet of paper while sitting at the pub and then composed them on the computer later on at home. The great thing about using this technique is that it could be done anywhere: a convention, pub, park, slow times at work, etc.