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

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

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.

Continue reading »]]> Last year on October 24, 2010 I helped organize a Halloween Comic/Art Jam at the Cartoon Art Museum 11-4. We like to call them CAM-JAM’s and they have been going on since 2009. We had called it the Ghoultide Gathering, but we were told at the last minuet that someone else clams the trade mark on that name. It was really fun.

Artist who participated were asked to draw on of the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot fortune telling card deck. It was a really fun challenge and everyone did a great job. Sadly life got in the way of preparing the work to be presented. But now the world can see the final results…

Click above for a bigger image at Flickr.com

Here are the artist and their websites (when available)…

Fool – Caryl Foote

Magician – David Mann

High Priestess – Brian Kolm – www.atomicbearpress.com

Empress- George Webber – www.nocashcomics.com

Emperor – Tommy Ong – kyo888.deviantart.com/

Hierophant – STORM – stormantic.wordpress.com

Lovers – Karen Luk – paperdragonpress.blogspot.com

Chariot – Amy Horton

Strength – Nick Paz – flusky-wolf.deviantart.com/

Hermit – M. Schorr

Wheel of Fortune – Brian Kolm – see above

Justice – Caryl Foote

Hanged Man – Audrey Soffa – thebunnysystem.com

Death – Reed Wu

Temperance – Rick Lucey – www.drawrick.com

Devil – Heather Plunkett

Tower – Rachel Kate Wall-Polin

Star – Audrey Soffa – see above

Moon – Destiny Stone – inuyashassexywife.deviantart.com/

Sun – Brian Kolm – see above

Judgement – Rick Lucey – see above

World – STORM – see above

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re-purposing comics and illustrations into animation

(via Cartoon Brew) Check out this wonderfully animated trailer for an upcoming picture book by veteran animator Frans Vischer, Fuddles the Cat. While the animation is not like some book trailers since it does not use artwork directly from the book like some do, this one has animation by the author that tops any computer manipulation. It seems there have been quite a few gems of 2D animation in the last few weeks HERE and HERE.

Continue reading »]]> Today (Wen) I had the opportunity to visit the newly remodeled Oakland Museum of CA to check out the PIXAR art exhibit. The exhibit ends in a couple days and I knew it was popular, but I did not realize the large crowds that would be at this wonderful gem of a museum.

I arrived at 10:30 by BART (the only way to go) and found all-ready a line by the gate to get in to the PIXAR exhibit. As I lined up and waited for my friend Linda the crowds got larger and larger and by the time they opened up at 11am there were a couple hundreds people waiting. School groups of kids and excited fans were so loud that we could not hear the directions of where to line up for tickets and when the gates opened it was insane. We were in the wrong line till an employee took our complaints (I had been lined up for a half hour in what was the only line at the time) and she asked the folks next to us in the correct line to let us in which they did. The line organization was the only issue I had at the museum, but I am grateful of the kindness of the other patrons letting us switch lines. As crazy as it was, it will be sad to see the place a bit more quiet after the PIXAR exhibit is gone.

When we got our tickets we were given a time 1:15pm to return to enter the PIXAR exhibit. I had avoided buying a ticket ahead of time since they were through TicketMaster and I did not want to pay the extra fee. Looking back I probably should have bought the tickets ahead of time.

I put my messenger bag into a fancy new locker that allows you to set your own code and you can use for free. Excellent perk.

Next we went over to the Museum’s Blue Oak Café and had a nice lunch. I had a delicious and fattening Croc Monsieur sandwich (gruyère and ham on grilled bread) with the signature Blueberry Mint Lemonade which was just sweet enough and just tart enough. Excellent.

Then we journeyed on to the brand new history wing on the middle floor. I won’t go into super details, but the new changes are really a notch above. The exhibits now have plenty of interactive activities (analog and digital), audio stations, videos, and plenty of fun ways to learn. My only complaint is that the height of the sound stations are aimed at kids and not tall people and I sometimes had to stoop over to use them.

Highlights of the History Wing:

- A small room that features a Conquistador helmet and a Feather headdress that stand alone but have a montage of audio of the thoughts of the Spanish, Native Americans and others and their thoughts of meeting people different then themselfs. Effective and really intriguing.

- A digital table (sort of like a big iphone or ipad) that allows you to view maps virtually

- Lots of video screens to punctuate the artifacts and history

- A photo opp with you as an artifact

- A ship’s hull full of treasures where you can ‘document’ the items with a sketch to take home or to post on a bulletin board. I left my kiwi sketch there

- View 3D images of the San Francisco earthquake

- Lots of places to sit and draw and think.

- Interactive game and keyboard to make music with everyday objects.

- Cinema showing a silent film “family man” and portions of the documentary Hollywood Chinese by Arthur Dong. Both are worth seeing portions of.

The museum’s goal is to be shaped by the participants and so there are plenty of chances to have a say in the results.

We finally headed to line up for PIXAR at 1pm (15 min early) but entered right away thanks to a kind museum employee and a lull in guests in the previous group entering at 1pm.

The PIXAR exhibit was wonderful with the work set up by groupings of things like settings and characters. I actually have seen at least half the art at the PIXAR fundraisers for the Cartoon Art Museum so I headed to the back to check out the highly recommended ArtScape animated film.

The film took up the full length of the wall and used 3 projectors to make one long image that uses concept art from the films and brought to life with digital technology. We felt like we were flying as we zoomed into 2D art that gained motion and depth in the progress. No music, but sound effects in surround sound. The second time watching, my friend and I laid on bean bags on the floor. LED lights over the back of the dark room changed colored with the changes in the film. So a blue “UP” sky had bright blue lighting and a lazer guns flash strobes over the audience as well.

After that we made our way back, moving to the images that we were most attracted too. The work is so varied and so amazing that it’s really had for me to even pin point a single image. Ah, all the details and talent. It’s enough to make an artist both inspired and scared and jealous all at the same time.

After exiting through the gift store we went up to the Art Gallery on the top floor. Once again it’s hard to go into details, but the revamped space is equally interactive and informative. Art is harder then history to explain since it’s so individual, but they have really gone to lengths to educate the guests (us) on the process and ways to experience it. This is where I got out my sketchbook at started to take notes and do doodles. So much to absorb it seems.

Art Gallery highlights:

- On a digital tablet do your own self portrait finger painting style that can be emailed to you and appears amongst traditional painted portraits on the wall.  (below)

- Comfy chairs with view of a beautiful turn of the century painting of Yosemite National Park and audio players and headphones that help you explain ways to appreciate the artwork. Really a great way to learn about viewing art.

- The California Impressionist and Arts and Crafts gallery is great and they have a nice sitting area with comfortable chairs and books to read. A great place to sit and draw.

- A digital touch screen to watch video clips of artist speaking on different topics.

- A kids area with ways to explore a statue with audio, and other interactive enhancements.

- and other stuff I can not remember right now.

I ended up staying till 4:30pm and revisiting the History Gallery another time as well.

All in all a very enriching day of history, art and technology which I hope I can do again later this year. The museum promises to continue to grow and change in exciting ways with an entire floor (the bottom one) not opening up till 2011 that will feature the plants and animals of California.

So if you are in the Bay Area, why not go by and check it out. I think you will enjoy it if you take the time to explore all it’s treasures.

Check out the official YouTube page here.

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After working on and off with my friend and colleague Alexis Fajardo for the last 5 months we have created an animated trailer for the graphic novel, Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland. This is our best one so far and took the most time too. That was partially since it was not only the 2D motion comic stuff going on, but also 40 seconds of 3D animation. I have never done 3d animation before, but it was always a struggle. But after finding a great demo that showed how to use After Effects with the free program Blender 3D it became a lot easier.

Here it is: the Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland trailer (from Bowler Hat Comics)….

The 3d for this project was done with the Open Source program Blender 3D, the 2D animation and composting was done in Adobe After Effects and the image editing and coloring was done in Adobe Photoshop.

And here you can see an evolution with the four other Kid Beowulf videos I helped create with Alexis in the past… (chronologically going back in time BTW)

Kid Beowulf and the Blood Bound Oath (book number one published though Bowler Hat Comics)….

A teaser with Hama the pig…

Kid Beowulf the original self-published graphic novel…

Continue reading »]]> Here is a video that Michael Capozzola took at the Schulz Museum Sketch-A-Thon last Saturday. See if you can see me or my artwork (hint:Penguins).

Cartoonist Sketch-A-Thon Celebrates 60 Years of Peanuts!

Cartoonists include: Brent Anderson, Michael Capozzola, Rhoda Draws, Alexis Fajardo, Brian Fies, Shaenon Garrity, Mike Gray, Debbie Huey,Greg Knight, Jonathan Lemon, Paul Madonna, Brian Narelle, Thien Pham, Lark Pien, Dan Piraro & Frank Roberson www.schulzmuseum.org

Continue reading »]]> (can’t see the images in facebook/email, view it here:  http://atomicbearpress.com/2010/04/11/comicformatquestion/ )

Now that our comic work will most likely appear in multiple formats: print, web, ipad, iphone/ipod touch, Motion Comics, cel phone, e-book reader what is the best format to aim for first?

There is…..

1) Standard Comic Book Format (portrait aspect ratio).

Pros: Works good for print and on correctly formatted screens like the new iPad from Apple. The print copy might sell better in Comic Book Stores.

Cons: Posting it on the web requires the user to possible scroll up and down which could take away from the experience. For smaller screens like the iPhone, the page might need to broken up into single panels.

2) Web format comics (landscape aspect ratio)

Pros: Works good on monitor screens with out scrolling around.

Cons: Harder to print as a book. For smaller screens like the iPhone, the page might need to broken up into single panels.

(example: Travis Hanson’s The Bean. It looks great on screen and the printed books are nice but might take more work to create)

the bean page 100 by *thebeanbytrav on deviantART

3) Panel by Panel (web format) Each panel is a separate illustration which is then can be edited into a page layout if desired.

Pros: Panels are ready for digital formats like cel phones and the iPhone. Can be edited into a comic page if desired. Feels like a picture book or a story board/animation that is reveled as you scroll downwards or sideways. Can control how the reader sees the work since they focus on only one page at a time. Easier to make into Motion Comic.

Cons: Still might have to edit it into a page for print. Would produced full page layouts that are pretty un-dynamic based on their standard shapes. Story telling can possibly go slower paced then a full page of comic. The reader has less control how the view the information since they only see one panel at a time.

(example: Derik Kirk Kim’s The Tune. Cinematic, looks great on screen, can control how the reader see’s your vision more so.)

44) Square.

Pros: Nice, friendly format. Feels like a childrens picture book. Stands out as different then a standard comic. Looks pretty good aspect ratio wise on computer screen.

Cons: Might be harder to print and format for some smaller screen media like the iPhone.

(example: Mouse Guard and Jim Hennson’s Fraggle Rock from http://www.archaia.com)

Are there other formats to consider as a starting place? Which one do you like?

Continue reading »]]> I will be at the Fremont Comic Arts and Anime Teen Expo (CAAT-X) this Saturday April 25, 2009 from 10-4pm. There is more info HERE.

I will be trying out something new (thanks to some electricity from the City of Fremont) to bring a small TV and playing a video loop of my animation and artwork. When I got my iPod Touch this December one of my hopes was to play slide shows and videos from it. But to make a video that will constantly loop over and over seemed impossible. But I figured it out and wanted to share it with you all in case someone else wanted to use the same technique. I am guessing it would work on the iPhone too.

YOU WILL NEED: Movie video loop in iTunes, Garage Band or other sound editor, Small TV or Monitor with RCA input, iPod Touch (I have version 2.0+), and the Apple Composite AV Cable (RCA imput)

NOTE: I will not cover making video in this post, but will cover it if folks want me too.

SOULTION: (as far as I know) the only way to loop a video is to have it be part of a PlayList in iTunes. But the problem I found is that Movies (i.e. videos) will not show up on the iPod Touch in a PlayList unless there is an audio track as part of the PlayList as well. Once you have an audio file the PlayList in iTunes can be set to loop.

Heres how I did it:

a) Open garage band or another audio editor and create a TINY audio clip that is about 1 second long and is silent. If your clip imported is longer then you want you can shorten it in iTunes’s INFO for that track. The file should be an MP3, WAVE or other compatible format.

b) Import the TINY audio track into iTunes as well as the video loop if you have not done it yet.

c) Create a PlayList with the TINY audio track as well as the video track(s) you want.  You can put as many copies of the movies into the play list as you want so you can have it play the TINY blank audio track very little.

d) Go to the iTunes settings for your iPod Touch and make sure that your play list is selected in both the MOVIES and MUSIC sections.

e) Sync and update your iPod Touch

f) Plug you iPod Touch into the TV with the RCA Video cables that you can purchase sepertly. (Apple Composite AV Cable)

g) Select PlayList under MUSIC and make sure it’s set to LOOP (the icon of arrows going in a circle under the title and to the left).

NOTE on playing video and slide-shows from an iPod Touch. Nothing will show up on the screen unless you have hit the play button. In the case of a ‘photo’ slide-show (another option for conventions) you can press play to have the images show up on screen and then pause if you are giving a presentation.

RESULT: The Movie(s) will now loop forever or as long as the batteries lasts all from your iPod Touch! Yay! There will be a black screen ‘pop’ when it plays the TINY audio clip, but you can make a PlayList of the same movie over and over again that playes for hours. If this is helpfull, please let me know. If there is a better way to do it too, then post a comment and let me know. To see some video work I have done for conventions, check out my samples:

Continue reading »]]> It seems that this week there have been a lot of really good posts on comics and art on-line and as always I love to share them with you. Of course I am a huge fan of all these artist and highly recommend checking out their sites and blogs.

Craig Thompson (Goodby Chunky Rice, Blankets) Has posted a page from his comic-in-progress Habibi and showed how he used some scanned sketches into PhotoShop to help figure out a page layout. His work is so amazingly beautiful. Check it out HERE: http://blog.dootdootgarden.com/2009/03/17/overexert/

Pierre Alary has posted another work-in-progress page from his Sindbad comic. http://pierrealary.blogspot.com/2009/03/blog-post.html

Tony DiTerlizzi has posted his progress of creating the third and final cover for his series Beyond the Spiderwick. I love his work. His creature looks like Ursula’s pet eels sort of. Check it out: http://diterlizzi.com/blog/2009/03/18/wyrm-king-cover/

Ruben Procopio posted some of his cover work of The Phantom. I love his rough sketches as well as the finished work. Here: http://maskedavengerstudios.blogspot.com/2009/03/latest-on-phantom.html

Here Steve Rude has posted a video of him inking a comic cover:
Inking Origin Cover #2

Continue reading »]]> From a 3d CGI fan-film based on Dave Sim’s comic character Cerebus. Find out more at www.cerebus3d.com.

I admire any attempt to take something as graphic as comic art and bring it into three dimensions.

To see more comic by artist/writer Dave Sim and images of his creation Cerebus. Check out these links.

http://www.cerebustheaardvark.com/ • http://www.artofdavesim.com/

Continue reading »]]> The Cartoon Art Museum has a multi-faceted art exhibit coming up starting on September 20th. The show will actually appear in segments with the fist one opening in a week. So by December the show will encompass 1/3 to 1/2 of the museum. The art work was created as part of a fund raiser for the Totoro Forest Project.

Now you might be asking yourself, what’s a Totoro?

Totoro is a mystical forest creature that appeared in the delightful Japanese animated movie by Hayao Miyazaki, my neighbor Totoro. Here is a clip from the movie:

The Totoro Forest Project is an a group who have set out to protect the forest that inspired the movies setting and story. To help raise money many of the artist who have been inspired by the movie and it’s talented director donated original art for an auction that was held at PIXAR animation studios a week ago.

Sayama Forest is one of the most remarkable urban forests in Japan, located just outside of Tokyo. This forest is said to be the inspiration for legendary animated film My Neighbor Totoro. With Japan’s rapid urban development in the 1970s and 1980s, the forest has been diminished to a small fraction of its former self. In 1990, Miyazaki helped set up a national trust, Totoro no Furusato National Fund, to preserve the park and promote awareness of environmental issues.

It is estimated the PIXAR art auction raised about $201,236.00 to protect the forest. Much of the artwork will be on display for the museums show. You can see all of it at the official website, Totoro Forest Project.

I will be teaching the drop-in cartooning class at the Cartoon Art Museum on the same day the show officially opens, Sept 20, 2008 and I am trying to create an art project to tie into the exhibit. My idea is to take a painted blog and turn it into our own version of the Totoro. Here are some experiments I did below, inspired by a kids art lesson where they turned fingerprints into people.

What do you guys think?

As a bonus, here are some short animations made from the art that was part of the fund-raiser…