Category Archive: artist

Oct
15
2011

Video: Craig Thompson “Habibi” at the Cartoon Art Museum

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On September 28, 2011 I had the pleasure to attended a talk by Craig Thompson as he talked about his eagerly awaited graphic novel Habibi at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. I am a huge fan of Thompson’s art and have been following the creation of Habibi on his blog. Nathan Parker was nice enough to post some short clips from the talk on his YouTube page which I have posted below.

It’s inspiring to hear the artist/author talking about his processes as well as the artistic growth that were part of the process.

I would love to do a formal review of Habibi, but I do not feel confident in writing it just yet, but I can tell you that I have read the whole 672 pages and it is pretty amazing. The book is pretty adult in nature and not for kids, but I can whole hardly recommended it. The art is beautiful and the pacing and storytelling flow effortlessly with the author controlling the flow to amazing effect. Even the book in it’s epic hard cover form is part of the experience.

Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, HABIBI tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them.

At once contemporary and timeless, HABIBI gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.

View the next parts at the videographers YouTube pages HERE.

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Oct
09
2011

Reminder: InkDrinkDraw meet-up this Friday Oct 14, 2011

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InkDrinkDraw Oct 2011 sample
George Webber and I are arranging this months InkDrinkDraw at The Grove on October 14, 2011. The location is right downtown (same block as the Cartoon Art Museum and the MoAD) and easily accessible by MUNI and BART.

Location: The GROVE
690 Mission St. San Francisco CA
Corner of 3rd St & Mission St (across the street from the MoAD between Peets Coffee and A.G. Ferrari)

Date: Friday Oct 14, 2011 — Time: 6:30 pm to Whenever Pm

Event cost is FREE, but we would appreciate your supporting the business by purchasing at least a snack & drink.

Bring: Samples of your work, favorite art materials, samples of other peoples work, and your spirit and creativity too.

Being an artist can be a solitary job, so we want to find a way to meet more like minded artists who are interested in Comics, Animation, Illustration, Video Games and more! After all what’s better than to meet, talk and network with people who “get” what you do as a creative!

October’s inkDrinkDraw Projects:

“MAKEOVER” Challenge:
More then ever artist are re-interpreting pop culture in new and exciting ways. Our theme for the evening is on giving the familiar a make over and transforming it into something new. For our main challenge you can join a small team in re-casting a short classic comic story with new setting, characters and attitude.

A Share and Tell Special Event:
Come see and hear how George Webber ‘s latest short story ALLEY CATS evolved from some rough character sketches, to an even rougher story outline and finally a book. See the original full sized inked pages and the final printed book.

“Open Projects & Share and Tell”
Come and just sit with us, come have fun with us!
Sketch, draw or bring your current projects, copies of your comics and art prints and share with us. As always “Open Projects” is working on whatever project you brought with you, want to try or are currently working on. Please feel free to discuss your projects with the group! We love hearing about what people are working on and will gladly give feedback!

“Other projects”
We’ll have some of the past projects on hand too, so there’s always something fun to do.

To stay in touch you can:
On Twitter Follow:
@inkDrinkDraw or @NoCashComics & @AtomicBearPress

Read the inkDrinkDraw
Blog at inkDrinkDraw.weebly.com

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Oct
08
2011

CAM-Jam 2011 #2: Paper Monster Party follow-up

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Last month on September 11, 2011 I helped organize another CAM-Jam with the Bookstore at Cartoon Art Museum and InkDrinkDraw. These art jam events happen around 3 times a year for the past 3 years and always have a different theme. You can read up on past events HERE.

This CAM-Jam we decided to have artist make customizable paper toys.

In the last few years there has been a big trend of customizable art with everything from cities filled with animal statues to galleries of DIY painted urban vinyl. The basic idea is to have a blank basic form which then you as an artist customize to make it into something more. Part of this trend is paper toys in which you can print out, cut out and fold, like THESE. But there are also artist who can take a basic form and make it something unique.

The event was great with over 20 artist attending as well as some of the museum’s guests joining in the fun making Paper Action Figures like these…
CAM-Jam 2011 #2 : Paper Monster Party (sept 11, 2011)
CAM-Jam 2011 #2 : Paper Monster Party (sept 11, 2011)
CAM-Jam 2011 #2 : Paper Monster Party (sept 11, 2011)
CAM-Jam 2011 #2 : Paper Monster Party (sept 11, 2011)CAM-Jam 2011 #2 : Paper Monster Party (sept 11, 2011)

You can also check out the photos on the Bookstore at the Cartoon Art Museum’s facebook page HERE. If you have photos from the event you want to share, comment below.

Some of the templates we used are:
P.D. Paper Dude / http://www.custompapertoys.com/2007/10/pd-blank-paper-toy-template.html
Paper Toy Adventures / http://papertoyadventures.com/downloads-2
AARC BLANK PAPER TOY / http://www.morgangleave.co.uk/aarc-blank-paper-toy.html
and Nice Paper Toys blog / http://www.nicepapertoys.com/

And…one I had created myself using Blender 3D to help make the pattern. If you click the image below you can download a PDF of my pattern that is free to use for non-commercial use. It’s not fancy, but it works OK with your imagination.

Note: there is not a pattern for the arms which I just cut out of scraps and used double-stick tape to attach them.

Space Sheriff Joe - Paper Toy by Brian KolmDownload the template for my basic blank paper action figure.

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Sep
25
2011

‘Brian Kolm: Portfolio 2007-2011′ now avalible through Blurb.com

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I wanted to find a unique way to show samples of my artwork that would stand out, so I decided to create a hard-cover book that I could use at conventions and professional meetings. The book features samples of my artwork from 2007-2011 including illustrations and personal work.

The books are Print On Demand through Blurb.com, who do a high quality job and create a very slick final product.

You can order the hard-cover book (with an on-line preview) HERE

Brian Kolm: portfolio 2007-2011 from Blurb

This is the 4th book I have made through Blurb.com and I have been very happy with the results. The books are always printed beautifully and come to you looking very professional and slick.

Now, one of the best things about Blurb.com is that they are constantly updating their services aimed at their target audience: artists. So they have made their own software BookSmart more customizable, but also finally have an option for folks who wanted a more professional options. This year they introduced a plug-in for Adobe In-Design that not only generates the templates for a book/cover, but also a way to correctly output a PDF to upload. This means that you can pretty much layout the pages any way you want and can use files in formats like Photoshop .psd that BookSmart can not use. Considering I have lots of art as high-resolution .psd files, that means I could place them and not have to convert them to .jpg files first.

Uploading the final book as a Adobe PDF was easy to do and the website will let you know if any of your images are too low-res for print, but I would always make sure to carefully look at your PDF yourself to make sure there are not unexpected surprises which sometimes do not show up in In-Design.

If you are familiar with Adobe InDesign I would definitely consider using the plug-in since it was a lot faster and more powerful, but the BookSmart program is really good if you want something pretty nice.

To find out more about editing your book at Blurb.com visit HERE.

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Sep
09
2011

CAM-JAM 2011 #2 this Sunday Sept 11, 2011 at the Cartoon Art Museum 11:30-5:00

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Once again I am helping organized another CAM-Jam with InkDrinkDraw San Francisco and the Bookstore at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco CA. Were calling it our Spectacular Super Sonic Paper Monster Party X. The theme will be making Paper Toy Monsters from basic shape constructed of card stock and decorated to add details the models do not have. See below for all the details or visit

CAMJAM 2011 #2 Paper Monster Party

 

Where we meet next:
InkDrinkDraw presents:
Spectacular Super Sonic PAPER MONSTER PARTY X

Location: Cartoon Art Museum
655 Mission St. San Francisco, CA http://www.cartoonart.org
Date: Sunday September 11, 2011
Time: 11:30am to 5:00 pm
Being an artist can be a solitary job, so we want to find a way to meet more like minded artists who are interested in Comics, Animation, Illustration, Video Games and more! After all what’s better than to meet, talk and network with people who “get” what you do as a creative!

For our September InkDrinkDraw SF Meet we have teamed up with the Bookstore at the Cartoon Art Museum for another of their CAM-JAM events aimed at artists of all levels.
In the past we done everything from create animation to draw full mini-comics and even designed a tarot deck, but this session we will be having
a Spectacular Super Sonic PAPER MONSTER PARTY X.

In last few years some new type of art forms have appeared, making customized toys with artistic flair. For us we will be cutting, folding and customizing simple paper shapes into characters, embracing the limitations and letting our imaginations go wild.

Participating artist can sign in at the front desk and then you will be able to come in and have some fun with us. Planning on coming, why not RSVP to us or to the Museum’s Bookstore at bookstore@cartoonart.org.

Note:
We are asking for a $2 donation from participating artists to help pay for the
materials (as well as some treats and surprises) The museums full admission is required for anyone who is not participating.

“Paper Monster/character creation”
Come Cut, Fold and customize characters of paper and… maybe even with other materials. We will have plenty of blank, pre-printed shapes to use and will have some coloring tools too, but feel free to bring your own materials if you like and even your own customization projects.

“Share and Tell”
Bring your current projects, copies of your comics and art prints and share with us and even visiting guests to the museum.

“More monsters and open projects”
Come and just sit with us and draw and create all sorts of monsters and creatures or even just work on your own projects.

(While It’s not “required” to participate in any of these particular activities, we’ll have them on hand if you wish too.)

“Open Projects”
As always “Open Projects” is working on whatever project you brough with you, want to try or are currently working on.
Please feel free to discuss your projects with the group! We love hearing about what people are working on and will gladly give feedback!

To stay in touch you can:
On Twitter Follow:
@inkDrinkDraw or @NoCashComics & @AtomicBearPress

Read the inkDrinkDraw
Blog at inkDrinkDraw.weebly.com

Hope to see you there!

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Aug
28
2011

Motion Comic Magic / re-creating the ‘Western River Expedition’ ride

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

One thing that is exciting to me is how modern animation techniques to re-purpose images of all sorts can be used to recreate and explain the past, present and future. I just saw an example that, while simple is a good.

At the D23 Expo (official Disney Fan Club) last weekend in Anaheim Tony Baxter presented a simulation of a theme park attraction that was meant to be built at Walt Disney World (WDW) in Florida when the parked opened instead of the classic E-Ticket attraction…Pirates of the Caribbean. The ride would be a musical trip through a stylized old-west called The Western River Expedition that would feature many Audio Animatronic figures and a big flume drop at the end. The problem is that guest coming to WDW wanted to know where the Pirate ride that they had heard about was. So the new western themed ride idea was scrapped for a clone of the Disneyland pirate ride. Many Disney theme park fans are still hoping that someday the ride might become a reality in some form, but that is not so likely.

To see examples of the concept art and read about the history, visit HERE.

But thanks to Disney having a huge archive of concept art and rare footage that can put it together  in a simple form with some background music and presented it as a visual discription of how the ride might have been. Below is a video of that presentation which features art by one of my favorites Marc Davis and with live narration by Imagineers Tony Baxter and Josh Shipley.

Below is the description from the youtube.com video…

On Sunday, August 21, Walt Disney Imagineers Tony Baxter and Josh Shipley lead a fascinating presentation of rare footage from 1950s and 1960s-era Disneyland for D23 Expo attendees. As part of the presentation, Tony and Josh took guests aboard a complete ride-through of the never-built Western River Expedition attraction, designed for the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida. Though never built, numerous conceptual renderings as well as a complete model of the attraction were built and have been preserved by Walt Disney Imagineering. This video is a ride-through of the attraction as guests would have experienced it, recreated with concept art and photos of the attraction model. Live commentary is provided by Tony Baxter and Josh Shipley.

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Aug
27
2011

CAM-JAM 2011/#1/Animation Jam (final results!)

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This short animation was created as part of the 3rd year of CAM-JAM artist events at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco CA. Produced on Sun May 22, 2011 in 6 hours for the art and then composited in After Effects later. Each event is an art jam with a different theme, from comics about tiki’s to tarot cards to paper toy monsters.

- The event started with some warm-up animation drawn on a white board (purchased at Daiso America store)  and filmed with a iStopMotion.

- Then each artist started drawing a sequence of animation which were then were strung together thanks to some storyboarding by Rick Lucey. The mini animation drawings were composited in Adobe After Effects.

Take a look…

You can see an announcement and find out what our goals were HERE

Artists: Karen Luk, Rick Lucey, Mouser, Brian Kolm and Jeff Plotkin

Technique inspiration: Fran Krause’s sketchbook animation ‘Nosy Bear’ – frankrause.com
editing and compositing: Brian Kolm
music: Kevin MacLeod/incompetech.com
Sound Effects: soundfx-free.com, soundbible.comMike Koenig, pacdv.com
with thanks to: Heather Plunkett and the Cartoon Art Museum and Bookstore/Cartoonist Conspiracy San Francisco

CAMJAM11-animationMiniposter

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Aug
24
2011

InkDrinkDraw August re-cap – Face drawing challengs

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The other night we had the second InkDrinkDraw event in San Francisco. The events are the brain child of George Webber (No Cash Comics) and myself and are monthly artist events that encourage creativity and comradery.

To find out more, visit the InkDrinkDraw page!

For this month’s meeting our theme was drawing faces. As artist it can be easy to end up drawing similar characters over and over again. These exercises were designed for us to work outside our comfort zone and try new things.

We started with a warm-up exercises where we drew a page of shapes and then passed them around and had others make them into faces/heads.

Here is the sheet that I got back after everyone had drawn on it:

InkDrinkDraw 8_2011-001

Then we did a handout that George found through Deviant-Art called 25 expressions which is a popular meem. DOWNLOAD IT HERE There are other versions of the sheet on-line, but with facial expressions in more Manga (Japaneses Comics) vibe.

Here is an old west prospector characters that I drew based on the head-shape sketch by Jeff Plotkin.

InkDrinkDraw 8_2011-002

Next we changed gears and did an exercises of evolving/devolving a character based on a photo. This was something I saw in How to draw comic book heroes and villains by Christopher Hart , but the samples were actually drawn by the late great comic artist Gray Morrow. See more of Gray’s work HERE.

My first attempt was using a photo of classic actor ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle which I sketched on my paper and then worked to modify it till there was still a hint of the character, but maybe not obvious unless someone was looking for similarity. I like the result, even though the drawings are kind of rough and lopsided.

InkDrinkDraw 8_2011-005

Here are a few more I did…

InkDrinkDraw 8_2011-006

InkDrinkDraw 8_2011-007

Last I did a few more drawings based on the Shape Heads that were drawn on my sheet at the start.

InkDrinkDraw 8_2011-003

These ones below were drawn riding BART home from the city.

InkDrinkDraw 8_2011-004

Want to give the exercises a try? Here is what we did.

1) Shape-Heads: Each artist participating drew some basic shapes on a sheet of paper. Hearts, stars, rectangles, squares, circles, ovals, wedges, etc. Pass around the sheets of paper and have different artists make the shapes into faces. For ours artist did more then one per sheet sometimes and the artist who drew the shapes also added a few as needed.

2) 25 Facial Expressions: Next we picked a Shape-Head from (1) or had someone else pick one for us. We then filled in a pre-printed handout that was labeled with all the expressions to draw. It’s OK to draw hands and bodies in the shot too. DOWNLOAD HANDOUT HERE.

3) Face Evolution/Devolution: Take a sheet of paper and some photo reference and draw on the Left side one of the faces, trying to capture a decent likeness of the person. Moving to the Right take the head you just drew as reference and modify it into a new character by changing some details. Then draw one or more heads just using the second drawing you did and trying to make it into something new.

4) Take your Shape-Heads and try to draw them again with a body, different expression, etc.

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