Category Archive: Motion Comic Magic

Mar
12
2013

MCM: Motion-Comic and Motion-Illustration from around the web

A post on re-purposing comics and illustration and other art into animation.

Today it’s time for a bunch of new examples of Motion Comics and Motion Illustration techniques that re-purpose art into animation.

Our first example is here for technique. The youth at 826 LA re-told a fellow students story with live 2d cut-out puppets. I post it here, since the technique could easily be used with reproductions of artwork as well. Sort of an analog motion-Comic or motion-illustration production. The students at 826 LA writing center used Tabletop Moviemaking to create…The Fox and the Rabbit.

Next up is the picture book… STEAM TRAIN DREAM TRAIN by Sherri Duskey Rinker & Tom Lichtenheld, published from Chronicle Books. The motiongraphics an animation is simple, but effective as a trailer and also standing on it’s own. See more artwork by Tom Lichtenheld at http://www.tomlichtenheld.com/

Next is a comic trailer for a new horror series Dark Horse Comics presents Lance Henriksen’s To Hell You Ride. Great mix of voice over, music, mood and simple animation. Amazing what you can do with the right ingredients. The artwork is by the incredible Tom Mandrake, see more of his work at http://www.tommandrake.com/.

The next trailer is for Souvenirs de l’empire de l’atome (Memories of the Empire of the Atom) written by Thierry Smolderen with art from Alexandre Clérisse from Dargaud. I love how retro and groovy it is. More art from Alexandre Clérisse HERE

OLTREMAI by Lorenzo Mattotti is a great example of really just a nice slideshow of art, but mixed with the right music it sets the mood of the art right away. The dark fanciful art is really pretty amazing looking. Published by Logos Editions in Italy. See more of the art of Lorenzo Mattotti HERE.

Last is the classic French comic character Lucky Luke in Cavalier Seul. The comic focus on the the thieving Dalton Gang who split up. The trailer is quite elaborate with lots of nice of animation of the original artwork.

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Mar
10
2013

Daily Drawing – Sketchbook Animation test 03 – some color added

by Brian

March 10, 2013

Cat sketchbook animation – test 03 – 3-8-13 from Brian Kolm on Vimeo.

Here is the third update on my Sketchbook Animation I am assembling from sketches done in January. Can’t see the video, go HERE.

Still to do…

- Color the rest of the sketchbook drawings in Photoshop
- Tighten the editing
- Add some slight digital manipulations
- Add music and sound effects.

See the orignal drawings…day 1-1/26/13, day 2-1/27/13, day 3-1/28/13, day 4-1/29/13, day 5-1/30/13, day 6-1/31/13.

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Feb
22
2013

Daily Drawing – Sketchbook Animation test 02

by Brian

Can’t see the video below, visit https://vimeo.com/60060731

Cat sketchbook animation – test 02 – 2-19-13 from Brian Kolm on Vimeo.

This is the second pass at roughly building my animation from sketchbook drawings I created last month. The animation is simple (since it was drawn in my sketchbook), but the whole ‘story’ is there. I am still going to clean up and possibly color the drawings, re-time certain scenes, adding some missing birds, and try to make it as slick as possible. There are a few areas that I am going to try some digital tricks to add a bit more life to the animation, but you will have to come back again to see the final results.

It was really fun creating this animation and I might do a larger attempt one of the upcoming months for my Daily Drawings, but with a more elaborate piece of course. At the bottom is a sketchbook animation we created at an event I helped organize at the Cartoon Art Museum which shows what you can do.

See the drawings…day 1-1/26/13, day 2-1/27/13, day 3-1/28/13, day 4-1/29/13, day 5-1/30/13, day 6-1/31/13.

Can’t see the video, visit –> CAM-JAM 2011: (Animation May 22) from Brian Kolm on Vimeo.

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Feb
17
2013

Daily Drawing – Sketchbook Animation test 01

by Brian

Can’t see the video below, visit http://vimeo.com/briankolm/catsketchtest01

Cat sketchbook animation – test 01 – 2-17-13 from Brian Kolm on Vimeo.

This is the first test using my Daily Drawings from last month as composited animation. The drawings were done very quickly in ballpoint pen.

See the drawings…day 1-1/26/13, day 2-1/27/13, day 3-1/28/13, day 4-1/29/13, day 5-1/30/13, day 6-1/31/13.

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Jan
26
2013

Daily Drawing – Sketchbook Animation 01

by Brian

Update: Gif of this days animation (added Feb 15, 2013)
animated gif

1-26-2013 sketchbook animation 01

For today’s Daily Drawing I am doing something different, Sketchbook Animation. I have worked with this technique before where all the frames are drawn in a sketchbook and then they will be composited into an online video. I am animating at 8fps (frames per second) so these drawings will loop for 1 second as the cat bops up and down.

I will work on these drawings till the end of the month, adding more each day and then start a new challenge next month in February.

See my archive of Daily Drawings here –> http://atomicbearpress.com/category/orginal_art/daily-sketch-orginal_art/

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Nov
30
2012

Kid Beowulf Kickstarter Victory and Trilogy Trailer!

by Brian

Can’t view the videos, see the full post in your browser HERE.

Alexis Fajardo has just succeeded in raising the money to print his third Graphic Novel: Kid Beowulf and the rise of El Cid! Alexis is one of the most talented artist/writers I have had the honor of working with. The campaign is over, but you can see the Kickstarter page HERE.

AND…with the success of the Kickstarter campaign, Alexis has released the above animated trailer that celebrates his full Graphic Novel series. I am not only excited about my friend succeeding with funding his third book, I am excited to see the video since I helped create it!

More than a year ago we started working on a new trailer for the series that would cover the previous released books: Kid Beowulf and the Blood Bound Oath, Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland, as well as the upcoming graphic novel Kid Beowulf and the rise of El Cid. We have created a trailer for each of the books, but this one would be both more streamlined and more elaboarate in it’s production. I am quite pleased with how the trailer came out and I hope you enjoy watching it.

The new trailer features…

- The 3D opening from the Song of Roland trailer was re-created, embellished and enhanced.

- The full banner sized digitally colored cover files which were broken down into different layers to allow us to ‘fly’ through them.

- Beowulf’s sword Nagling in CGI with simulated swirling smoke.

Here are the other trailers in reverse, going back in time…

Book 2: Kid Beowulf and the Song of Roland

Book 1: Kid Beowulf and the Blood Bound Oath

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Oct
31
2012

Hellboy: The Fury Motion Comic from Dark Horse Comics

by Brian

A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

It’s Halloween and time for something spooky! How about watching a comic?

Dark Horse Comics has been teeming up with the online video station Geek and Sundry to bring serialized motion comics of many of their titles, something I applaud. The videos are far from perfect since they are working with the limitations of adapting the art that was created for the comics, but that is a quality that I really like. There is a wonderful simplicity and creativity about the videos that keeps them tied to their comic book source material. I with more comic companies would promote there titles this way and be able to partner with others who are like minded.

Here is ever popular Hellboy in ‘The Fury’.

Writer: Mike Mignola • Artist: Duncan Fegredo • Colorist: Dave Stewart

Line Producer: Matt Parkinson • Producer: Mike Richardson • Directed by: Erik Bruhwiler

Ep 1

Ep 2

Ep 3

Ep 4

Ep 5

Ep 6

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Sep
17
2012

Awsome Film Animatics and Animated Digital Comic by Ryan Woodward

by Brian

A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

An Animatic Story Reel in it’s classic form is a way to pre-visualize a scene from a film or video by filming the storyboards for a production and editing them with temporary voices, sound efx, and music to simulate how the final production will look before spending a lot more money to produce it for real. Over time, digital video technology gave us the power to better simulate the final production.

Some of the best examples I have seen have been produced by animator and storyboard artist Ryan Woodward (ryanwoodwardart.com) who has since done a beautiful animated short as well as a comic book which is heavily animated and can only be seen on a tablet computer like an iPad. All amazing stuff.

I really love his Spiderman movie Animatics especially.

WHOOPS, I didn’t realize that you could not embed the animatic video and so there is nothing posted yet, but click here to see the samples cause there really really awesome! Really! I hope I can get permission to embed the video at a later date, but for now go to the link for the video.

Mr. Woodward also had a this animatic/book trailer for ‘The Loch’ for Penny Farthing Press adapting the artwork of Courtney Huddleston and Johnny Beware. More on this book can be found HERE.

The Loch – Animatic from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

Mr Woodward also has created an amazing new type of comic book, designed from the start to have the the panels you read come to alive with full animation as well as the techniques used in his animatics, but only read on a tablet computer like the iPad. While the term Motion Comic has been used for taking an existing comic book or graphic novel and animating it for video playback with added music and voice, this one might be more true to the naming since it’s a comic you read and the motion is part of that experience. Can’t wait to try the app sometime.

BUY the IPAD APP HERE