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This is a drawing I did in one of my cartooning classes that I teach where I was showing the kids how I inked a drawing over blue pencil lines. For the inking I used both a brush pen and some sharpies of different widths. I also liked the art enough to give is some photoshop coloring as well.

I know it’s kinda of weird to see a redheaded white rabbit, but I thought it was funny. He has a lot of personality and I like that.

©2011 Brian Kolm

See more at www.atomicbearpress.com

Continue reading »]]> I just started a new workshop at the youth center I work at featuring one of my favorite applications, Adobe After Effects (as well as Photoshop and Illustrator too). I love After Effects since there is so much versatility in what you can do. The program is also great since it can accommodate huge differences in artistic styles and accepts lots of  different digital media (even flash movies) which is perfect for a wide range of young artists.

The goal is for the students to plan short scenes or sequences and work towards having them in some final form. But I feel it’s important to take on the same challenges I give the students myself, so I gave myself the goal of doing a short project in the last few weeks. It’s important to do since it can help me to understand what they are attempting better and I can trouble shoot better ways to teach different techniques.

So the first week we learned the very basics of the software and drew short sequences as storyboards. We then scanned and placed the art in After Effects as an animatic (can also be called a story reel). A lot of our techniques are very low tech in part due to the equipment is not always available to the students. For my project I decided to do a sort of an animated holiday card.

Here is the first test with some minimal animation in it. This test is the first pass to see if it will actually work as a story in real time. I could have added some sound on top of it too, but decided that could wait for now due to a tight schedule.

After letting this Animatic sit in my mind for a while, I decided to add some rough animation in the ‘Sketchbook’ style into my animatic that I experimented earlier this year. The style is really fun to do and can be very expressive and fast to do. I scanned in the drawings and timed it out, mixing it into the original Animatic to get a stronger look of what it might look like. Here is what I came up with.

Here are some of the animation drawings I used for the test in the animatic.

While the drawings are less then perfect, it’s amazing how much life you can easily throw into your project. But now I had to decided what techniques to use for the final animation. I could create sequences of drawings like classic ‘cel’ animation or I could use less art and just manipulate the drawings in more of a limited cut out style or even do a mix of both.

I decided that I would explore how I could use a fairly new feature of After Effects, the Puppet Tool. The tool allows you to take an image and add ‘pins’ to it and then bend the figures where those are placed.

Here you can see above the yellow ‘pins’ on the neck of the bear. The empty square are null objects that control each pin and allow them to be parented to each other.

Here is my first attempt with the bear character in the story, mind you I was only testing technique and not going for giving an actual animated performance. To help set-up the animation I used a great After Effects script called GG_PuppetTools, which saved me a lot of time.

The character is made up of 3 layers of art, the neck, head and arm/hand. There is also two different faces to give the bear a change in expression.

Below is my second attempt at the technique with 4 layers of art, but no changes in the bears expressions. Here I attempted to give the bear a ‘bone’ structure and set up ways for the different parts to move together. Here the body, neck and arm are all using the Puppet Tool and the head is static for now.

The head is a bit off, but I decided to leave it as-is for now.

I have a feeling that I might use the ‘sketchbook’ technique that I mentioned above since it’s actually a bit more fun for me to do and very expressive, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Stay tuned to see the final results in the next two weeks!

Continue reading »]]> 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

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.

Continue reading »]]> 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:

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.

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.

Here are a few more I did…

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

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

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.

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 »]]> I will return this summer to the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa CA.

July 11-15, 2011 – Drawing 101

MONDAY–FRIDAY ? 9am–12:30pm

Have a fun-filled week designing and drawing your own characters—from superheroes to cute critters—and developing stories and comic strips. Join cartoonist Brian Kolm to learn the basics of cartooning and create your own mini-comic book.

Continue reading »]]> And the rest of the art I created at Wondercon 2011 (April 1-3), this time all original characters by me.

Octopus – click above for a bigger image

Some creature thingy – click above for a bigger image

Steam punk women – click above for a bigger image

Archer – click above for a bigger image

Fantasy women – click above for a bigger image

Batman Tiki – click above for a bigger image

Cat – click above for a bigger image

Dead pirate – click above for a bigger image

Dragon – click above for a bigger image

Continue reading »]]> Here are some more art I created at Wondercon 2011 (April 1-3).

Pokemon creature – click above for a bigger image

Etrigan the Demon from DC Comic – click above for a bigger image

Vision and Scarlet Witch from Marvel Comics – click above for a bigger image

the Might Thor from Marvel Comics – click above for a bigger image

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

Continue reading »]]> I will be teaching again this Summer at Chabot College in Hayward CA for the Kids on Campus summer program.

Cartooning: Monsters & Critters
Whether it’s a graceful unicorn, a slithering dragon or a more modern beast, we have been telling stories of fanciful creatures of all sorts since the beginning of time. This class will feature lessons on drawing classic beasties, the structure and construction of four- legged animals, and designing original creatures as well as a technique for presenting a final drawing.

Kids on Campus – Summer Camp 2011
Weeks of June 20-24 and June 27-July 1

Sign-up at: www.chabotcollege.edu/comed/kidsoncampus/kidsoncampus2010/

Continue reading »]]> I will be teaching again this Summer at Chabot College in Hayward CA for the Kids on Campus summer program.

Cartooning: Star Wars Art (and beyond)
This class helps you to create your own Space characters by learning to first draw characters from the Star Wars universe. The class will teach skills like constructing figures with 3D shapes, facial expressions, costumes, action poses, and how to take the knowledge and use it to create characters that are all your own.”

Kids on Campus – Summer Camp 2011
Weeks of June 20-24 and June 27-July 1

Sign-up at: www.chabotcollege.edu/comed/kidsoncampus/kidsoncampus2010/

Continue reading »]]> Wondercon this past weekend was really great. I got really good response to my NEW art prints and I did quite a bit of art while I was at the table. Some of the art was commissions and some was just to kill time during lulls. Over this week I will post some art and photos I took at the convention and share some of what happened too.

All the pieces were penciled in blue and then inked with a brush and acrylic ink then colored with watercolors.

For today’s post is some of the art I created at my Artist Alley table.  I was asked to draw some well known characters and this batch is all DC Comics related.

note: all the characters in the art below are ©DC Comics

Green Lantern is on many a mind at Wondercon with the new block-buster movie coming out soon. Sorry the photo is washed out.

SOLD

Flash drawn in someones sketchbook. NFS

Green Arrow. SOLD

Blue Beetle III. SOLD

Blue Beetle II. FOR SALE $20 (including shipping) – contact me if you are interested by comment below (email space is hidden and I will use it to write you back)

And last, but not least is Superman. I really was pleased at how this one came out.

REMINDER: the Tiki and Creature prints go on sale in the webstore on April 6, 2011.

Continue reading »]]> Announcing a new series of art prints that will be sold starting at Wondercon 2011 TOMORROW April 1st.

- It’s not April Fools Joke, 3 new color prints that will brighten any room and make you think of the magical imaginary isles of the tropics. Each print is colorful and on a nice 90 lb cover stock and made to fit a 11″ x 14″ frame that you can buy and many different places. There is also a set of the three prints in mini form (5.5″ x 8.5″) that also included two black and white prints. Click the image to see more.

Tiki Summer art prints

- For those who want a colorful conversation starter, there are these creatures. One is fish like and one is turtle like. The prints are 14″ X 11″ and ready for a standard size frame. There are also a smaller 8.5″ x 11″ print for those who want something more subtle. Click to see a bigger image below.

Creature art prints

- For sale there will also be a handful of these cost effective mini prints (5.5″ x 8.5″) with many designs to pick from. Click below to see a larger image.

Mini art prints (convention/retail only)

We will also have a few other items for sale too…

- NEW! BUTTONS! There will be mini buttons with designs of Tiki, Penguins, and a mix of other art by me, Brian Kolm. Not pictured yet.

- Get your own custom drawings wrapped in a sketchbook with the MAPS, MAGIC, and MENAGERIE. A role playing themed sketchbook with a custom drawing of a character in the back and a customized map in the middle.

FIND OUT MORE HERE

- A Tiki Comic Jam book

- and other goodies of wonderment.

Continue reading »]]> Friday March 25, 2011 I had another great session of cartooning at the Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa CA for their very rainy Spring Break week. I taught two classes:Mutants, Mermaids and Monsters and Drawing Superheroes and Sidekicks. Both of the classes were really fun, even with the heavy rain outside.

The morning class was all about drawing creatures and mixing up animals to make your own. The kids were really into it, but I have little to show for it by way of my own sketches and drawings. Except for these…

above: mash-up animals

above: lizard+human with a bad topee

After I got a quick lunch break the next class began and was on drawing Superheroes and Sidekicks. The class was a smaller group so there was more time for one-on-one instruction. I gave the young kids (ages 8-12) some tough challenges to do, but they all did a great job of following along.

We started off creating a description of a superhero (gender, age, powers, weaknesses, etc) and then I had the class follow along as we created the character with the their input. This character was: male, middle-aged, mental powers and flight with a meekness of a fear of snakes. Part of the process was having one of the student pose for reference. Next we created his young sidekick too.

above: Father and son superheros

One of the best parts for me of this afternoon class was that I got to sit down and do some one-on-one drawing demonstrations while everyone was focused on their work. For example one challenge I gave them was to create a Superhero and Sidekick with a set superpower: Super Gift Wrapping. I got to sit down with the kids and did this drawing…

click above for a bigger image at Flickr.com

Over snack time I got out my favorite inking pen out (Zebra brand)  and did the drawing below with input from a few students…

click above for a bigger image at Flickr.com

When class resumed I had the students create a character with the motifs of Spiders and Pirates. Here is my drawing…

click above for a bigger image at Flickr.com

And then towards the end when things were winding down I did this drawing mash-up hero and sidekick, borrowing from some favorite characters of mine. Any guesses which ones?

click above for a bigger image at Flickr.com

All in all a very nice session made better by some very enthusiastic students. See some of them below…

BTW: I will be teaching a summer week long session at the museum as well, so if you are a kid or parent in the area and are interested why not sign up…

Cartooning for Kids
MONDAY–FRIDAY ? JULY 11–15 ? 9am–12:30pm
Have a fun-filled week designing and drawing your own characters—from superheroes to cute critters—and developing stories and comic strips. Join cartoonist Brian Kolm to learn the basics of cartooning and create your own mini-comic book.