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Can’t see the video, visit Motion Art Moment: January 2012 Gorry Bug from Brian Kolm on Vimeo.

I would like to share with you something new I am doing for 2012, a Motion Art Moment. These will be short monthly videos that take a recent piece of my artwork/illustration/comics and animate them using digital tools. The first video above is from my drawing Gorry Bug in which I first showed a sample of the animation.

The term ‘Motion Art’ is a term I am basing on ‘Motion Comics’ (animated comic art such as DC’s Watchmen videos) which is Art of any sort re-purposed for animation. I might also use the term ‘Motion Illustration’ too.

I have been interested for quite a while in how you can use technology to re-purpose existing art from comic books, comic strips, illustrations and other forms into animation. In fact I have posts right here on the AtomicBearPress.com blog labeled Motion Comic Magic in which I have been sharing samples of internet videos using similar techniques and the tools artist use to create it. I hope these small videos allow me to explore new animation techniques and to share my artwork in a new way.

Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment here on the blog or on my twitter feed.

A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

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My first drawing (posted) of the new year. I drew this guy at my Parent/Child at the Cartoon Art Museum and to me it looks like it was designed by Edward Gorey.

Below is a test for something new. My hope is that at lest once a month I will take one of my drawings and use digital tools to animate it. The version below needs a bit of work still, but you get the idea of where I am going with it. If you like it, comment please and let me know.

EDIT: I have replaced the test footage with the final video, to find out more visit HERE.

Continue reading »]]> Last night was another Dr. Sketchys here in San Francisco and it featured cosplayer Quicksilver modeling as both Black Cat from Marvel Comics and Zatanna from DC Comics. It was a lot of fun. And I finally won the grand prize (well there were 2 of us) which was a nice Watercolor Sketchbook, paints, micron and a brush. Next month they are planning two sessions since the popularity has sky rocked in the last year. You can find out more on the official site HERE.

Here are some of my favorite drawings…

Here is the winning image the model selected…

Continue reading »]]> The guy in the example below was an art sample to show my students in my Heroes and Villains class I taught at Chabot College this summer. The drawing was brought into Photoshop and color has been added, but is not finished, so it’s a Work in Progress (WIP).

His design is made up of some elements that are borrowed from two well knows characters. Do you know who they are?
Be the first to comment correctly and I will send you a free sketch of a character of your choosing.

Click to see a bigger image on Flickr.

Continue reading »]]> Here are some artwork from the 826 Valencia field trip story book that I illustrated this morning. It was written by second graders and I did the drawings in real time while it was written by the kids with help of typist Bonnie and leader Chad. It’s always fun to participate and I recommend all artist should give it a try if their schedule allows it.

I started with using a light blue or yellow highlighter to block in the art and then rendered it with black sharpie and a pink highlighter that shows up as gray when copied.

Click for a bigger image on Flickr…

Continue reading »]]> Well Wondercon 2010 has come and gone, ending this afternoon 4/4/2010. This year was bigger and more crowded with lots of fantastic names in comics and pop culture. I had one of my best years and can’t wait for next year. Below is just some highlights of this weekend. I hope to post more this following week.

- Thursday came and got my badge and dropped off some materials at my Artist Alley Table AA48. Was pleased to see everything in the area was set-up and registration was quick and mostly painless.

Friday…
- I arrived a bit late to find that the place was jumping with large crowds. I am guessing this was because many had off from work for good Friday.
- Great to see so many friends and familiar faces.
- I had two amazing neighbors on either side of my table: Lark Pien and Alexis Fajardo (who I have done work for in the past)
- I did my first art commission of a Buddha Cow (below, click for bigger image)

- Went to an excellent event at the Cartoon Art Museum for the Hero Initiative and to raise money for comic great Ed Hannigan. Here Mr. Hannigan talks about the Hero Initiative…

Saturday…
- Lots and lots of folks. The report is that the day was SOLD OUT! It really felt like a tiny SDCC which is a good thing in my opinion.

- Got to do some commissioned art, but I forgot to take pictures of most of it… (click for bigger image)

- Got to meet Dave and Jeff from a favorite Disney podcast of mine…Mousetalgia. Jeff is the creator of a wonderful Haunted Mansion website…DoomBuggies.com and Dave is the webmaster of the wonderful blog mousevinyl.com. There you can listen to Disney Records of by gone days. Becky and Kristen did not make it.

- Got to visit with one of my best friends from Highschool who came to see me. He has a cool hobby…he does Paranormal research.

- Had lots of sales for my black greeting cards and mini prints especially of my 25 Penguins. I only used 14 of them and maybe that was too many. One of the most popular was the Frankenstein Penguin.

- Got to have dinner with my buddy Lex (Kid Beowulf) Fajardo, his publisher and a host of other folks. The meal as a crazy big fest. Buca di Beppo gives you a giant cupcake within 7 days of your birthday.

Sunday…
- Got to create lots more cool commissioned art…

- Got to pick up some cool items: Becky and Frank’s mock little golden book, Tigerbutter. An art print by Darwin Cooke. Issue #3 and #4 of The Bean by Travis Hanson. Book #3 and #4 of Blair Kitchen’s The Possum. Discovered the work of Jeff Prechtel and his pirate drawings.

- Also got some great sketches:

- Emerged to the outside from the convention center to POURING RAIN! Fun. Not.

- Feeling energized and worn out all at the same time.

- Got lots of cool new ideas for the future.

Well, that’s all for now. Check out a few more photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/briankolm/sets/72157623647903357/

Check a nice convention review from artist Colleen Durant.

Most likely more later this week.

Continue reading »]]> This month I returned to do some illustration work at 826 Valencia writing center in San Francisco. The kids wrote the story and I illustrated it in real time. But the kids decided to write about our boss, Mr. Blue and when the kids were done he approved the stories and then fired me. I had such a good time though I thought that I might just go back and do it again next month.

click for a bigger image…

Continue reading »]]> Last night, New Years Eve 2010 (Dec 31, 2009) I spent the night crawling from location to location drawing with my friends Jeff Plotkins (Here on DA>http://emperornortonii.deviantart.com/), Toni, and Rick Lucy. We started with Dinner in Japan Town San Francisco and then walked up Filmore Street going from…the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf until it closed…then to Dino’s Pizza till they closed…then to Johnny Rockets…and then walking to the Embarcadero to watch the fireworks. It was a blast.

After lots of random doodling I started to do a character evolution. It is an exercises where you start with a character, sometime based on a pre-existing element. Then you set a goal of how many steps you want to take. Each step you mix in elements of another character, theme, etc. Pretty soon you start to just mix it up from your own mind till you get to the end with what should be a fairly unique character. Hopefully. Click for a bigger image.

Character design from NYE2010

This is a final inked sketch that was drawn of a sheet of card stock and then scanned and colored when I got home. Click for a bigger image.

Final NYE2010 character design

Here’s hoping that you all have a wonderful 2010 with new and exciting things happening!

Continue reading »]]> Today was the first 826 Valencia field trip of the year in which I work with a school group to illustrate a story they write as a group. Now, I won’t post the whole story like some folks have done (I am lazy I guess), but I will show you the drawings I created.

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The story is of a French, blue, carrot named Jon. He lives in a mushroom with Tom the tomato. Now Jon has a crush on the evil rotten peach who wants to take over the garden. The carrot love to play Ro Sham Bo (Rock, Scissors, Paper).

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The plotting rotten peach send our hero a gift that is the remains of his brother Jim, now a jar of carrot juice.

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The ending was written by each student and approved by our editor Mrs. Blue.

Continue reading »]]> These are some drawings I did at the 826 Valencia writing center in San Francisco CA. I volunteer to work as an artist and illustrate the work of visiting school groups in real time. Instead of my usual storybook illustrations these were storyboards drawn with preteens. I really like the mixed media approach that happened on these drawings. I would start with a quick rough blue pencil drawing and then work it up to a mixture of pen and pencil shading. The look/technique was partially inspired by the work of Ruben Procopio from his illustrations and concept art. The illustrations were bound with the script the kids wrote as a group along with their own ending.

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These are from last month, but I forgot to post them. Whoops.