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.
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
A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation
Following the techniques of Fran Krause (Moonraker, Utica Cartoon) who created the art for a short film “Nosy Bear” in his sketchbook, Julio del Rio did this short film with similar techniques. The artist drew all the images on one sheet of paper while sitting at the pub and then composed them on the computer later on at home. The great thing about using this technique is that it could be done anywhere: a convention, pub, park, slow times at work, etc.
A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation
If you read my blog enough, you will know that I am very in favor of using video/animation to promote and present comics and other publications. When I did the first trailer for ‘Kid Beowulf and the Blood Bound Oath’ it was still not very common, but it’s becoming more and more the norm which I think it’s a good thing.
Think back to a time when you saw a comic or book you were thinking of buying but were not sure if it was for you. You could get some information about it by reading a review or the blurb on the back cover, but that sometimes still does not give you the info you need.
Enter the on-line trailer. Here the author/publisher/creator can use art, motion and SOUND to help convey how they want you to see the book. Especially with addition of audio we can quickly get a picture of the story and characters and can use that to make a choice. Also, I see with the advent of reading books on Mobile devices like the iPhone and tablet computers like the iPad the audio component might be part of the final reading experience in the future as well.
Here are two samples of trailers I saw on-line recently….
This trailer for the children book ‘Bee and Bird’ is simple, but the audio and cutting really sell it.
From the French language publisher Dargaud comes ‘Fraternity ‘ by Juan Diaz Canales, writer of Blacksad, and Jose Luis Munuera.
A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation
With the dominance of the internet as our center of information, I have noticed more and more viral videos being made to enhance other entertainment such as plays, movies and video games. The short videos can give the audience more information and get them excited about the story yet to come. A few of them are Motion Comics or use the same animation techniques to create simple animation and story telling.
First of an animated promo for the opera The Tsar’s Bride at the Royal Opera House in London. The Royal Opera House has been doing quite a few impressive viral videos for their productions, including short animations and teasers. They really seem to be trying to take traditional music and dance in new ways. Great music of course.
Next up is a short back story to the movie Suckerpunch, which comes out soon. “The Trenches” by Ben Hibon helps us learn more about what happened before the movie takes place. (via Cartoon Brew) The style is very Motion Comic-ish, but created directly for video.
The new DC Superhero multi-player on-line game has posted multiple videos that give introductions to different characters and storylines. The art is comic book looking, but I don’t know if it was ever a comic book before the video. The do call it a “Cinematic Motion Comic”. This one is “New Heroes and Villains”
Here is one of my favorite on-line commercials with the clean line art of Mike Allred (creator of the comic Madman). Here WonderWoman sells makeup in a dramatic way.
Here is a video for MacmillanChildrens books “Peaceful Pieces”. What’s I like about this trailer is that it animates the book illustrations which are photos of quilts and gives snippets of poems from the book. Poetry is hard to sell, but maybe videos like this one is one way to take it to a new level and get new audiences.
And last are viral videos for the Starz series Dexter. In these animations we learn how the main character serial killer became who he is. I am not going to post the videos here do to my audience here on the blog. But you can see them here http://www.youtube.com/show?p=evLlAyxiXcE&tracker=show_v1
a post on re-purposing comic art and illustrations for animation.
I love Adobe’s After Effects program. It’s complex, but open ended in it’s possibilities for doing animation, motion graphics, and special effects. After Effects is also the most popular program that animators use to create Motion Comics too. It seems that artist are just starting to delve into the program as a character animation tool and there seem to be more and more video tutorials on how to do different techniques showing up on the internet all the time. Of course these techniques can be used for Motion Comics and Motion Illustrations as well as to allow artist who normally don’t do animation to add new life to their art.
Bellow are a collection of helpful video tutorials by some talented folks on the web who explain techniques to do character animation in After Effects.
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In this episode, the team at Tiny Inventions shares their unique work flow for mixing real-world models with computer animation. They’ve used these techniques for music videos, advertising, and their new short film: ‘Something Left, Something Taken.
At about 5:24 they talk about how they rig the characters to animation with a cool interface.
DuIK Tools is a revolutionary Inverse Kinematics script for After Effects developed by Nicolas Dufresne a.k.a DuDuf (vimeo.com/?duduf) which brings the principles behind 3D rigging to After Effects, giving greater precision and faster, more lifelike animations!
- Animator Daniel Gies (via After Effects Portal) has posted some very cool tutorials for animating 2D art. Very cool looking stuff.
Here is the first part of a tutorial on doing a walking characters: (see more tutorials HERE)
Animation director Jamie Caliri has produced some stunning animation using 2D art, in 3D. But not in CGI 3D, but in stop motion. And since I am always interested in re-purposing 2D art into animation I thought I would share some oh his work.
The first piece of animation I saw from Mr. Caliri was ‘Dragon’ one of the unique commercials produced for United Airlines. Here a fathers trip becomes a flight of fancy for his young son. It’s made of 2D art, used with stop-motion animation in 3D. Beautiful and magical animation.
Interestingly, the software used to film the commercial is also called Dragon.
Another commercial for United Airlines is ‘Heart’ with a simple love story.
Mr. Caliri also has posted on-line a proof of concept test ‘The Escapist v.s. The Iron Gauntlet’ for a filmed version of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. This film might not be using stop-motion, but is has some unique ways to add motion to the superhero comic being drawn by the character.
(via Cartoon Brew) Cartoon Brew shared a video that has since been all over the place on Blogs and Facebook since it’s really really good. Below is a really well done one-minute of traditional drawn animation with a retro classic Superman by Robb Pratt that (I hope) should be a proof-of-concept for a bigger project someday.
