Tag Archive: video

Jan
28
2012

Motion Art Moment: January 2012 Gorry Bug

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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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Dec
25
2011

A special holiday greeting from me to you

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A very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday to everyone no matter how/what/where you celebrate.

Every year I have illustrated an original Christmas card for my family to send to family and friends. The earliest Christmas cards we would make were silk screened and my father took my art and cut it by hand into the screen. Latter we would xerox the cards in black and white and hand color a few small elements to enhance them. And now I can scan, edit, color and prep the files on the computer and have them printed in vivid color, but no matter what form the cards take they are a continuing tradition I am proud to be part of. This year I decided to show you the illustrations I have created since 2000 in the video above.

I hope you enjoy the video and have a wonderful season.

note: Music “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons “Attribution 3.0″

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Nov
26
2011

Repurposing architecture with animation ‘Illuminique’ at Westfield Mall SF

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I have written in the past in my Motion Comic Magic posts where I talk about re-purposing artwork from comics and books into animation, but today’s post is about re-purposing architecture with animation using video/architectural mapping. Basically a high-tech technique in which video is seamlessly projected on unusual surfaces to wrap it in animation and visuals.They have been using this technique in the last decade years for planetariums and for theme park shows like this one at Disneyland in Anaheim CA…

Even some home holiday light shows are using this technique since it allows you to do a lot more then just flashing a string of lights on and off. So…

Last night I headed into San Francisco not to shop, but to experience all the holiday decorations, spirit and displays. By chance I saw a sign for a new holiday show: Illuminique  at Westfield Mall a.k.a San Francisco Center. The mall was open late for Black Friday and so I headed up to the top floor to check it out.

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When I arrived at 9:10 pm there was Christmas music playing and a ‘screen saver’ of video outlined the architecture of the historical Emporium dome that was re-built after the 1908 earthquake from the previous 1896 one. There were a few variations of visuals that changed every few songs.

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The schedule for Illuminique is 6pm to 8:30pm (running on the half hour), but I guessed that since the mall was open late they would just keep running the show as well. So I walked around a bit then found a nice chair to sit in and waited to see what would happen at 9:30pm.

Sure enough the 4 min show started as I expected. The show transforms the dome into a whimsical mechanical music box with the architectural elements open and close like a coo coo clock. The animation was done with CGI 3D images.
when projected CGI animation transforms the historic dome into a whimsical mechanical musicbox.

Some of my photos had the flash on and so the actual show will look a bit darker and richer.

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illuminique 2011 12Pretty neat stuff and a great way for them to re-purpose  the classic space in a new way. It might not be worth a special trip just for this holiday show, but there are museums (Cartoon Art Museum, Moma, MoAD, Jewish Contemporary, CA history society), Yerba Buena Gardens, shopping and restaurants all right off the BART line to make the day special and meaningful along with this unique show.

The show was created by: obscuradigital.com

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Nov
19
2011

Motion Comic Magic > new european comic trailers ‘Gringos Locos’ ‘Ria’ and ‘Kid Lucky’

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

For today’s Motion Comic Magic post I just wanted to share a few nice trailers for comic books from France/Belgium and Germany. I am still surprised that the  major US companies don’t create more trailers for their books.

The first one is a Franco-Belgian BD comic trailer that features a story of three comic artists and their trip to America. Jijé is the creator of Spirou et Fantasio and Jerry Spring, Morris is the creator of Lucky Luke, and André Franquin is the creator of the comics Gaston and Marsupilami.

Gringos Locos (editions Dupuis)

The journey of Franco-Belgian artists Jijé, Morris and Franquin throughout the United States and Mexico.

Concerned about the advance of communism in Europe, artist Jijé decided to leave the Old World with his family. Franquin and Morris decided to follow him, with them all arrived in New York in 1948. Having acquired a Hudson Ford, they travel the U.S. from east coast to west coast, hoping to get hired by Disney Studios. Not a chance, at a time when Disney has laid off more than he was hiring. Seeing his tourist visa expired, Jijé decided to move several months to Mexico with his family and is soon joined by Franquin and Morris.

After the success of “Groom verdigris,” the duo of Yann and Schwartz addresses the picaresque adventures of three monuments of the Franco-Belgian comics.

The next two trailers are from the Berlin based company Stenarts who are a studio that creates art for all sorts of projects including comics. Where the first trailer for Vol 1 below features art from the comic the second trailer looks as it’s art has been created specificly for it. Both of the trailers are especially nice with the second being really impressive.

Ria: Lightclan Chronicles (by Stenarts)

And lastly we head back to Franco-Belgian BD comics  this one featuring the classic comic cowboy character Lucky Luke as a kid. That’s right, it’s Kid Luck which should not be confused with Alexis Fajardo’s comic Kid Beowulf (which I do production work on BTW) though I would love to think they stole the idea for him.  The creator of Lucky Luke is Morris is who is a character in the trailer for Gringo Loco above.

The trailer does a nice job of animating the characters from the comic art with quite a bit of cleaver movement.

Kid Lucky (from Dargaud)

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Aug
11
2011

Motion Comic Magic: Jascha Hoffman – “Some Hungry Guy”

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

I just saw this great music video by Jascha Hoffman for the song “Some Hungry Guy” in which artwork from Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay. The strips are from the turn of the century and are in the public domain. The animation is by Benjamin Ahr Harrison.

It’s nice to see someone re-purposing such classic material with love and respect, especially since McCay had such a profound effect on Comics and Animations. The art was used from comicstriplibrary.org.

Check it out…

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Jul
17
2011

Kung Fu, Space, and Books=animated book trailers

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A post on re-purposing comics and illustration into animation

Hey all, it’s time for some more trailers for books. Today we get one picture book and two comic books. What do you think, would you read them after seeing these trailers?

 

I posted a trailer a while back for Lane Smith’s book It’s a Book! which was really well done. Well there is a sequel now It’s a SMALL Book! as well as a simple animated trailer for it.

Kagan McLeod (http://www.kaganmcleod.com) is a super great artist with a portfolio of amazing ink and brush work that contains not only illustrations for editorials, fashion and music, but also comics. His Infinite Kung Fu is pretty sweet looking comic and there is a pretty slick trailer to promote it. It’s amazing that he had sequences of drawings in the comic that could be timed for animation pretty smoothly. You can read a sample of the comic HERE.

Sardine in Outer Space is a series of fun looking books for kids with art by Joann Sfar (Little Vampire, Vampire Loves, and Le Chat du Rabbin) who is known for his distinctive style of art. The book was released in the US by First:Second, but this trailer is for the French edition. The trailer to promote the book features quite a bit of animation and is quite lively. It is released in France and Belgium by Dargaud.

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Apr
13
2011

Video Trailers to promote Comics and Books

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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.

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Dec
22
2010

Fun Holiday video clips!

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Here are some fun/weird/strange Christmas videos. I promise more holiday artwork going up Wednesday night.

The classic live action, rubber suited, superhero from Japan…Ultraman appears with both heroes and villains to send a seasonal message from it’s production company Tsuburaya.

Joel Robbinson, Tom Servo and Crow from Mystery Science Theater 3k (MST3K) sing a Patrick Swayze Christmas…

Ode To Joy sung by Beaker from the Muppet Show…

…and the Carol of the Bells with Beaker, the Swedish Chef, and Animal…

Here is a video from the now defunct Adventurers Club at Disney World where Club President Pamelia Perkins delights us with this childhood tail from her early days…

And one more Muppet clip of the gang doing a stage show of Moulin Scrooge, spoofing the moving Moulin Rouge. I love the chorus of Penguins and Chickens…

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