Miles To Wisconsin! Work! Also Comic Template, Ames Guide Vids

I'm headed off to Wisconsin next week (November 8 - 12), so work your @sses off while I'm gone. I'll expect to see fresh new dummies, and at least 4 pages of finished work when I get back on Tuesday, November 16.

Morgan Hickman - Children of God

Thanks to Morgan for sharing his stuff with us today. Check out the the latest Children of God and keep up with Morgan's mojo over at his site--Drop him a comment and stay in touch!

Banole by Dave Marshall and Luke Kralik

Banole is a cool web comic collaboration by S.O.U. alums Dave Marshall and Luke Kralik. Dig it! Dave will be coming to our class on Thursday, October 28. For all y'all Star Wars types, he's also one of the masterminds behind I.M.P.S. The Relentless.
Hey the links work now!

Free Olde Animation Night This Weekend!

Come check it out. Good times. Saturday at 7 in the Meese Auditorium.

Week 4: Dummy and Another Finished Page

This week, we'll be critiquing your first page of finished art. The plan is for you to get some very specific feedback to help hone your individual approach to your work. For next week's critique, Tuesday, October 26, you'll do another page of finished work and bring in an updated dummy of your project.

Talking points for October 19 crit.
1. Clarity. Of action, story, setting, characters.
2. Consistency. Establishing the key visual forms and overall design.
3. Contour. Finishing and varying.
4. Story. Action and tension. Continuity.
5. Flow. Maintaining reader interest.
6. Graphic Power. Composition, composition, composition. Use of black/color. Visual hierarchy.

Here are Miles' videos on the basics of drawing in Flash.

Here's the direct URL if the embedded video doesn't work for you.

Week 3 - Complete a finished page

Jack Kirby, original art from Manhunter.

For Tuesday, October 19. Complete a full page of your book. Make 5 copies of the page. We will critique them at the beginning of class.

Week 2 - Visual Research - Influences and Design Guides

One of Miles' big influences, Lynda Barry

On your web site, write a reflective essay about one or two of your influences. Describe the work. What drew you to their work? What do you know about their working methods? How do they use composition, line, shape? Is the work precise, sloppy, loose, detailed, free, tight, etc? Be sure to post examples of their work to back up your observations.

Pick a book or two to use as the design touchstone for your book. Discuss margins, gutters, bleeds, typography, lettering, height/width ratio, page measurements etc.

Work up a proposal for your book and post it to your blog. Include working title, short working description (2-3 sentences) and 5-10 images. The images can be thumbnails, character concepts, anything!

All of this is due Tuesday, October 12 at noon.

Fall 2010 Week 1 Comics & Picture Books

Cover of Volo, by Miles Inada

Your first project is to take the rough breakdowns you brought in on Thursday, September 30, and work them into a roughed out 8-page book by Tuesday, October 5. Make 5 copies of your book for your classmates to read and critique on Tuesday!

Here's a link to a post on Miles' working process.

Finally, be sure to get your blog up and running today, post the URL with your full name as a comment to this post! I recommend blogger as it's easy and free and endorsed by Robert Conrad.

Final for Art 450/496 Special Projects n' Capstonez

Leavin' a patch at the Art 450/496 Final Critique. Eat my fire, suckahs!

Final Crit for Art 450/496 is Thursday, June 3, 5:30.
Note! This is NOT the final for the Comic/Picture Book class. See the previous post for Art 349 final crit times.

Final Critique for Art 349 Comics et Picture Books!

Students get freak-ay at last year's Comics n' Picture Books final crit.

Final critique for Comics unt Picture Books is Wednesday, June 2 at 3:00 in MA 101. Bring 5 copies of your work, and we'll have a reading festival. Miles shall bring some snaks.

iPad'in

Catwoman, done by Jim Lee on an iPad using SketchBookPro.

Just got an iPad today, and it's groovy. Here's an interesting bit on Jim Lee of DC breaking his in as a drawing tool.
One of the most exciting things about the iPad is that the SketchBookPro software cost . . . $7.99
That's a difference-maker right there. Compare the costs of the following digital art start-up kits:

bottom-end iPad ($500-800) + SketchBookPro ($7.99) + some kind of stylus ($20.00-30.00) = $527.99

bottom-end Macbook Pro ($1199) + Photoshop (academic vers $200.00) + Wacom Intuos $309) = $1708

The iPad is not a ready replacement for laptop/wacom set up yet. Intuos pressure sensitive, high res, etc. . . But. . . it's looking real interesting, especially because. . .

I think the iPad is a bona fide publishing platform with significant advantages over olde-fashioned books. It's extra-spiffy. The comic-viewing capabilities are down-right spectacular.  The main difference I felt was that the contemporary full-blast digital coloring techniques in today's comics look loads better on the screen (where they were created!) than they do in print! I wasn't expecting that, but it blew me away. The mac Book reader also comes with a sweet free ebook of Winnie the Pooh. It's splendid, though I still imagine good old kids BOOKS are here to stay. Anyhow, I will bring this new robot girlfriend in to class on Wednesday for y'all to check out. I think it'll be a major development in the way comics n' picture books are "consumed" and created in "the future."

Assignment for Monday, April 19 - Final Project presentation

Finished and preliminary drawings from Maurice Sendak's Higglety Pigglety Pop! 

Monday, April 19, you'll present your final project idea to the class via your blog. Your presentation should include:
1. 3-5 images of your own work.
2. 5 images from your visual research.
3. A one paragraph written description of your project.
4. A one sentence description of your project.
5. Specific technical issues you'll need to figure out to get this project done.
6. A timeline for what you're going to have done on your project when.
7. What you will have done by Monday, April 26, which will be our next critique.
These Maurice Sendak images are reproduced from an article on a Sendak retrospective in the San Francisco Sentinel.

Early cover concept for Where The Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak.

Double-Edged Wednesday

Stealin' from the best. My shower scene on the left, Clowes' Ghost World on the right.

If the first blade misses yer beard, the second one does the job. . . yes. Here's the to do list for Wednesday, April 14.

1. Bring your FIVE copies.
2. Update your BLOG.
3. Write a one paragraph description of your final project idea.
4. Cite a specific piece of visual research you've used in making your latest and greatest work. Here's a link to a post I made discussing the example above!

Miles' Working Process

I'm an un-methodical, un-organized person by nature, but I've been forced to get a little more systematic as I've grappled with making comics and animation. Here are some observations that have helped me to carry out a project like a picture book or comic book.
1. Start a folder. When I know that I'm working on a big project, I go through my scrappy drawings, notes and sketchbooks and pull out stuff that might be relevant to the project; Then I stick it in THE FOLDER. I label the folder with a nice working title, and I'm off and running. From now on, ANYTHING even remotely related to the project goes into this folder.

2. After I've started the analogue folder, I scan my stuff in and start a digital folder. I then back this folder up to another drive or disk. Regular back up is the key to survival when you work on a long-term project.

3. Git to work dealing with the nuts and bolts design of your book. Font/lettering ideas, logo designs, panel layouts, etc. Eventually, I work out a template that forms the basis for all of my pages. A key part of this process is settling on a page size.

4. Get on the phone/internet and talk to printers to get turn-around times and submission requirements. Err on the side of too much information. Revisit step 3 as necessary.

Here are some more detailed posts on my processes.
How Miles makes his Arms and Ether web comic.
How Miles made the Arms and Ether comic book.
A link to Miles' Arms and Ether comic book page template.
Link to Miles' Arms and Ether web template. 
Link to The Ohio Players, Love Roller Coaster, 1975.

Comic Picture Book Assignment 1 & Blog Expectations

Image from Woman Wonder by Will Elder, Mad #5, 1952

Hey, here's your first project! You've got two weekends and all next week to cause some mayhem.

1. Create an 8 page comic!
2. Print, staple, and fold 5 copies!
3. Bring 'em to class on Monday, April 12!

Make sure to do yer visual research and post yer progress on yer blog!
I will be checking blogs every Friday morning, starting April 9.
Here's what I expect as a minimum. 

1. A Visual Research post. This is a post that contains at least one image and some written analysis of some visual material relevant to your work.

2. A Work post. This post should contain at least one image and some writing about your own work. If you're working with analogue materials plan on at least one scanning session per week!

Click here for examples of visual research and work posts from my own site.

Hey It's My Self-Portrait

Here's a self-portrait of my day. Mornin' til night.

Art 450 & 496 Special Projects & Capstone

We'll meet next on Thursday, April 8th at 4:30. I've already talked to you about your projects, so I'll expect you to have the details firmed up as follows:

0. A working title for your project.
1. A one sentence description of your project.
2. A one paragraph description of your project.
3. A one page description of your project.
4. A description of what you're going to actually produce during the course of your project. Make sure you include any preparatory/exploratory sketches, photos, collages, animatics, rough cuts, and interpretive dance you'll be doing.
5. Visual and/or written research for your project. Stuff done by other people.
6. Treatment visuals for your project. Stuff done by you.
7. A written description of specific technical and research issues you will need to address during the course of your project.
8. A timeline of your project. When you will be doing all of this good stuff. You must include specific deadlines (for example: "April 27th", not "some time in April."
9. A blog containing all of the above. You will also keep track of your activity here. If you do something for your project, blog it. I check these things oft, so I expect to see constant brain activity here. POST YOUR NAME & BLOG URL as comment to this post.
10. Your magic sunshine. See you then.

Critique schedule is as follows:
Thursday, April 8, 4:30
Thursday, April 22, 4:30
Thursday, May 6, 4:30
Thursday, May 20, 4:30
Final Critique Thursday, June 3, 5:30 p.m.

Capstone Paper Guidelines

Everyone in Art 496 has the honor of writing The Glorious and Most Noble Capstone Paper. "What are the expectations of such a paper, and how can I write one?" I hear you ask. Well, I'll tell you.

1. Think of the paper as a presentation of your project to an audience of complete strangers. Use your project proposal to help you articulate your project and your process to this audience.

2. What were you trying to achieve with the project? Did you have a clear goal or purpose in mind? Were some aspects of the project more experimental? Discuss influences on the project, and include images and a bibliography.

4. Reflect on your process and give a post-mortem of the project. What went right? What went wrong? Did the project change as you went along? Did obstacles arise? Were they expected or unexpected? How did you overcome these obstacles? What advise would you give others undertaking similar projects?

5. Include images of your project and process. These may be attached as an appendix or integrated into the body of the paper.

6. Print this out, bind it, and bring it to our final critique.

Blogeth Me, Spring 2010 Comix People! Assignment 1

Hey, leave your blogs urls with your full name as a comment to this post!

Idiotic Guessing Game in ActionScript 3.0

I've spent time I should have spent contemplating the beauty of the human form or drawing trees creating a computer guessing game. It's sure to thrill. Here's a link to the full code in a .txt file. If you really like to rock to funky beats, you can download the .fla file and the .as file right here. Anyhow, let me know if you manage to break it.

Here's the main code for getting the guessing down. Initially, I came up with many hare-brained formulas that didn't work. Finally I resorted to digging around on the net, saw a post on limits and the light went on at last. Here's the code for the "no" button. The minLimit variable is initialized as 1 and the maxLimit variable is initialized at 101. As the computer guesses, its guess becomes either the new max or the new min limit. The computerPlay function just runs the animation and keeps track of the number of guesses.

function onNoButtonClick(event:MouseEvent):void
{
output_txt.text = interestingMessage;
if (computerGuess < userNumber) { minLimit = computerGuess; computerGuess = computerGuess + (maxLimit-minLimit)/2; computerPlay(); } else if (computerGuess > userNumber)
{
maxLimit = computerGuess;
computerGuess = computerGuess - (maxLimit-minLimit)/2;
computerPlay();
}
else
{
output_txt.text = lieMessage;
}
}

Game Developer's Conference - Career Stuff

Here are some links about gettin' the ol' game career going. Our very own Ms. Lindsay Peck is off to the GDC (Game Developers Conference) next week, so we look forward to some good stories. These big conferences can be a good opportunity to see the game world in action and make it all a bit more flesh and blood. Often times you can apply to be a student volunteer, or take advantage of a reduced cost student pass.

Gamasutra - GDC Career Pavillion Tips For Success
Game Career Guide - GDC Tips For Students
Siggraph Career Page - includes The Demo Reel From Hell and The Five Minute Career Mentor.

SIGGRAPH Conference Site
Game Developer's Conference Site