Monday, January 30, 2012

Jordan C



Top Square, Bottom Square, Center Circles

Jordan said he did not use a grid map to compose - but look how his arrangement lines up - intuitive spacing relates directly to measured spacing

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Kevin H



Top Square, Bottom Square, Center Circles for each Square

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Friday, January 20, 2012

Dash Shaw's animation project update

For those of you interested in the animation project I'm working on with Dash Shaw - please check out this video here.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

TOUR

Tour Dates for Frank Santoro signing / workshop

Thursday Feb 2nd - Escapist Comics Berkeley CA
Friday Feb 3rd -     Mission Comics SF CA

Thursday Feb 9  -  Floating World Comics Portland OR

Saturday Feb11 -  Fantagraphics Store Seattle WA

Thursday Feb16 - Lucky's Comics Vancouver BC

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

March 1st Course Overview

8 week Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers

The course will focus on making a 16 page comic - which is a "signature" in printing. Week one is choosing a format for the comic and what scale to make the original art.

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Week 1

Format Fever / Printing process / What is story? / What images already formed?

One pager exercise - clear action / Fast drawing story composition / Scale jumps

Large drawing exercise / 16 page story first take layouts homework

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Week 2

Story Structure / 16 page layouts for story / Grid choices / Fast scale drawings

Editing / Pacing / Figure ground / Is setting clear? / Tracing paper exercise

Contour line simplicity / Landscape exercise / Figure exercise / Building of planes

Faces with blockout color demo

Harmonic grids

Geometry exercise homework

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Week 3

Geometry Class / Dynamic versus Static symmetry / Full up layouts / Harmonic grids

Spread harmonies / Fast drawing exercise / Mapping fast drawings / Tintin example

Draw, draw, draw / Backgrounds - find lines with geometry of page

Tracing paper originals - Xerox class - transfer tracing paper to board

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Week 4

Color Class / Tracing paper originals / Work up originals / Color thumbnails

Blocking in exercise / Contour line and color / Matisse / Moebius / Drawing in color

What not to draw, removing lines / Grid harmonies relate to color harmonies - music

Color layouts at scale / Color coding / Draw, draw, draw / Abandon idea of "inking"

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Week 5

Full up originals / See as spreads - like paintings / Pacing of color

Balloon placement exercise / Coloring through balloons / Color coding dialogue

Executing color "finished" ink lines and color at same / "All on one board"

Draw, draw, draw / edit, edit, edit

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Week 6

Editing Lab / Brutal honesty about what works and what doesn't / Corrections pasted on

Lettering exercise / Lettering on separate layer - too much pressure

Words change image / Editing words / Editing image / Late changes work in grid

Covers - front, back and inside covers - part of narrative?

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Week 7

Editing Lab / All 16 pages due end of this week / Preparing for print

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Week 8

Final changes / Printing / Final Crit



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Week one is format fever. Week two is story structure and finalizing layouts. The geometry of the page and spread will determine your layouts and pacing. We will do a lot of fast sketching for the layouts using harmonic grids. Week three is geometry, pacing and figure ground relationships. Scale. Color in week four. Then drawing, drawing, drawing in weeks four and five. Editing in week six and seven - and preparing the comic for printing in week eight.

But! it may turn out you want to do a collection of single images - 16 of them - and they hang together as a narrative. So then we would work on that and how we could find tension between symbolism and narrative of single images. The 16 page signature is the vessel - we just have to figure out how you want to fill it - what story you want to tell. So we can design it together, essentially, in the first week.

For me, the key is the 7 spreads and 2 "covers" that create the 16 page signature. It is like a musical progression - and that is really what the course is structured around. Sort of like a traditional song structure. Something to study, I say!

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APPLICATION DEADLINE FOR THIS COURSE IS FRIDAY FEB 24th.

Class is limited to 10 students.

Application guidelines:

-submit one six page cromic you have written and drawn in the last year - meaning a comic that is AT LEAST six pages long -

-3 figure drawings done on 3 x 5 index cards

-3 landscape drawings done on 3 x 5 index cards

-email me jpgs - not too big - by Feb 24th -

capneasyATgmailDOTcom


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Overseas students are welcome. Last course had two Brits and two Aussies. I can understand French pretty well too.

Course is 500$ for eight weeks. Payment plans are available. I will work with you. Take the course. It is worth it!

Monday, January 2, 2012

New Course Announcement

2012 spring course schedule

three separate courses available

March 1st - 8 week course - Full course - layouts, color, figure drawing - you will make a 16 page comic over the 8 weeks. 500$

April 9th - 3 week course - Color Workshop. 200$

April 23rd - 1 week course - Landscape / Figure drawing intensive. 100$

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Application deadline for all courses is Friday February 24th.

Submission guidelines:

- a six page comic you have written and drawn (from the last year) - meaning a comic that is AT LEAST six pages long

- 3 figure drawings - each done on a 3 x 5 index card

- 3 landscape drawings - each done on a 3 x 5 index card

- email me (not super big) jpgs of images to capneasyATgmailDOTcom

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If you are serious about taking the any of the courses - please email me capneasyATgmailDOTcom - and I will send you an invite to the private course blog that exists for the course that is just now wrapping up. You can see for yourself what it is all about. Thanks!



Tour Dates - signing / workshop

February 2nd Thursday - Escapist Comics in Berkeley

February 7th Tuesday - Floating World in Portland