Intro to Comic Book Art Six Week Class
with Eric Fulford
Ages 8yrs and up
January 18th - February 22nd
Saturdays, 10 am - 12:30 pm
$95 per child
In this class students will be introduced to the basics of comic book creation by artist and educator Eric Fulford. Eric has spent years teaching illustration workshops, including the past two summers with the Rhode Island Summer Reading Program. This six-week course will begin with students creating their very own comic book characters while learning sketching and planning techniques. Then the class will cover the use of panels to tell an exciting story as the participants begin to come up with a wild adventure for their characters! Finally, we will discuss how colors can help us set the tone of the scene and put the finishing touches on a complete comic book. This class will give students a chance to let their imaginations run wild as their pencils try to keep up! This class will be held at the Rhode Island Watercolor Society located in Slater Memorial Park.
Week by Week Class Schedule:
Week 1: Character design and drawing techniques.
Introduction to character design. Warm the kids up with some drawing
games and then start sketching characters. Introduce the idea of light
sketches to help come up with lots of different ideas. Practice breaking
down subjects into their simplest shapes. Start brainstorming and
sketching characters. While they work on character design, I would show
examples on the board / easel (I can bring my own if need be) and answer
questions they might have. At the end of the first class they should
have at least 2 or three interesting characters to choose from. The kids
will also be challenged to come up with personalities / simple
backstories
for their characters.
Week 2: Using Panels. Introduce
the idea of panels. Comics are a way of telling stories with pictures.
It can help to imagine each panel like a scene in a movie. We will
experiment with different angles and backgrounds and use panels to help
us tell our story well. Kids will be introduced to various different
examples (Comic books, newspaper cartoons, etc.) and try making a very
rough sequence of panels to tell a simple story using at least one of
their characters from the previous class.
Week 3: Storytelling. Go
back to our practice from the previous two classes and this time start
brainstorming story
ideas. What sort of things does your character do each day? What
interesting things might happen to your character? How will your
character behave in these situations? Students will write a short story
featuring the characters they drew before. We will then talk about how
to break our stories down into panels. What needs to be illustrated?
What should the characters say? Start some early, rough layout sketches
for our comic strips.
Week 4: Inking. Introduce
the idea of inking pencils. Take one of the previous sketches and ink
it using art markers. Practice ways of covering up mistakes in inking,
practice to gain confidence with ink. Practice shading techniques with
ink (hatching, cross-hatching, stippling, etc.) If some students are
ready, they can begin their final cartoon
layouts.
Week 5: Work on cartoons. Students will have this whole period to work on their cartoons using lessons taught in earlier weeks.
Week 6: Finish cartoons. Students
will once again have the period to work on finishing and inking their
cartoons (as much as possible) and time permitting wrap up with drawing
games.
