Sample Knight and Dragon mini-book colored by my nephew

Pretty impressed and proud of my 6-year old nephew's skill in coloring and drawing in the Knight & Dragon mini-book that I use in some of my cartoon drawing classes.

Fantasy Creatures Field Handbook Template

Print, Sketch your own fantasy creatures on the blank pages, and color them all with markers, crayons, or colored pencils. Fold using classic mini comics format.

Archaeological comic find

Found some examples of comic book pages drawn by myself or my brother on the back of an old math notebook long ago in elementary school. Early on we often sketched action scenes featuring underwater creatures or Kaiju battles with missiles and lasers streaking across the page.

ARTSCool Cartoon Sketching Week-7 last day Photo Gallery

Thanks to all the students that took one of my cartooning classes this summer. Enjoy the rest of your school break and keep on sketching! Thanks to all the parents and grand parents that support the artistic development of their kids and grand kids. Please feel free to print and use any of the resources featured in this blog and on the list of sketching/coloring pages on the right. Additional recommended reading: Sachiko Umoto Illustration School books. Her simple and charming drawing style is quite easy to follow for budding artists of all ages. On the last day of class, the students completed their pop-up castles. Afterwards some of them made a mini comic, some experimented with oil pastels, and quite a few worked on a large underwater or outer space scene.
Really impressed with the creativity, discipline, and dedication displayed by the students that worked on their pop-up card project for the past two sessions. Once their first task was accomplished for the day, the students had the option of creating a mini comic or work on a large scale illustration to be eligible for the classroom prizes that included toys and art supplies.
Underwater scene colored with oil pastels.
This student chose to color her cartoon portrait with oil pastels. While another student used Prismacolor Art Stixs to color her own portrait.
Mini comic drawn with marker on ledger size card stock (11" x 17"). Five minutes before the class was over, our jury of interns chose the prize winners from our gallery wall and the completed pop-up castles. Thanks again Grace, Sarah, and Xylia for all your help this week! You were all great interns, and hope you consider returning for ARTScool 2012. With your discipline, initiative, and positive rapport with the kids, I am certain that you will prove again to be instrumental in creating a fun art experience and maintaining a safe environment for our students. Any instructor would be lucky to have you as part of his or her classroom support team next summer.

Manga Comic Jam Project - Page templates and instructions

A few comic page template samples illustrated with a purple Pilot Color Eno 0.7 mm lead.


The idea is for students to choose a few of the comic page templates below and use them as a starting point to create an original manga short story.



Manga Comic Jam Project

Instructions:

1. Write and draw your original manga comic short story using at least 4 of the comic page templates provided with photo references of the school building and After School activities.

2. You may use additional pages with your preferred number of panels to adjust the pacing of your story. Ideally limit your project to a total of 8 to 12 pages.

3. You may choose any genre, but keep it PG-13. Your story may remain grounded in reality or include fantasy elements (Drama, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Action, Horror, etc).

4. Start planning your story layout with thumbnails and work out your comic page design and word-balloon placement with graphite pencil.

5. Erase stray lines and ink your and letter your story with a Sharpie fine point pen or black marker.

Keywords:

· Anime: Japanese animation.

· Manga: Japanese word for comics and graphic novels.

· Shonen Manga: manga intended for boys.

· Shojo Manga: manga intended for girls.

· Kodomo Manga: manga intended for children.

· Kaiju: “Strange Beast” or monster like Godzilla.

· Dōjinshi (Doujinshi): self-published manga.

Bonus Quiz:

· List three animated movies by Hayao Miyazaki.

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· Name a character created by Osamu Tezuka.

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· Name a Shonen manga title created by Masashi Kishimoto.

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· Name a Shonen manga title created by Akira Toriyama.

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· Name the creator of the Shojo manga Fruits Basket.

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Gallery of Students' Work

Finished pop-up cards by 4-6 grade students.
Halloween was certainly a popular subject with this goup of students.


This student clearly enjoys her time spent at school.
A couple of students made good use of the Pentel Outline metallic markers for some decorative finishing touches.


Since we ran out of pre-cut blank greeting cards, the group of boys had larger blank cards to work with that were made by folding letter size card stock sheets in half. Most will finish coloring and decorating them on our last lesson next week.



Completed face drawing assignments.
Depicting Kaiju encounters (Giant Monsters battling) was popular with the boys.
A few students even found the time to color and decorate their customized name plates.
Most 3 graders picked Halloween subjects for their mini comics.
The older students also tackled some Halloween stories, and a few tried for romance comics.






Mini comic unfolded.
Definitely a Shojo mini comic.

ARTSCool Manga Cartooning Photo Journal Day 3

ARTScool Manga Cartooning course at The von Liebig Art Center day 3. For this class warm up several standing cut outs were available for coloring and serve as targets for the origami ninja star shooting range.

"Visit to Unicorn Planet" mini comic project drawn and colored with Crayola Super Tip markers.
Basic pop-up card.
Some students used some of the available coloring cut out templates to build their action dioramas as an oversize pop-up card style.

Couple of penciled pages of student mini-comic version of the "Cinderella" story.
Probably one of my favorite student's creations of the day: "The Ice Cream Pizza Ninja". Creative use of the pop-up project learned on the first day applied to a fairly original ninja projectile: a pizza with ice cream cones for its sharp edges.

Still making paper airplanes and mini comic folding video

Made a couple of videos on how to fold this origami planes: video 1 and video 2. They demonstrate the same process with different colored sheets of paper should you find it easier to see the details in orange or green.
Squad of Jet Pack Troopers.

These templates can be printed on regular copy paper, but I would recommend using 24 lb letter size colored sheets of paper if you would like to fold your own colorful origami fleet of sturdier planes that could withstand a few more flights each.




A few templates for the girls.


Smaller planes (3 to 4) folded out of a quarter sheet can easily be stacked on top of a plane folded out of 8.5" X 11". When thrown together the smaller planes can reach higher heights and make for a more dramatic display specially if the smaller planes are of a different color.
Stacks of origami planes and bunch of mini comics ready for use as break prizes in upcoming classes. Check this video for instructions on how to fold a mini comic.