UCSD Digital Art and Media Series - Introduction to Digital Comics! (For 7th-12th graders)

UCSD Middle and High School Workshop Series: Introduction to Digital Comics: A Once-Monthly 9-Part Series Beginning November 13, 2010

The San Diego Supercomputer Center, at the University of California, San Diego, presents an exciting new workshop for middle and high school students in grades 7 - 12 as part of our focus on digital art and media.

UCSD Digital Art and Media Series

Introduction to Digital Comics! 

Saturday, November 13, 2010 – June 11, 2011 (the second Saturday of each month)

Course Overview           

The UCDS San Diego Supercomputer Center is proud to present an exciting new workshop series devoted entirely to digital comics!  From initial brainstorming and story ideation, character design, script writing, layout planning and thumbnail drawing, to final penciling, digital inking, coloring, adding type (word bubbles) and finally self-publishing your creation!  This is an ongoing series, which is open to all skill levels and all styles and interests.  Whether you are into super heroes, manga, cartooning, animation, or whatever!  This is a great workshop for anyone interested in sequential art and visual storytelling.

Students who sign up for this exciting new workshop series can expect to learn everything they will need to know to create their own comic stories from the ground up.  This workshop series also features special events including introductory surveys on the history of comics, comics in film, educational comics and the top 100 best graphic novels of all time, as well as numerous professional "how to" demonstrations.

Monthly Series Days and Topics:

November 13, 2010:  Creating Your Story! 

This session begins our series with some serious classroom brainstorming and some comic-specific writing techniques.  This session is very important!  All following workshop activities will build upon this session and the story you write.

December 11, 2010:  Creating Memorable Characters!

Every story needs great characters, heroes, villains and everyone in between. This is where you bring yours to life! 

January 8, 2011:  Layouts & Page Planning!

Ever wondered how comic artists do what they do?  How do you tell a story within a page full of little picture boxes?  Come and see!  This session is important in that it will help you to understand the visual storytelling aspect of comics books, which is what they are really all about.

February 12, 2011:  Penciling!

This session is an awesome old school pencil on paper drawing session where you will bring your final drawings to life for you comic!

March 12, 2011:  Digital Inking!

This session is all about creating that stark contrasting black and white look of comic book inking on the computer!  This session will show you how to color your comics.

April 9, 2011:  Digital Comic Coloring!

This session is all about creating the correct color palette for your story.  Color can be an integral part of a good comic story that you aren't going to want to miss.  It's color time!

May 14, 2011:  Word Bubbles & Type!

This session is where we bring your story together!  Pictures + Words = Comics!

June 11, 2011:  Self-Publishing Your Comic!

This session is all about exploring the various options for printing and self-publishing your comic story such as Lulu.com, or online using blogs, wordpress, Facebook, etc!

Please note:

Although we realize that some students may have scheduling conflicts, it is very important to try and attend all of the one-day Saturday work sessions in order to get the most out of this workshop series.  Each session offers important components to help you make your story the best it can be.

For those of you who will need to miss a few sessions due to other commitments, there will be a workshop series blog created specifically for this workshop series so that students have a resource they can count on even when they are not at the workshops and while they continue to work on their comic project. It will be a community for the students to share what they are working on with one another and also as a means for the instructor to offer advice, feedback and any other useful references for the students.

Instructor: Artist and Illustrator, Scott Flanders

Prerequisites:

• Must be a current middle or high school student
• Minimum level of art experience is requested.
• Interested in art, graphics, and/or animation
• Careful and patient enough to learn some new skills and listen to expert coaching

Course fee: $225.00 for all nine, all-day workshops. (This is just $25.00 per workshop.) Registration assistance available upon request. 

Registration deadline: November 10, 2010. Space is limited to 19 participants.

All workshop correspondence will be conducted via email.  Complete workshop information and an application form can be found at http://education.sdsc.edu/teachertech. 

For questions or additional information, please contact Ange Mason at 858 534-5064 or amason@ucsd.edu.