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Toronto Cartoonist Workshop Courses

Adult Classes
Semester 1: January

Writing for Comics Level I
Instructor: Ty Templeton
This action packed course will teach students story construction, character development, dialogue, plotting, as well as pitching and editing a script for the comics industry. Students will explore the different formats and techniques of comic script writing (including Marvel style and full script) while creating their own characters and stories. While basic writing skills are helpful, they are not necessary.
Duration: January 16 – February 27
Time: Monday evenings 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Cost: $395 + HST

Dynamic Page Composition
Instructor: Leonard Kirk
Aspiring DC and Marvel artists know they have to learn to tell a story in a visually compelling manner. In this course, veteran artist Leonard Kirk will share his secrets of success in building an engaging page from idea sketch to finished pencils. Leonard will touch upon important concepts such as managing eye flow, proper juxtaposition of panel elements for maximum effect, point of view, spotting blacks and dynamic posing. Take this class and watch your pages leap to the next level.
Duration: January 16 – February 27
Time: Monday evenings 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Cost: $395 + HST

Making a Splash: Successful Watermedia Techniques
Instructor: Mark Thurman
Making a Splash introduces students to gouache and watercolour where a variety of different watercolours and surfaces will be explored. Colour theory will be covered and students will be encouraged to develop their own visual themes including landscape, still life, cartoon, caricature, illustration and figurative subject matter. This course will be of interest to the fine artist, illustrator or animator looking to develop core painting skills in a flexible and versatile media.
Duration: January 17 – February 28
Time: Tuesday evenings 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Cost: $395 + HST

Inking for Comics
Instructor: Ty Templeton
Tracers need not apply. Comic book inking is a serious craft that employs a broad variety of approaches both philosophically and practically. The class will explore different tools, different styles and different methods of finishing a page of comic art from pencils. Students are encouraged to bring their own inking tools and while some familiarity with drawing is suggested, any level of skill is welcome.
Duration: January 17 – February 28
Time: Tuesday evenings 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Cost: $395 + HST

Figure Drawing for the Comic Book Artist
Instructor: Ty Templeton
A compliment to Ty’s Drawing the Human Figure from Memory, this course provides the next step to successful, more realistic depiction of the dynamic comic book character focusing on anatomy, light and shadow, drapery, and movement. It will focus on work done from live models with anatomy instruction before each drawing session. Any level of skill is welcome.
Duration: January 18 – February 29
Time: Wednesday evenings 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Cost: $395 + HST

Open Life Drawing
Drawing the human figure well is core to the disciplines of comics, illustration, animation, game design and fine arts. And of course the secret to getting good at the art of life drawing is practice, practice ... practice!

The Toronto Cartoonists Workshop invites students and members of the community to attend our weekly open life session to hone their skills. Poses will range from 2 minutes to 30 minutes. Clothed and unclothed models will be utilized with a focus on imaginative posing and action to reflect the demands of drawing comics.
Duration: January 19 – March 1
Time: Thursday evenings 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Cost: $15 per session (HST included)

Designing Environments and Props for the Comic Book Artist
Instructor: Dave Ross
Up and coming comic book artists know that successful storytelling requires more than eye popping figures in action poses. Star Wars artist Dave Ross will instruct students in how to create lively, believable and imaginative backgrounds for your hero to inhabit. Fundamentals of perspective, principles of design and the art of using reference intelligently will be covered.
Duration: January 19 – March 1
Time: Thursday evenings 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Cost: $395 + HST


Kids Classes

Cartooning and Illustration for Kids
Instructor: Dave Lapp
Are you interested in comics, cartoons, graphic novels or do you just like to draw? Students of any ability will learn to develop their narrative and graphic abilities through the use of pencils, markers, dip pens, brush and ink, acrylic paint, scratchboard and more! Projects can include: trading cards, class comic anthologies, animation flipbooks and dozens of other activities developed through the surprisingly complex language of cartooning.
Duration: January 23 – March 12
Time: Monday afternoons 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Cost: $295 + HST

Cartooning Rodeo
Instructor: Walter Dickinson
Saddle up, pardners, for a course where the key word is fun! Young artists are encouraged to expand their creativity working with simple drawing materials such as pencil, pen and ink, and pencil crayons. Sample projects may include designing an alien world, drawing an interpretive self-portrait as a zombie, princess or wizard and drawing your pet as a mythical creature of your choice. Students will also be shown how to write, draw and publish their own 8 page mini-comic. A great introductory course for the aspiring cartoonist or graphic novelist!
Duration: January 21 – March 10
Time: Saturday mornings 10:00 am – 11:30 am
Cost: $295 + HST

Create Your Own Superhero!
Instructor: Walter Dickinson
Do you enjoy superhero movies? Do you wish you could create your own super powered character and see him/her up on the big screen? The truth is most movie superheroes started out as comic books. Students of this class will learn about basic proportion and how to construct the human figure followed by creating and designing that all-important signature costume. Finally, students will take their creation and craft an 8 page story that will be published in mini-comic format for their friends and family! Shoot for the stars and create the next Superman today!
Duration: January 22 – March 11
Time: Sunday mornings 10:00 am – 11:30 am
Cost: $295 + HST

Japanese live action Ranma 1/2

That's right! And you can see the results below...

Drop by our store if you're looking for Ranma 1/2 manga!

Scrat's Continental Crack-up

Two short film promos for Ice Age 4

Prometheus images

Some images released on BD from the upcoming movie giving us a glimpse of what Ridley Scott and H.R. Giger have been working on. Take a look:



Drop by our store if you're looking for artbooks by H.R. Giger

Beauty & the Beast 3-D

Here's a trailer for the 3-D conversion of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The Lion King 3-D made a lot of money so Disney is no doubt salivating at the thought of converting more of its old classics into 3-D. But at least this one comes with the new Tangled short!

Inquire at our store about Beauty & the Beast artbooks and posters as well as other Disney stuff!

Max the Mutt Workshops!

Check out the fliers below for etails on November 26th Workshops featuring an 'Introduction to Cartooning with Tina Seemann' & 'Layout for Comics with Kent Burles.' As well as one for Portfolio Development Workshops in December!

Arriving Next Week!

Go here to see the list of new books and stuff coming in on Wednesday Nov. 23rd!

Seoul Sessions with Lesean Thomas

Lesean Thomas has been living in one of the Meccas of Animation productions for the past 2 years: South Korea! It's where America and Japan outsource most of their animated tv shows. Lesean Thomas has been producing upcoming shows like 'The Last Airbender: The Legend of Korra' (storyboard/animation production) and the upcoming, highly anticipated 'Black Dynamite: The Animated series' as Producer. However, he's also been very busy on his own projects, one of which is based off of his upcoming graphic novel, 'Cannonbusters.' There's a 6-part behind-the-scenes documentary on the production of it and his time there in the works premiering online in January. You can check out a teaser below! It'd informative for animation students to see how things are done over there, and more importantly by someone who is currently working on and producing relevant hit, animated tv shows in the States!

SEOUL SESSIONS PRESENTS: MAKING ANIMATION PT 1 (TEASER) from LeSeanThomas on Vimeo.

Drop by our store if you're looking for artbooks by Lesean Thomas.

Customer Appreciation Day - Sunday Nov 27th

For all the details on this event, check your email inbox. Sometimes its worth reading emails. Email went out today.

Pixar's 'BRAVE' trailer

Here's our first full trailer for Pixar's next film opening next summer!

Drop by our store if you're looking for various artbooks from Pixar!

Redline, Guilty Gear 2, Clamp.. New Import Anime Art books

Arrived today from Japan..

Ben Caldwell Sketchbooks Just arrived.

Sketchbook 14/15 is the newest book by the amazing Ben (Action Cartooning) Caldwell. It has 2 covers (one on each side - only the 15 side shown here). The next 3 sketchbooks are older - long out of print books, that Ben sent us. All books come signed by the artist. (14/15 is signed on both sides. that way no matter how you open it, you will find the signature.)

Brett Bean, Warhammer 40k, Life Drawing..New Books

Missed mentioning the Brett Bean Book last week. If you are a fan of Creaturebox or
Stephen Silver - than you must check out this artis's book wich also has a bit of Jose Lopez thrown in. Probably my favourite new sketchbook from this season.

coming in store this week: The first new Warhammer book in a long time. tons of concept stuff. See it for yourself in store.

For those who love Life Drawing instruction books, come by and take a look at this new book which is in stock now.

Cosplay for a Cause

Top class Cosplayers have come together to create a calendar where all proceeds will go to charitable causes. In particular this one goes towards helping further efforts for those who suffered through the recent earthquake in Japan. Visit their site below for plenty of cool pictures of good costumes, and if you like what you see, consider buying one to help a cause.

http://cosplayforacause.com/index.html

Stephen Silver's POSEBOOK App

Stephen Silver has created a new iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad App featuring a collection of reference photos of various models in costumes and different poses. The App will also feature works by various artists who sketched an image using the photos provided therein. For more information go here.

Drop by our store if you're looking for sketchbooks by Stephen Silver!

New Books Arriving Next Wednesday Nov. 16th!

Go here to see the full list of new stuff coming in next week on Wednesday November 16th!

More videos from REDLINE!

Manga Entertainment has released another English dub clip as well as two new trailers about the anime film REDLINE by Takeshi Koike.

j scott campbell, phill noto, benicio arriving this weekend.

Tons of great sketchbooks are back in stock this coming weekend. If you wish to reserve any books, call the shop 416 840-4506.

Adrian Alphona Sketchbook:Sweetness now in stock + more..

Stop in and check out Adrian Alphona (artist/co-creator on Runaways) and Christina Strain's new sketchbook: Sweetness. the work really matches the name. see new art, old art re-coloured, really a must have. signed.

and coming later this week:

Could the future of cinema be this?

As 3-D adoption increases, there are still pepole out there demanding that it be done without glasses. While this isn't comfortably possible for large screen theaters yet, there is some progress being made... Have a look at the latest attempt in the video below!

New Books Arriving on Wed. Nov. 9th, 2011!

Click here to see the full list of stuff coming in next week!

Tim Burton's 'Frankenweenie'

To learn more about Tim Burton's next stop-motion film, go here.



Inquire at our store about various Tim Burton related movie posters and books!