Comic Book/Manga Layout Zak Hennessey
Successful Comic Book and Manga pages are more than just a series of images in panels. In order to create professional pages that tell a story, there are certain rules and guidelines that need to be understood and followed. If your goal is to one day work in the comic book industry, or to create your own self published comics, you are going to want to know how to do it right, in a way that will attract the attention of editors and readers.
In this course, we expose students to the basics of comic book/manga layout and composition, pacing, eye flow, storytelling, translating a script to the page, and the differences between the various types of story genres, including action, super hero, horror, noir, manga, and many others. Students will be encouraged to create the kinds of comic book stories that they want to tell, and will be instructed in the nuances and unique traits of their chosen genre. If you want to learn how to make powerful pages that pull your readers in, or can’t understand why your comic book submissions keep getting rejected, this is the class for you! This class will take you to the next level.
New Classes for June 2018!
Digital Art with Clip Studio Paint Zak Hennessey
Clip Studio Paint is an exciting, affordable, and user-friendly art program for comic books, manga, and other entertainment art. This class will introduce students to a number of different ways to utilize Clip Stuio, and help them climb the steep learning curve that can be intimidating to people who are trying to learn the program.
This program can do many of the same things as Photoshop, the industry standard program used by many professionals. Clip Studio has a lot of fantastic tools aimed directly at comic book and manga artists, and is a fantastic alternative for artists on a budget. It's a powerful program that has a lot of bang for the buck!
Students will need to have a laptop and Clip Studio to participate in this class. Clip Studio Paint is a very affordable program that regularly goes on sale at their website.
Heroic Figures and Forms Zak Hennessey
If you want to get into designing characters, heroes, and figures for the movie, video game, comic book industries, FX makeup, sculpting, toy design and more, this is the place to start. This course teaches you how to draw various body types and heroic anatomy in an intuitive way, when you are without a model or reference, and all you have is your pencil and paper.
This class is filled with shortcuts and tested methods that, if practiced, will dramatically improve a student’s abilities to not only draw a wide variety of character types, but helps them learn to duplicate that character again and again, so they look the same every time they are drawn. It is recommended that students take this class before taking Character Design, Creature Design, Action Anatomy, the various comic book courses, or anything that might involve depicting the human form. Even if you have some experience drawing figures, you will learn things to make them stronger and less frustrating to draw.
ABOVE: A Video Trailer for Character Design!
Character Design for Video Games, Movies, and Comics Zak Hennessey
All of your favorite characters in video games, movies, comic books, and more were created by concept artists hired to bring these iconic individuals to life. Without skilled concept artists, we wouldn’t have such great characters to watch, read about, or play. Concept artists are a special breed of artist. They have always enjoyed designing their own characters, creatures, and worlds, and have been fascinated with the characters in their favorite popular media.
This class is designed to help you learn the common techniques used by professional concept artists when they approach a new character idea, whether it be their own creation or that of a client or employer. These techniques will help students create a portfolio aimed at finding work in this area, or help creative artists better design their own characters.
Topics covered will be silhouettes, thumbnails, early sketches, refined sketches, and final art. The more of these skills an applicant has, the better their chance of finding a career in this field.
This course consists of four sessions of four hours each, and fits seamlessly with the following classes: Creature Design, Vehicle and Prop Design, Background Design, Concept Art, Heroic Figures and Forms, Heroic Heads and Hands, Action Anatomy. It also complements our comic book and manga creation classes.
Instructor Zak Hennessey has been creating characters all his life. It became a serious interest in elementary school, and grew from there. Since then, he has created hundreds of characters, both for his own intellectual properties, and for clients in Los Angeles, New York, Denver, and as a freelancer in other states. He attended the Art Academy of Los Angeles and the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design, and has spent tens of thousands of hours working on his craft.
This course will have a maximum of 10 students, so reserve your spot today!
Introduction to Comic Book/Manga Creation Zak Hennessey
Learn the process for creating comic and manga books and stories. Each session of this four week class focuses on a different aspect of the process.
Session 1 - Script Breakdowns and Comic Book Panel and Page Layout and Design
Session 2 - Introduction to Penciling for Comics and Manga
Session 3 - Introduction to Inking for Comics and Manga
Session 4 - Introduction to Coloring in Photoshop (or Manga Studio) for Comics and Manga
Students will leave with an understanding of the process. Throughout 2017 we will be offering full classes on each of these topics, so if a student really enjoys one or more of the above, they can go farther in depth.
Action Anatomy Zak Hennessey
Some of the toughest things for an entertainment artist to draw are figures in motion, in understandable and realistic poses, or interacting with other characters to tell a story. This class will teach you how to take what you know about the human form, and position that form in an infinite number of ways to depict the character carrying out whatever the story, client, assignment, or description require. This class covers foreshortening, perspective, dramatic poses, and natural poses, as well as a wealth of tips to give the student control of the human form for creating whatever pose they may need, whatever the purpose.
This class is filled with shortcuts and tested methods that, if practiced, will dramatically improve a student’s abilities to manipulate the anatomical structure and illustrate characters in a wide range of poses necessary for telling a story or depicting the figure in action. It is recommended that you take this class before taking Character Design, Creature Design, and the various comic book courses, or anything that might involve depicting the human form.
Comic Book/Manga Penciling Zak Hennessey
Anyone who has ever shown their comic book or manga portfolio to an editor knows that they want to see professional quality penciled pages. Being able to simulate textures, from water to leaves to sand, reflective surfaces, cloth, metal, rubber, or anything the script calls for, is vital to be successful in this industry. Line weight, value, and appropriate rendering are also demanded of aspiring pencilers. An editor can spot an amateur immediately, and too many aspiring artists spend weeks (or longer) crafting their portfolio pages, only to fail because they have terrible or unpolished line work.
This five week course teaches you how to choose the best tools for the job, from wood pencils, to mechanical pencils, to lead holders. It also shows you how to render the various material types listed above, as well as many others. The rules of line weight will also be taught, as well as study and explanation of professionally penciled pages from some of the biggest names in the field. See how the pros do what they do!
Character Design Zak Hennessey
Every good movie and video game needs designers to come up with cool and unique looks for their characters. A good story, coupled with incredible character designs, make for epic movies like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, video games like HALO, Final Fantasy, and hundreds of others, as well as iconic comic book characters like Iron Man, Batman and the X-Men. This class will show you how the professionals come up with their designs, and challenge you to create your own.
This class is also great for students who wish to go into the FX industries (both digital and practical). Whether you are creating a character in ZBrush, out of clay, or creating prosthetics for makeup, having a solid understanding of design can be huge, and can make you more valuable to a potential employer.
Students taking this class will learn how to create the important design elements needed for a strong portfolio.
Creature Design Zak Hennessey
A great creature design for a movie, video game, or comic book, can live in the minds of viewers, players or readers. With so many epic entertainment fields out there, and so many projects that need skilled creature designers, having the ability to come up with believable, imaginative creatures that have never been seen before is a valuable skill to hone. This class will give you an overview of how creature creation is done at the big studios, and challenge you to create your own epic creatures.
This class is also great for students who wish to go into the FX industries (both digital and practical). Whether you are creating a character in ZBrush, out of clay, or creating prosthetics for makeup, having a solid understanding of design can be huge, and can make you more valuable to a potential employer.
Students taking this class will learn how to create the important design elements needed for a strong portfolio.
Heroic Life Drawing Uninstructed
Heroic Figure Drawing sessions are uninstructed life drawing sessions where our models dress up in genre costumes appropriate for comic books, movies, video games, etc. They stand in "heroic" poses appropriate for those fields, providing useful reference for our students and other attendees. Typically they hold props and weapons. We try to provide a life drawing experience that is unique and more appropriate for our students needs than a typical fine art life drawing session.
Our goal is to host two Heroic Figure Drawing classes per month. We will be adding a calendar to this page at the bottom. Our next two session is Saturday, February 21st from 2-5pm.
Costs are as follows: Current Academy Students: $8 General Public: $10 Military Veterans: Free (with tip)
Lifecasting and Sculpting Tess Laeh
Face Off contestant Tess Laeh joins the Academy for this incredible course for all skill levels!
Students will gain the knowledge and get hands on experience in creating a professional life cast. This 5 day course will walk students through how to correctly make a stone copy of their face in order to take the first steps toward creating a makeup prosthetic, mask, and cowl. Studies and Demonstrations of the process will be given prior to doing it yourself. You will learn the proper steps on how to life cast a person's face, creating a stone positive, and correcting the stone positive in order to make perfect prosthetics in the future. As a bonus, Tess will give a sculpting demonstration to show you how to properly add clay to your lifecast, and answer your questions regarding materials, procedures, and more! Students will leave the class with a life cast of their own faces, to create personalized masks and prosthetics, as well as knowledge to create more lifecasts in the future.
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Denver Entertainment Art & Design Academy
info@deadacademy.com 720-441-INFO
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