Comics Session

COMICS SESSION:

The twice-monthly ICSD Comics Session is meant to both encourage folks to come out and draw some panels for fun, in a social coffee shop setting, as well as provide a consistent time and space for ongoing work on our individual comic-based projects, all while getting motivation, inspiration, tips, and tricks from other local indie comic artists. The sessions will have 3 portions: Intro Warmup, Work Mode, and Wrap-Up.

1) Intro Warmup:

(I may bring some cheap paper and pens/pencils for people to use, but bring whatever works best for you.)

For the first 15-20 minutes, let's find each other, get settled with some coffee, and do introductions. We can go around and all share who we are and what we are working on, our comic / art experience, what we want from the group, etc.

Cool. Now, who is Ready To Draw???

Next, let's do a fun warm up exercise to help loosen up, as well as to get to know each other more! Let's call it... COMIC CHAOS.

OK, it isn't that serious. Let's come up with a few random prompts (newbies get first pick), like "fire" "monkey" and "heartbreak" and try to incorporate them into a short comic strip, AS A GROUP. How, you ask? We will all take turns drawing one panel, for about 2-3 min each, then TRADE PLACES! ...Actually, we'll just pass the comic to the left, and attempt to continue the narratives in a new panel.

Rinse & Repeat, Until...

Depending on the group size, we'll either do a full round and stop when the strips reach their originator - OR - we will keep it short and sweet and do quick 3 panel strips (just 2 swaps). This will help us all warm up a bit and get a taste of everyone's art style, sense of humor, technique, etc. all in a fun, social, and no pressure setting.

We can then pass around and read through the strips, maybe do a vote on the ones we like best, and later on I will post them up to the Meetup page & Indie Creatives SD social media pages.

2) Work Mode:

After the ice breaker / warm up activity, we can all situate ourselves for the main portion of the session, which will focus on working on our individual comic projects (for the vast remainder of the session). My own personal challenge is to use this time to finish at least one full comic strip per session, and then post it somewhere online. Of course, any and all work we all can get done on our various comic projects is great, BUT, if all goes to plan, we will all have regular comic strips going soon!

(For those who don't have comic projects to work on and would rather just keep doing Comic Chaos or draw with others, feel free to do that.)

3) The End??? (Wrap-Up)

At the end of each session (about 15-20 minutes out), let's do a regroup and see what everyone was able to get done, as well as share anything else we would like to about our progress or struggles during that session. Hopefully several of us will have things to post to whatever platform we use to share our work, and I am hoping to also link to everyone's work on the Indie Creatives San Diego Social Media accounts. I really want to encourage all of us to get our stuff out there and show that we are getting shit DONE :)

Finally, let's pat ourselves on the back for getting out of our comfort zones, working on stuff, and sharing it with the world, all while making a few new friends along the way... UNTIL NEXT TIME?!

<(To Be Continued...)