Comics For Kids: Last Week’s Lesson on… Creating Zombie Characters!

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Oct 252012
 

Halloween is near, and that means– some Comics for Kids lessons that are on theme for this October!  Last week, we learned about creating stories and characters on a very popular theme right now: ZOMBIES.

Scroll down to see the lesson we had, and then scroll below that to see what the students created this week!

OCTOBER LESSONS: Creating Zombie Characters  –!!

Right now, Zombies are very popular—whether it’s Halloween or not!  However, since it is October, we’re going to have some upcoming lessons dedicated to types of characters, and creating characters, that are especially popular at this time of year.  While Zombie stories can be funny or serious, they always fall into the genre of HORROR: that means stories that are scary, include monsters, and sometimes, characters that are only semi-alive. Continue reading »

Comics For Kids, Belated Update! The Lesson from before LAST week’s Lesson: Telling Stories Silently! Featuring, “Owly” as a Learning Tool.

 drawMELT, Educate, GIRLS WITH GLASSES, Meltdown University, News  1 Response »
Oct 242012
 

Hello everyone!  Thanks for tuning in, for this slightly late blog recap.

This Comics for Kids Lesson was all about focusing on visual storytelling– meaning, relying on pictures, sound effects, and picture bubbles to tell your story.  Words are vital to storytelling– but when it comes to comics, it’s actually a very important skill to be able to storytell, and have the pictures speak for themselves.  We learned about this fact, and also used the all-ages comic “Owly” as a teaching tool.

 

Please scroll down to see the lesson we had, as well as the great work that the kids did this week!

QUESTION:  Is a comic story still “written” if it does not have speaking with words?

 

ANSWER:  One definition of writing is, “that which is written;  characters or matter written with a pen or the like.”

 

Technically speaking, the definition does not require one to use words.  “Characters” can mean letters.  Yet, it can also refer to symbols—other languages, such as Chinese and Japanese, and old Native-American languages, use specific symbols or drawings that communicate an entire phrase.

Continue reading »


Meltdown Comics for Kids: Using DIALOGUE and WORD BALLOONS to Help Tell Your Stories!

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Sep 192012
 

Thanks for reading our latest blog recap, for Meltdown University’s Comics for Kids:  This week’s lesson (and this blog post) focuses on DIALOGUE, and WORD BALLOONS.

Dialogue can be a lot more complicated than just what a character says.  The same line of dialogue will be different depending on the facial expression of the character who says it– or how the dialogue box itself was actually drawn.  Some dialogue boxes are barely there, and others are very important to the entire LAYOUT of the comic.

Scroll down to read the lesson plan and what we learned on this front.  As usual, scroll down below that to see what the kids came up with.

Thanks for reading!

DIALOGUE AND WORD BALLOONS:

 

Using the SHAPE of Word Balloons to help your characters talk, and using DRAWINGS and DIALOGUES together to tell your story!

 

Continue reading »

Comics for Kids Meltdown Characters: Creating Animal Characters!

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Sep 132012
 

Hello everyone!  Welcome to the latest Comics for Kids MeltRecap!

This past week, we learned about creating animal characters– whether that means talking dogs, realistic cats who just meow (and beg for food– perhaps even hissing if you don’t give it to them), or ANTHROPOMORPHIC animals– those cool, cartoon characters with fur, and animal heads– but the ability to walk, talk, dress, and act like people.

Scroll below for the lesson itself.  As always, Below that, is the week’s great work of the students.

Thanks for checking out the blog, and enjoy  –!!

 

Continue reading »


A New Meltdown Comics For Kids Character Design Lesson: How to DRAW Characters in Motion, and THE LINE OF ACTION!

 Art, Blue Rooster, Did you know?, GIRLS WITH GLASSES, Meltdown University, News  No Responses »
Sep 042012
 

This week’s Comics for Kids Class here at Meltdown was a ton of fun!  We reviewed some character design principles, while learning a new thing that’s important when drawing comics, and characters that are going to look as if they are moving:  The Line of Action.

Read on, to see the lesson we went through.  And scroll beyond that to see everyone’s stellar work this week!    

                                                                                     CHARACTER DESIGN:

                                                                How to DRAW Characters  in Motion, and THE LINE OF ACTION! 

A character is who a story is about– and designing your character is very important when you want to make a comic.

Returning students, and those who have started their own stories outside of class—you have characters you have already created.  A little of this lesson will be “Character Design” review, but it mostly is full of new stuff!

This lesson can help you CONTINUE to work on the drawing and design of those characters—or, it can help you decide how to create NEW characters.

For those of you who have not yet created a character—or created characters, but not sure which ones you want to tell stories about— this will help! 

Continue reading »

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