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For Comic Art Classes Pennsylvania Has A Variety Of Options

By Katina Brady


With comic books and their characters now firmly entrenched in the mainstream entertainment culture, interest in this type of storytelling is higher than ever before. Many would-be artists both young and old have a desire to break into the industry and perhaps create the next popular series of books or graphic novels to thrill and delight their fans. For anyone seeking out the top comic art classes Pennsylvania has many options available.

In the industry's infancy, artists had two ways to learn the craft. Their choices boiled down to either taking an apprenticeship with an existing professional artist or laboring to learn at home from anatomy books and the works of master artists. That was the same choice shared by all artists for many hundreds of years.

As comics grew in popularity, a number of artists saw the benefit of starting schools and workshops to pass on the basic skills of their craft to future generations. Popular artists like Joe Kubert soon helped educate an entirely new generation of fresh, and highly-skilled storytellers. With that success, more schools were created, including many of those now found in Pennsylvania.

These schools and workshops offer students an opportunity to learn everything from the basics to advanced storytelling and production techniques. The goal of the school setting is to provide each new student with everything he or she needs to produce comics that meet or exceed industry standards. To accomplish that, there are a variety of different skill sets that are addressed in the courses.

As might be expected, some of these courses are similar to those found in other art schools. Since comics are most commonly focused on human characters, anatomy is among the most critical skills taught to new students. In these classes, the student is familiarized with the actual proportions of the human frame, while also learning to create the more stylized and heroic anatomy seen in comics.

Students also learn how to use various tools, techniques, and artwork mediums. Pencil drawing is a must, since that serves as the backbone of almost all sequential art. In addition, students must learn to use India ink, using various brushes and pens to create varying line thicknesses and different moods using shadows. Mediums such as watercolor and software usage may also be explored.

Of course, no class on comics would be complete without looking at sequential storytelling. The craft of telling a story with pictures is a highly specialized one. As a result, it requires knowledge in a variety of different areas, including things like story pace, panel composition, scene perspective, and how to translate a writer's script into the paneled scenes needed to tell the story.

Year after year, the movie industry releases new blockbuster movies using characters from the vast universe of comics. That continuing trend has helped to fuel artist interest in becoming part of the industry that creates those characters. Thankfully, those artists can learn the craft they love by attending one of the fine artist schools in this area.




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