Matt Forsythe, Cameron Steward and Babs Tarr|PPP3

On a 13th of November I've attended a brilliant event organised by Creative Networks and Thought Bubble Festival. Guest speakers were Matt Forsythe, Babs Tarr and Cameron Stewart (instead of Adam Hughes).

Matt Forsythe is a comic artist, who worked on Adventure Time series for 2 years. He didn't went to art school and have a degree in political science. However he was motivated and determined enough to improve his drawing skills and used art forum to get feedback and crits. Ojingogo was the first graphic novel from him that got published, followed by Jinchalo. Made during his stay in Korea, Ojingogo is an abstract, wordless comic with a very cute character. What's really interesting is the fact that this little character was drawn on a pitch for AT. Speaking of which, Adventure Time is a storyboard driven show (like Sponge Bob Square Pants). It takes around 5 weeks to complete storyboard which is then made into an animatic by storyboard revision team (which basically works out which bits needs to be animated, record voices, test pacing of the episode). Completed storyboard, animatic and additional notes (like character/color charts) are then sent to Korea, where the show is animated.
Matt's tumblr contains a lot of material from his work on Adventure Time and this talk gave me a lot of insight into how animated shows are produced. Shame I wasn't able to chat with him (swarm of other people got before me). Well, at least I tweeted a little pencil sketch I did during the event to him. ;)

Cameron Stewart is a Canadian comic book artist who worked for DC, Marvel and Dark Horse Comics, currently working on Batgirl (together with Babs) and Fight Club 2. He also didn't went to art school, but practiced a lot. Worked as a storyboarder on Men in Black animated series and was asked to draw comics. His signature 'thing' are action sequences and fighting scenes, a lot of time is devoted into getting a right flow of the panels (sometimes even 15 sqeezed onto one page). Sin Titulo is his personal, award-winning comic, on which he worked during his spare time. Published online between 2007-2012, it was also released in a book form by Dark Horse Comics in several languages. Sin Titulo is a proof of how important it's to work on personal, side projects, even if it's only few hours a week.

Babs Tarr is a illustrator and co-artist on Batgirl. For a change, she went to the artschool in Baltimore and graduated with degree in illustration. She enjoyes working in different media and did painting, concept art, toy design, editorial illustrations (fashion ilusts). Her advice was to give employers more than they expect, have online presents in some shape and form (portfolio, blog, twitter, etc.) and.. do fanart!
She was actualy ther only person I've managed to chat with and even got a little Batgirl scribble from her.