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Haiku Comics

Nathan Olsen — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:02:16 +0000

I recently began work on a new project with my brother, Robert Olsen. We’ve developed a web comic called Haiku Comics. Bob writes the poems and I draw and letter the strip. It’s been a lot of fun to work on so far.

Neither of us really knows where this thing is going, so our goal is to publish a new strip every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and just see where it takes us. If you’re interested in watching the strip develop, you might want to bookmark the site or add it to your RSS feed. I’m pretty proud of the strips we’ve put out so far and I only think they are going to get better.

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Post tags: art, haiku comics, Illustration, news, web comic

Insights 2008

Nathan Olsen — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:21:30 +0000

This seems to be a busy time for news! I have an illustration in Insights 2008, the CSULB University Art Museum’s annual student art exhibition. The show opens tonight from 6-8 pm and will run through June 1, 2008.

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Post tags: art, csulb, event, gallery, Illustration, news

3×3

Nathan Olsen — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:24:25 +0000

3×3 Magazine has announced the winners of their 2007 student show. I’m proud to say that I made the cut, earning “Distinctive Merit” for a piece I made last fall, “Dance, Lovebot! Dance!” (Now on view in my pathetically empty portfolio.)

Does this mean I can now call myself an “award winning illustrator?”

The Film

Nathan Olsen — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 03:34:04 +0000

While the wife lays sick and asleep in the other room, I thought I might dust off this old notebook and pass along an update. The film I mentioned in passing last time around has been slowly taking shape. It’s to be an animated short with an expected completion date of late summer.

The number of hats that I’m expected to wear on this project is insane. I’m the writer, director, storyboard artist, concept artist, modeler, rigger, animator, compositor and editor. It’s an incredibly daunting situation. Just about the only task I’m not taking on myself is the music and sound, which my good friend Tony Ringor has graciously agreed to supply.

Back in January when I started this process, I decided to try to my hand at 3D animation. I had used Google Sketchup to create some reference environments for some illustrations last year and, for some reason, that made me think that I might be able to learn 3D animation in a couple of weeks. Looking back, I can’t believe how naive I was — what save me was my work ethic. I download Blender 3D and immersed myself in the program. Learning to model went fast, I had my protagonist done within the first two weeks. Rigging proved more difficult. By the time I got to materials, lighting, shape keys, premultiplied alpha channels, constraints, vertex groups, actions, IPO curves — I was drowning. I was hitting one problem after another and the learning curve was intense. I almost walked away from the whole thing – it’s only been in the past several weeks that I’ve finally started to see my labors bear fruit.

Here’s a sneak peek:

I was just notified yesterday that I will be receiving a generous stipend from California State University, Long Beach to complete my film. I’m extremely grateful for the support I’ve received from the school and my instructor, Aubry Mintz. Without Aubry’s guidance, this project would have withered on the vine.