The Art Of Kevin Dart

LA Weekly, Denmark, & More!

Mon, 7 Dec 2009 23:23:56 -0800

The current issue of LA Weekly features this faux 1960s airline ad starring Yuki 7! I was super excited to be asked to do a piece inspired by Los Angeles for the newspaper, and immediately envisioned Yuki scampering about town on secret missions wearing the hottest West Coast fashions. Here are my initial sketches (on Kikutowne Stationery):

Then my rough and final layout drawings:

And the quick color study I did before starting the final painting:

I've been working super hard for the past few months on a couple of Yuki projects and am amassing quite a pile of sketches so I figured I'd share a few. Here's a pretty typical sketch page:

And two of the characters I'm developing for a new storyline:

A few months ago this Coke Zero commercial came out and I forgot to blog about it. I worked on this spot with Pete Candeland for Passion Pictures doing color keys, storyboards, and character design. I wasn't involved in the final 3D production so it's pretty fascinating to see how some of my designs were translated. As soon as I get permission I'll post a few of the paintings I did.

At the end of October, Chris and I took a trip to Denmark to teach a Character and Environment Design class at the Animation Workshop in Viborg. It turned out to be an incredibly rewarding experience working with an extremely talented and fun group of students. Here's a few photos:

Chris and I toasting after the final student presentation at the end of the week.

Damon, Joakim, and me bowling one night in Viborg.

Elizabeth and I freezing in Copenhagen the week after teaching.

I was really impressed with the students in our class and their dedication to learning and improving themselves each day. I was super proud to see everything they had accomplished by the end of just one week. Here's a few of their websites, which I will update if I'm able to find more:

Dennis
Elisabet
Fie
Ida
Ida Maria
Karen
Morten
Nikki
Oldrich
Ole
Paolo
Pernille
Rune
Stinna
Tanja
Tommy

The Gadget Girls + APE!

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:55:14 -0700

These are the Gadget Girls, an elite group working out of Yuki's top secret Tokyo headquarters. They coordinate Yuki's missions, handle incoming and outgoing communications, and design her space-age gadgetry.

I might have this available as a print for this weekend's Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco, which Chris and I are really looking forward to. We're in the same spot as last year, tables 333 and 334. We'll be stocked with prints, shirts, and copies of the Yuki 7 book, so please come by and visit!

Looks That Kill

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:12:17 -0700

Yuki 7 returns next summer in Looks That Kill! But you can get this poster at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco next month! More details will be announced closer to the convention.

I was trying a lot of things on this poster to evolve my painting style, the biggest of which was being more precise. I tend to rush through my paintings and leave all kinds of gloppy, unfinished detail. So I really took my time on this one and figured out each and every detail, which makes for a more rewarding viewing experience I think.

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be a BG Painter on Genndy Tartakovsky's new show at Cartoon Network, Sym-Bionic Titan! After 3 1/2 years I finally found some full-time work in the animation business. I never expected freelancing to become my day-to-day job, and when it did, I never thought I would survive for more than a year. There were a number of times where I thought I would have to give up, but I never did thanks to my amazing friends and supportive colleagues. During the last year I was finally able to get into a steady groove with both my personal and professional work.

None of this will affect Fleet Street or any of the projects we currently have planned, but I probably won't be taking freelance offers for a while. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this new chapter will go!

Yuki's (slightly) New Look

Sun, 6 Sep 2009 21:37:56 -0700

Just a quick sketch tonight to play with some ideas that have been bouncing around my head lately. I want to polish Yuki up slightly for her next big adventure...

Yuki Fanart!

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:11:03 -0700

I'm still astonished and overwhelmingly happy whenever I see someone create their own interpretation of Yuki. I wanted to show off a bunch of Yuki fanart from the last few months that I've either found or has been sent to me...

One of the beautiful drawings Mari did of Elizabeth at Comic-Con!

Bob MacNeil!

Hugo Morales!

Bob Logan!

Michele Legendre!

Andy Helms!

Amy Mebberson!

Joscha Van Deijk!

Finally, Eric Jones gave me this original sketch of his at Comic-Con!

San Diego Report! Part 2

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:34:06 -0700

FRIDAY

Yuki 7!!!! She stopped by Gnomon for a drawing session with Mari!

Pretty...

"See, it's an art book about these spy movies, but the movies don't actually exist, and there's a trailer, but that's fake too... ah forget it."

About time we got some protection at the booth!

Ada looking very "Pantene Pro-V"!

Jeff pulls out the big guns!

Dude. Comic-Cons is hard.

Rob brings his unwelcome 'tude back to the table. Inappropriate.

Friday was Joey's birthday so we went out for Brazilian food after all the sushi places were packed!

Lookin' good Josh!

Good times!

Stupid photogenic Turnham!

SATURDAY-SUNDAY

Yuki stares down her enemies!

"The Case of Too Many Diver Shirts", featuring Scott Morse!

If looks could kill!

So that was pretty fun. I feel really lucky to have so many cool friends. I'm already looking forward to next year. I'll be back soon with more art and updates about what I'm working on these days.

San Diego Report! Part 1

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:02:18 -0700

Comic-Con is already a distant memory for most of you, so this post might be totally boring, but I say better late than never! As usual it was fun, tiring, inspiring, and overwhelming. Our good friend The DC of Gritbox Photography was there to capture all the action, so let's get rolling!

WEDNESDAY

Here comes trouble! Trevor, Tom, Tirzah, Ada, and Bobby come to the rescue with extra supplies!

Turnsey and Mrs. Cole work the new Fleet booth!

Turnsey's hot new Decemberists poster (later sold out at the show) and new "Clocks" print!

Bob Valley and Don Shank together in one place! I totally felt tectonic plates shifting from the awesomeness.

Young superstars of animation, Clio Chiang and Joe Pitt!

Is that Head of Story Chris Butler, fresh off the success of 2009's smash hit Coraline?!?!

Liana and Juan stop by for a bit!

Turnsey gives the camera a bit of his patented sass!

With a good day's work behind us, it's off to party!

Not sure, but it looks like Trev got a whiff of somethin' nasty!

Owned! The results of mine & Ada's plastic-sword-swashbuckling at the Mexican restaurant!

Some kind of serious Fleet Street pow-wow!

Party's over, time to inspect Bobby's shirt!

Headin' out with the Goblin Fish boys!

THURSDAY

A brand new day! Time to strategize for our inevitable success!

Maybe not...

Could that be world famous super-couple Bobby Chiu and Kei Acedera?? Also, is that a Parpan I see in the back...?

It is! Justin and Trish pop by! (*note mega-cute Civilized Foxes in bottom foreground)

Oh man... Jeff Haynie too?!?!

Turnham's had it...

Phew, another day wrapped up! We head off to Little Italy with the crew.

This is me, I guess.

It took forever to get seated, so Turnsey scrounged us some bread!

Parps, Trish, and Ada snack on their bread rations!

Elizabeth passes time on the web with the power of the DC's iPhone!

Comic-Con 2009!

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:24:16 -0700

It's only 3 days until the San Diego Comic-Con! Chris and I are running around like crazy getting things ready for what will definitely be the best show we've ever done! If you've been to see us in the past 3 years, we want to let you know that we're in a new and bigger location to accomodate for all of our new stuff - Booth 1316. This is where we are on the convention center map:

Here's a preview of what's in store for you at the Fleet Street Booth!

Yuki 7 makes her San Diego debut! We will have copies of our new book, Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7 for sale at Comic-Con for the very first time, along with these other items:

- Limited supply of the Collector's Edition book!
- English, Japanese, and French Yuki posters!
- Yuki 7 shirts!
- Appearances by Don Shank, Megan Brain, and Elizabeth Ito!
- Lots of other surprises!

Chris will also be unveiling this beautiful new oversized print of Phileas Fogg and his clocks from "Around the World in 80 Days", as well as an amazing screenprinted poster commissioned by The Decemberists! Here's just a small teaser:

See you in San Diego!

Making Of "A Kiss From Tokyo"

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:45:49 -0700

Ian Albinson and Alex Ulloa over at The Art of the Title Sequence has put together a really fantastic article about the making of the Yuki 7 trailer. He interviewed me, Stephane, and Cyrille about our respective roles and views on the project for a comprehensive look at how the whole thing was put together. It's got a lot of really interesting never-before-seen things, including the very first cut of the animatic, a look at the different layers in one of my Photoshop files, and much more. You can also get a nice Quicktime file of the trailer in HD. I definitely recommend checking it out!

I forgot to mention that I was also recently interviewed at the German design website, diskursdisko. You can read that interview by clicking here.

Finally, tomorrow is the last day of the Yuki 7 show! There are still a few last pieces of gorgeous artwork you can pick up from the Gallery Nucleus website if you act fast!

Yuki Show Wrap-up!

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 17:51:25 -0700

Man, last Friday was so much fun! I can't even explain how cool it was to finally show people the book and see their reactions as they flipped through it. Meeting everyone and signing books was awesome, the drinks were great, the music was sweet - but most of all it was amazing to have my whole family there from Texas and Colorado and my old friends from Seattle and Portland. I think it'll definitely go down as one of the best nights of my life. Thank you so much to everyone who came out, and also thanks to Ben, Wade, and Lin at Nucleus for hosting the show!

Before I get to the photos, I wanted to let you know that all 4 of the Yuki 7 French movie posters are now up for sale at Fleet Street! Each one is a limited edition of 50, 3-color screenprint on cream-colored paper, and LARGE (12"x24"!)

Now onto the photos! These were taken by my awesome friend Dan Cole of Gritbox Photography!

me and the original yuki!

me, turnham, and horia before the show.

nucleus storefront.

books for sale!

right after the doors opened!

signing books!

ada and I chat & sign

chris signing a book for jory!

dusk.

the place started to get really crowded!

me with vicky and clio.

elizabeth chats with her parents and luis.

jon!

ada hands a book to will.

closing up shop!

My friends & family were nice enough to help me pack up all of the pre-ordered books over the weekend too. This is just the first half of what we packed. I ended up mailing well over 300 packages this week!

So the books are making their way around the world right now, and I hope everyone who ordered one enjoys it when it arrives. Please feel free to leave a comment here, on the Yuki Fan Page, or send me an e-mail to let us know what you think!