It was a therapeutic experience to start to put some shape to a career that has lurched mindlessly in so many directions. If I try hard enough I can almost create some kind of illusion of forward progress.
In short, I bullshitted the fuck out if it!
*************
KEVIN KOBASIC grew up around the advertising business. His father, John Kobasic, worked as an account executive at Doyle Dane Bernbach and Cole & Weber, before founding Kobasic Hadley in Seattle, WA. “When I was a kid I didn’t really understand that my dad had a cool job,” he says. “I think I assumed that everyone’s fathers used them as extras in TV commercials.”
Kevin studied painting for a year at a fine arts college, but soon quit school to take a job at Marvel Comics. He spent several years as a penciler drawing action-oriented comics such as DEATHLOK and THE PUNISHER. He later moved into the animation field, designing and storyboarding for cartoon shows such as COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG, CODENAME: KIDS NEXT DOOR and WORDWORLD.
Eventually Kevin set his sights on a career in advertising, and brings his colorful experience to bear on a style that is highly adaptable yet uniquely his own. Constantly developing and refining his technique, Kevin has carved out a high-energy style at once dynamic and whimsical. He lives in New York City with his wife Faith and their daughters Edie and Roxy.
In your opinion what makes a killer storyboard and why do you think it is so crucial when an agency is trying to sell a concept?
Energy! Our little corner of the business is all about selling an idea. My job isn’t just to help communicate an idea, It’s to help make a client fall in love with it. So many of the technical aspects of drawing have been overtaken by technology, but drawings can communicate an ineffable sense of energy, of humor, of life. There’s something about a drawing that can charm the eye and fire the imagination like nothing else. And an experienced visual storyteller can create a sequence of images that propels you through the story. It’s the “X” factor that allows a creative’s idea to come to life in the mind of a client.
Describe for us your process from start to finish.
We start with a phone conference. This usually consists of the A.D. apologizing a lot for the crudeness of the thumbnail drawings, which I never understand, but I guess they need to get it out of their systems. I take copious notes and pay very close attention to the thumbs, because I’m trying to mind-meld with what the creatives are seeing in their heads. I want to understand the marketing strategy—what emotional effect they’re seeking.
When I’m penciling I try to use my whole arm and go for the bold strokes, sometimes going as far as to wear a brace on my wrist. When the pencils are approved I paint the final art with brush markers. I like the sensual, tactile feel of a brush stroke. Then I do a layer of digital painting over that, often stitching together photographic elements to add an extra dash of realism.
Your work is not super tight compared to some styles out there. Why do you think your work is so appealing in comparison?
You have to play to your strengths. I’m more interested the line having a feeling of spontaneity, which can get lost if the illustration is tremendously rendered. I try very hard to retain the energy of the initial sketch. I find that there’re art directors out there who prefer a more impressionistic approach, so that’s the niche I try to fill. I think it allows viewers to project themselves into the concept a little bit and not get hung up on meaningless details.
How do you cut corners when you have a crazy deadline. Please share a real example.
It usually comes down to just sweating a lot, gutting it out and forcing myself to work more intuitively. I do the frames all at once in assembly-line fashion, as if I were attaching widgets on a conveyor belt. You can also target which frames need to be the beauties and which you can do faster to make up time. There’s an Outback Steakhouse frame on www.wayart.com, that I drew lighning-fast when I was up against the wall. I was a little embarrassed to find it on the site, but looking at it now I guess there’s something to the simplicity and boldness of it. I love working in a business that demands so much be done in a crunch, because you often get better work when pushed out of your comfort zone.
What motivates you to constantly improve and evolve your style? Technology changes? Other artists influence?
At a tender age I asked my father, who owned an agency for 20 years, what qualities the best creatives tended to have in common. He thought for a second and said, “an insatiable curiosity about how the work could be improved”. That made a big impression on me. He may as well have carved that quote onto a stone tablet. Years later I asked him how I could go about breaking into storyboarding, and he said, “Storyboarding? I don’t think anyone does that anymore”. Oh well, they can’t all be jewels!
“Everybody loves Kevin” is something we often find ourselves saying here at Way Art. Why do you think clients fall in love with working with you?
Who said what, now?
Tell us about your animation and character development experience.
The level of quality control in animation created a huge learning curve. In comics you can draw Spider-Man a hundred different ways, but in animation you have to know exactly how thick each eyelash on a character is. I fell into the business, so I didn’t have the benefit of a three-year animation school. I had two weeks to learn it on the fly or get out.
As a designer you’re an extra hand to a showrunner who’s too busy to draw the whole show himself. So you have to be able to get into his head and design in virtually any style on demand. You work in a pressure cooker with very talented people and can solicit a lot of feedback and criticism. Ideally you’re trying to produce something that makes everybody in the room erupt in laughter. A popular pastime was to do really brutal caricatures of each other, which sometimes resulted in bruised feelings. But trying to hold your own in that environment, you develop an ability to grab a funny idea out if the ether and immortalize it in seconds.
What was your all time best gig?
I designed a brand mascot for an animated Pepperidge Farm campaign, and acted as the lead illustrator for TV and print. I had to hustle a lot to get the gig, and nobody had a clear idea of what the character should be. I pumped out hundreds of different character designs in an effort to find something that everyone could hang their hat on.
It was wonderful to be the key artist and feel like I was working on “my” character. It made me extremely invested in the work, and also meant some very long hours since I was the go-to guy. When we were producing the animatics that won the business I remember pulling a 72 hour shift. I also learned a lot about how the tiniest detail could make or break a concept. We went through endless rounds of revisions trying to get the arch of an eyebrow right to properly sell a joke.
What are some of the things you do to get "a firm idea" of what the client is after?
I thin k I have a strong intuitive sense, possibly from years of drawing comics from only the bare bones of a plot. I actively solicit feedback, and some people have to be coaxed. I pay attention to those little pauses that say, “I’m not happy with this one but I don’t want to seem high-maintenance”. I always figure, if the work comes out good it’s better for both of us. My most high-maintenance clients are also the ones who force me to improve.
How much of a role do you have in the creative process?
I try to get a read on how welcome I am to throw ideas into the mix. It’s immensely rewarding when I can come up with something that helps sell the concept. Moving forward I hope to have more involvement on that side of things.
What was your funniest or most embarrassing moment on a job?
Not long ago I storyboarded a music video for Wyclef Jean from the Fugees. The director asked me to sit in on the concept meeting and draw some character studies of the singer. Wyclef had no idea who I was or why I was there, but he was too polite to say anything as I sat across the table staring holes into him. When he found out what I had been doing he was relieved that I hadn’t been trying to hit on him. He was very gracious and complimentary, even telling me that if he could draw like me he’d be getting tons of girls. I thought that was funny, as if he’d trade the life of a rock star for the life of a dorky cartoonist.
Based on your experience getting started what advice would you give someone interested in a career in storyboard art?
Storyboarding? I don’t think anyone does that anymore.
Kevin studied painting for a year at a fine arts college, but soon quit school to take a job at Marvel Comics. He spent several years as a penciler drawing action-oriented comics such as DEATHLOK and THE PUNISHER. He later moved into the animation field, designing and storyboarding for cartoon shows such as COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG, CODENAME: KIDS NEXT DOOR and WORDWORLD.
Eventually Kevin set his sights on a career in advertising, and brings his colorful experience to bear on a style that is highly adaptable yet uniquely his own. Constantly developing and refining his technique, Kevin has carved out a high-energy style at once dynamic and whimsical. He lives in New York City with his wife Faith and their daughters Edie and Roxy.
In your opinion what makes a killer storyboard and why do you think it is so crucial when an agency is trying to sell a concept?
Energy! Our little corner of the business is all about selling an idea. My job isn’t just to help communicate an idea, It’s to help make a client fall in love with it. So many of the technical aspects of drawing have been overtaken by technology, but drawings can communicate an ineffable sense of energy, of humor, of life. There’s something about a drawing that can charm the eye and fire the imagination like nothing else. And an experienced visual storyteller can create a sequence of images that propels you through the story. It’s the “X” factor that allows a creative’s idea to come to life in the mind of a client.
Describe for us your process from start to finish.
We start with a phone conference. This usually consists of the A.D. apologizing a lot for the crudeness of the thumbnail drawings, which I never understand, but I guess they need to get it out of their systems. I take copious notes and pay very close attention to the thumbs, because I’m trying to mind-meld with what the creatives are seeing in their heads. I want to understand the marketing strategy—what emotional effect they’re seeking.
When I’m penciling I try to use my whole arm and go for the bold strokes, sometimes going as far as to wear a brace on my wrist. When the pencils are approved I paint the final art with brush markers. I like the sensual, tactile feel of a brush stroke. Then I do a layer of digital painting over that, often stitching together photographic elements to add an extra dash of realism.
Your work is not super tight compared to some styles out there. Why do you think your work is so appealing in comparison?
You have to play to your strengths. I’m more interested the line having a feeling of spontaneity, which can get lost if the illustration is tremendously rendered. I try very hard to retain the energy of the initial sketch. I find that there’re art directors out there who prefer a more impressionistic approach, so that’s the niche I try to fill. I think it allows viewers to project themselves into the concept a little bit and not get hung up on meaningless details.
How do you cut corners when you have a crazy deadline. Please share a real example.
It usually comes down to just sweating a lot, gutting it out and forcing myself to work more intuitively. I do the frames all at once in assembly-line fashion, as if I were attaching widgets on a conveyor belt. You can also target which frames need to be the beauties and which you can do faster to make up time. There’s an Outback Steakhouse frame on www.wayart.com, that I drew lighning-fast when I was up against the wall. I was a little embarrassed to find it on the site, but looking at it now I guess there’s something to the simplicity and boldness of it. I love working in a business that demands so much be done in a crunch, because you often get better work when pushed out of your comfort zone.
What motivates you to constantly improve and evolve your style? Technology changes? Other artists influence?
At a tender age I asked my father, who owned an agency for 20 years, what qualities the best creatives tended to have in common. He thought for a second and said, “an insatiable curiosity about how the work could be improved”. That made a big impression on me. He may as well have carved that quote onto a stone tablet. Years later I asked him how I could go about breaking into storyboarding, and he said, “Storyboarding? I don’t think anyone does that anymore”. Oh well, they can’t all be jewels!
“Everybody loves Kevin” is something we often find ourselves saying here at Way Art. Why do you think clients fall in love with working with you?
Who said what, now?
Tell us about your animation and character development experience.
The level of quality control in animation created a huge learning curve. In comics you can draw Spider-Man a hundred different ways, but in animation you have to know exactly how thick each eyelash on a character is. I fell into the business, so I didn’t have the benefit of a three-year animation school. I had two weeks to learn it on the fly or get out.
As a designer you’re an extra hand to a showrunner who’s too busy to draw the whole show himself. So you have to be able to get into his head and design in virtually any style on demand. You work in a pressure cooker with very talented people and can solicit a lot of feedback and criticism. Ideally you’re trying to produce something that makes everybody in the room erupt in laughter. A popular pastime was to do really brutal caricatures of each other, which sometimes resulted in bruised feelings. But trying to hold your own in that environment, you develop an ability to grab a funny idea out if the ether and immortalize it in seconds.
What was your all time best gig?
I designed a brand mascot for an animated Pepperidge Farm campaign, and acted as the lead illustrator for TV and print. I had to hustle a lot to get the gig, and nobody had a clear idea of what the character should be. I pumped out hundreds of different character designs in an effort to find something that everyone could hang their hat on.
It was wonderful to be the key artist and feel like I was working on “my” character. It made me extremely invested in the work, and also meant some very long hours since I was the go-to guy. When we were producing the animatics that won the business I remember pulling a 72 hour shift. I also learned a lot about how the tiniest detail could make or break a concept. We went through endless rounds of revisions trying to get the arch of an eyebrow right to properly sell a joke.
What are some of the things you do to get "a firm idea" of what the client is after?
I thin k I have a strong intuitive sense, possibly from years of drawing comics from only the bare bones of a plot. I actively solicit feedback, and some people have to be coaxed. I pay attention to those little pauses that say, “I’m not happy with this one but I don’t want to seem high-maintenance”. I always figure, if the work comes out good it’s better for both of us. My most high-maintenance clients are also the ones who force me to improve.
How much of a role do you have in the creative process?
I try to get a read on how welcome I am to throw ideas into the mix. It’s immensely rewarding when I can come up with something that helps sell the concept. Moving forward I hope to have more involvement on that side of things.
What was your funniest or most embarrassing moment on a job?
Not long ago I storyboarded a music video for Wyclef Jean from the Fugees. The director asked me to sit in on the concept meeting and draw some character studies of the singer. Wyclef had no idea who I was or why I was there, but he was too polite to say anything as I sat across the table staring holes into him. When he found out what I had been doing he was relieved that I hadn’t been trying to hit on him. He was very gracious and complimentary, even telling me that if he could draw like me he’d be getting tons of girls. I thought that was funny, as if he’d trade the life of a rock star for the life of a dorky cartoonist.
Based on your experience getting started what advice would you give someone interested in a career in storyboard art?
Storyboarding? I don’t think anyone does that anymore.
