ILLUSTRATION & VISUAL NARRATIVE: PROJECT 3 & FINAL PROJECT
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27/05/2022 - 01/07/2022 / Week 9 - Week 14
Tay Yee Shien (0341472)
Illustration & Visual Narrative / Bachelor of Mass Communication (Hons)
Project 3: Graphic Novel & Project 4 (Final Project): Motion Comic)
LECTURES
Week 9 - Transitions
Movement-to-movement
- Happens between 1-2s
- Slow down actions
- Do not overuse (Makes the comic dull)
Action-to-action
- Significant event
- Movements from panel to panel
- Time between moments
Subject-to-subject
- Focus on different subjects in the same scene
Scene-to-scene
- Change of location
- Jump in time
Aspect-to-aspect
- Introduces different aspect of the scenes in different panels
Symbolic
- Flashback
- Inner dialogue
- Explores unreal, feelings, and imagination.
Rolling Transitions
- Sense of movement through space
- More fluidity of panels
- Overlap and interlace illustrations together
- Altered state of mind and perception
Non Sequitur
- Audience may infer some kind of meaning
- Juxtaposed moments
- Leads to many interpretations
INSTRUCTIONS
PROJECT 3: GRAPHIC NOVEL - WEBTOON
STORY DETAILS:
Title: Canteen Catastrophe
Message: The purpose of the comic is to raise awareness of the severity of gun violence and school shootings. One of the prominent ones which happened in 2012 in the US took place at Sandy Hook.
Setting: School & Cafeteria
CHARACTERS:
fig. 1.0 Belle (10/06/22)
Main Character: Belle
Type: Fairy / Student
Appearance: Purple wings and antenna
Conflict: She flirted with a cute boy but was ignored. So she started to throw fries at the boy to get his attention however, the fries accidentally hit a devil who was sitting next to him.
fig. 1.2 Cute Boy (10/06/22)
Minor Character: Cute boy
Type: Regular Student
Appearance: Wears a red cap
Profiles: He passed away in a school shooting and appeared in the school as a ghost.
fig. 1.3 Ariel (10/06/22)
Minor Character: Ariel
Type: Angel / student
Appearance: A pair of blue wings and has a halo
Profile: Belle’s best friend
fig. 1.4 Devil (10/06/22)
Minor Character: Devil
Type: Devil / student
Appearance: A pair of red horns
Personality: Has a bad temper
fig. 1.5 Canteen Lady (10/06/22)
Minor Character: Canteen Lady
Type: Regular Canteen Lady
Appearance: A green hair net
Profile: Likes to keep the cafeteria clean
Plotline - 3 Act Structure
ACT 1 - Setup
Once upon a time, there was a school in the neighborhood that a lot of children go to. Everyday, a cute boy would use his skateboard to and from school. Unfortunately, a mass shooting occurred, and he died. Then fast forward to 2022 when children are attending school and it is their lunch break. Ariel, the angel, and Belle, the fairy decides what to eat. Then, Belle was distracted by a cute boy and starts to flirt with him. She was then ignored.
ACT 2 – Conflict
Because Belle was ignored, she starts throwing fries at the boy to get his attention. The boy still continued to ignore her. Because of that too, Belle was furious and continues to throw more fries at him until they accidentally hit a devil who was sitting next to him. The devil was so mad but did not know who threw the food. He suddenly had an evil idea to throw a slice of pizza at the person who he taught was the thrower. Others chimed into a food fight.
ACT 3 – Resolution
The food fight quickly escalated and the cafeteria was a mess. Suddenly, a pie was thrown into the air and hit the lunch lady in the face. She was drenched in cream and was very angry. The lunch lady clanked her pots and pans to get everyone’s attention. The students finally stopped and were told to clean up the mess. While everyone was organising the canteen, Belle noticed that the boy is gone. She asks Ariel if she’s seen him. Ariel told her that she had no idea which boy she was talking about and that she had been talking to herself all this while. The boy turned out to be the boy who died in the mass shooting.
Visual Research
Characters
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fig. 2.0 Character reference (28/05/22)
I wanted to create a character that is simple, drawn with a line-art style. I also wanted to give them props like fairy wings, party hats, sunglasses, etc, so they would look cute and fun.
Setting
fig. 2.1 Setting reference (28/05/22)
I also looked for references that had a school setting, cafeteria, and also food fight scenes.
Comic Style
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fig. 2.2 Comic style reference (28/05/22)
For comic style, it would be simple and line-art style inside square or rectangular panels. There would also be no speech bubbles for the text.
Sketching Process
After completing the storyline, I started sketching the different characters and settings to my story, finalising and colouring them.
Characters
I drew the character design for the Cute Boy, Belle, Ariel, the Devil, the Lunch Lady, and School Children.
fig. 3.0 Cute Boy: Sketches vs. Final Design (10/06/22)
fig. 3.1 Belle & Ariel: Sketches vs. Final Design(10/06/22)
fig. 3.2 Devil: Sketches vs. Final Design (10/06/22)
fig. 3.3 Canteen Lady: Sketches vs. Final Design (10/06/22)
fig. 3.4 School Children: Sketches vs. Final Design (10/06/22)
fig. 3.5 Final Characters Design (10/06/22)
Setting
I also drew features for the setting that include the school, cafeteria, kitchen, and school bell.
fig. 3.6 Setting: Sketches vs. Final Design (10/06/22)
Comic Panels
Next, I sketched the comic panels with the characters and setting I drew. It was a rough sketch that I planned on refining later on.
Next, I sketched the comic panels with the characters and setting I drew. It was a rough sketch that I planned on refining later on.
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fig. 3.7 Graphic Novel Draft Sketch (17/06/22)
fig. 3.8 Graphic Novel Draft Sketch (PDF) (17/06/22)
Digitalising Process
After finishing up the story panels, I redrew the cartoons to make them neater and presentable. This took me longer than expected.
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fig. 4.0 Finalised Graphic Novel in Adobe Illustrator (BW) (22/06/22)
fig. 4.1 Finalised Graphic Novel in Adobe Illustrator. (BW) (PDF) (22/06/22)
In the colouring process, I chose a cream colour for the walls of the school to give a warm feeling and included pastel colours in the school fight scene to provide it with a fun party vibe.
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fig. 4.2 Coloured Graphic Novel in Adobe Illustrator. (25/06/22)
fig. 4.3 Coloured Graphic Novel (PDF) (25/06/22)
As we were given additional time to work on projects 3 & 4, I decided to amend my comic by adjusting the panels to make them neater and refining my cartoons.
fig. 4.4 Final Comic Strip (PDF) (12/07/22)
PUBLISHING ON WEBTOON
I created the main, episode, and vertical thumbnails before uploading the JPEG files of my graphic novel on webtoon. The thumbnails utilised the characters who were in the food fight.
fig. 5.0 Main Webtoon Thumbnail 436 x 436 px (26/06/22)
fig. 5.1 Webtoon episode Webtoon Thumbnail 160 x 151 px (26/06/22)
fig. 5.2 Webtoon vertical thumbnail 1080 x 1920 px (26/06/22)
Uploading the files on Webtoon was not a difficult process. All the instructions are written on the website and we just have to follow them.
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fig. 5.3 Uploading the main thumbnail and vertical thumbnail onto webtoon. (27/06/22)
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fig. 5.4 Uploading the graphic novel pages and episode thumbnail. (27/06/22)
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fig. 5.5 The main page of my Graphic Novel on Webtoon. (27/06/22)
Webtoon Link:
ANIMATION PROCESS
I separated the objects/scenes that I want to put in the video so that it would be easier for me when I edit on Adobe Premiere Pro.
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fig. 6.0 Design elements break down. (27/06/22)
I also created a storyboard on Adobe Illustrator so I could plan which elements go to which scene.
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fig. 6.1 Storyboarding (27/06/22)
On premiere pro, I stacked many scenes of the bell slanting left and right to make it look like it's ringing.
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fig. 6.2 Stacking the bell scene. (28/06/22)
For the walking scene, I moved the position keyframes to start outside of the frame starting from the left and moving to the right accompanied by walking sound effects to feel like the girls are really walking.
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fig. 6.3 Making the girls "walk" (29/06/22)
I added a fade-out effect to the evil laugh scene accompanied by a sinister laughter sound effect to give an eerie feeling.
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fig. 6.4 Creating an eerie scene. (29/06/22)
Then, I stacked the scene where a student is slapped in the face with a pizza to maintain in the same position so it’d look like the pizza is sliding down the student's face.
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fig. 6.5 Pizza slap drawing 1 (29/06/22)
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fig. 6.6 Pizza slap drawing 2 (29/06/22)
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fig. 6.7 Pizza slap drawing 3 (29/06/22)
I customised the sound levels for different sound effects so that the overall hearing experience will be balanced. I also included a piece of fun background music with fade-in and fade-out at the start and the end to smoothen it out.
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fig. 6.8 Adjusting volumes for different sound effects (30/06/22)
Finally, after exporting the animation video, I uploaded it on Youtube.
fig. 6.9 Motion Comic Draft (30/06/22)
With the additional time, I readjusted the time
frames for the scenes so they would be better synchronised. I also added a
gasping sound effect when the canteen lady was hit by the pie.
fig. 6.10 Final Motion Comic (12/07/22)
FINAL SUBMISSION FOR PROJECT 3: GRAPHIC NOVEL (WEBTOON)
fig. 7.0 Final Submission for Project 3: Graphic Novel - Webtoon (JPEG) (12/07/22)
fig. 7.1 Final Submission for Project 3: Graphic Novel - Webtoon (PDF) (12/07/22)
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fig. 7.2 Webtoon Main Page with Thumbnail (03/07/22)
WEBTOON LINK:
Project 3 Google Drive Link:
FINAL SUBMISSION FOR PROJECT 4 (FINAL PROJECT): MOTION COMIC
fig. 8.0 Final Submission for Project 4 (Final Project): Motion Comic (Youtube) (12/07/22)
Motion Comic on Youtube:
Project 4 Google Drive Link:
FEEDBACK
Week 9
No feedback as I was not done planning my storyline.
Week 10
Ms. Anis told me to not make my story too complicated as we only have a limited number of panels to work with. She gave some ideas that some students in the food fight could throw things based on their "gang." For example, the artist students would be throwing paint brushes and the jocks would be making a cannonball of burgers. She also suggested that the ending could have the lunch lady shouting and everyone cleaning up the mess.
Week 11
No feedback as the consultation was optional.
Week 12
I had an ending at the end of the comic which paid tribute to the children who passed away at the Sandy Hook mass shooting. Ms. Anis said it was not needed and told me to continue with my sketches.
Week 13
No class this week as we were given time to work on our assignment.
Week 14
No class this week as we were given time to work on our assignment.
REFLECTION
Experience
The ‘Unforgettable Fight Scene’ theme allowed us to explore creating action through illustration. It is satisfying to me my drawings, from rough sketches to final cartoons. Making a comic is not as easy as it seems as I had to draw a lot which is my weakness. I have not drawn this much in a short time ever in my life. I had to resketch a couple of things so that they would look neater and presentable. I also struggled with choosing an ending for my storyline, which led me to include a prologue to the comic later on. The sketching part of the assignment was a rough process. I was also new to creating a webtoon. It was a bit complicated, but I coped with it.
Observation
Through creating the comic, I learned more about school mass shootings in the US, which were hinted at in the prologue. I observed that the more I sketched, the more my drawings improved along the way. The practical classes about colouring line art helped me in this assignment as I chose to stick with line art design. I have also put into practice different types of transitions along the way. I observed that the comic’s school setting brought me back to my secondary school memories and thought of each personality of the student character as my classmates.
Finding
I found that there are many ways to sketch a comic. You can use the pen tool, brush tool, and even shape tool. There is no one way to go around things in design. I also found that with more practice, my sketches improved, and I am not as insecure as before to presenting my drawings. I find that sketching is not as terrifying as before I did this assignment. It opened my eyes that I can create good illustrations if I put a lot of hard work and effort into it.
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