ASS3 - Final Assignment - A graphic short story
Assignment three A graphic short story
Choose a short story and turn it into a mini graphic novel. The length of the graphic novel will largely depend on the story you choose, so pick something manageable. Aim to work over two or three pages only. Be creative with how you approach this. Think about how you edit the story, the kinds of shots you take, the relationship between the dialogue and the characters. How do you depict the sounds and describe the action both visually and in terms of text? Along with the narrative itself, design a cover for your graphic novel that includes the name of the short story, the author’s details and your own. Reflect on the experience of converting the text to a visual form. What did you learn from this experience? How have your illustrations developed to accommodate the demands of the narrative? Your critical review If you haven’t done so already, make sure that you send your proposal for the critical review to your tutor with this assignment. If you’ve produced a draft outline of your review, submit this to your tutor, together with any questions you may have about the written project, e.g. accessing resources. Reflection Don’t forget to look at the assessment criteria in the Introduction before you proceed. Assess the work you have produced against these criteria and make notes in your learning log.
For this Final assignment 3 I have been thinking of some ideas over the last few days and wrote down some ideas to form a short story. I have decided to go back to the boy meets girl theme and come up with a story which is funny and has romance. In my sketchbook I have written down some ideas to get started.
After thinking of some ideas, I came up with the idea of a story called The Tree Of Sloth. Its about a sloth meeting another sloth who he likes. He wants to give her a flower but the branch he is on breaks and he falls to the ground. He gets upset but then all the sloths in the tree create a ladder to rescue him and he ends up back in the tree with the girl sloth and finally gives her the flower. Here below I tested out some layout and ideas of illustrations which I think would work great for this assignment.
The layout was quite hard to work out, I had in my head how the story was going to be played out in different panels but putting them together on a page was very difficult. In the end I decided to do it as a double page in a book, this way i could fit them all in to place.
Below is some sketches to get my characters face right. To me Sloths bodies are easy to draw but I wanted the correct personalities to show through their faces. I decided to use the two heads on the left for my male and female characters.
Here below is my first draft and my final draft of my layout. I am very happy with my ideas and watching it come together.The layout has a great composition its not all just standard square shapes. I broke this up by adding a heart and a circular shape that also effects two panels around it. The title of the graphic novel is placed in a triangle top left of the page.
Above: I first used a blue pencil and then went back over it with a fine liner to add all the details in,
From here I decided what style I wanted to create it. I was going to do it in Photoshop but then decided to use watercolours and keep to using traditional methods. I also wanted to explore watercolour as its a medium of interest to me.
I found this link helpful in looking at watercolour in graphic novels.
I ended up really enjoying myself that I didn't take many photos apart from this below and two time lapses to show my technique. I really enjoyed using the watercolours and made me even more interesting to work more with then in my work.
https://youtu.be/ge391u29Glk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRJfoXObDbg&feature=youtu.be
Finished Illustration
Here below is the finished short story. As you can see from the video above I used my creative skills with my favourite medium paper to cut all the panels out separate and then once finished I stuck them all down on a blue background:
I then used the above photo and put it in photo shop to edit.
I edited the sharpness and used the burn and doge tools to add more tones. I also added the font in to give the viewer a grasp of some sounds and actions. I used a font called impact which I don't think is the best at this moment in time but I want to create my book cover first to help decide on the font type. I also added in some water colour hearts on top of mine as I thought they looked better. I am very happy with the out come of the illustrations and the layout. Here below are some more images of the graphic novel.
Book Cover
Here below are my illustrations to discover my ideal book cover for this graphic novel.
I enjoyed experimenting and finding out what works best. I decided to use the tree with the hanging sloth hands so it gives the viewer a small idea about the book, making them intrigued to see whats inside.It is also great as on the tree trunk it gives me room to put the title which also is complimenting the story.
Again I used watercolours to flow with the rest of the graphic novel. Once finished I scanned it in to Photoshop to edit and ad the title and the author/illustrators name.
I tried a few different fonts and decided in the end that a Tiki style font works best. Tiki is a resemblance of a tropical place which fits in well with the sloths as they come from tropical rain forests of America.
Final Images
Here above are my final images of my graphic novel. I also changed the font in the graphic novel to match the book cover, there are only a few words so I thought this would work well. It there were paragraphs or even sentences I would of used a font which is clear to understand when surrounded by other words.
Reflect
I think I have succeeded so well with creating my graphic novel it had turned out well and I am really happy about how I have portrayed the story.
Due to having our wedding in two days time and also the deadline to hand this is was 5 days ago - I felt like I have had to rush a little with time against me. If I had more time I would of done some in depth research on sloths, more character development. However saying that I think I have done a great job and the out come has created a fun graphic novel for all ages.
I have enjoyed thinking of a story writing it down and converting it in to illustrations and making the visuals tell the story. I think my graphic novel does just that. The odd words such as crunch and bang are sound making words which are some familiar noises in the graphic novel that submerge the viewer in to the story more and imagining being there, watching the story unfold.
I have learnt that multi pictures can tell a story and that I am capable of making a story and bringing it to life through illustrations. The hardest bit I found was the layout of the story over two pages. I think I tried the layout just under 20 times until it all fell in to place. You want it to look great and attractive to the viewer but it also need to be clear to the viewer so they can follow the story correctly and look at the next correct illustration. I have also learnt about watercolours and I have really enjoyed learning how to use them.
As you can see from my write up above I wrote out the story and worked out what illustrations I needed and how many so that the viewer captures it all visually. My illustrations developed were very fitting to the story I had and there is nothing missed out that was in the write up of the story. I really enjoyed it all coming together and seeing with little words you can just tell a story through images.
Overall
This Assignment 3 has defiantly been right up my street and in my area of knowledge, it is all the things I aspire to do and become. Its has helped me to learn to illustrate phrases, cartoons, graphic novels, pop up books and even animation. I have had so much fun character making and researching learning about illustrating for children. Book covers have also been an eye opener to think about what to put on the front of the book with out giving the story away. Keeping the viewer interested is key and this can be done with great illustrations which are attractive and interesting to look at. I have learnt to follow briefs from tasks or my own and created work that is fitting for each exercise given. I understand the relationship between clients and audiences by following direction given and aiming the illustrations to the right age group audience.
I have done a lot of problem solving from compositions, working out how to make certain pop ups pop out of a page and ways to show expressions of characters.
I have thoroughly researched and even done extra research in to things I have been asked to look at and also for myself in areas I am interested in.
I think my skills are always developing and this assignment has given me information to think of before I create my illustrations such as layout/compositions, types of characters, styles and what to capture in an illustration to tell a story.
Not only have I used traditional art but I have also used technology such as apps and design software to enhance my work and create movement in my work through animations.
My favourite tasks were the pop up book I made - Thant was a big challenge I gave my self and it worked out fantastic. I also enjoyed Creating Victor my sheep character with different expressions and then creating him out of clay. Finally I also enjoyed creating animations and seeing my characters come to life.
I am really looking forward to the next assignment. I have had a sneak peak and I think it will open up my creativity to try other styles and discover other areas I am interested in.
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