April 2nd, 2021 - July 2nd, 2021 (Week 1 - Week 14)
Rusydina Fazlin Athirah (0344000)
Illustration and Visual Narrative
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Week 9 - Week 14
Weekly Journal
INSTRUCTIONS
Class Sessions/ Lecture
Week 9
[Breif explanation on starting Project 3 - Graphic Novel]
May 28th, 2021
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In this week's IVN class, Ms. Anis assigned the class to watch a pre-recorded video about our 3rd project and start it out. In the pre-recorded video Ms. Anis also guided us through lecture slides about '3 Acts structures'.
(3 Acts Structure, Lecture slides)
3 Acts Structure is also a topic to help fit us into starting out our 3rd project where we have to come up with a graphic novel. Since it's a novel, we are assigned to come up with a narrative to be later then visualized in a form of a comic.
Week 10
[Trasitions! - Making Comics]
June 4th, 2021
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Week 10 was the last class we'll have for lectures to indulge in our last project; making comics, so with that, Ms. Anis guided the class through helpful slides and did brief explanations on how transitions work in comics.
(Transitions! - Making Comics, Lecture slides)
With the help of knowing how to transition from one panel to the other in comics, it's important to know these subtopics when making a comic. It helps the story flow better with visuals instead of everything looking like it's crammed into one page.
Project 3 Brief:
Project 3 [Graphic Novel]
May 28th, 2021 (Week 9)
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Starting out the final project we would need to prepare a short story for us to base our character on. We have to employ the three-act structure and limit the word count to a maximum of 300 words only.
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| Figure 1.1.1 - Short Narrative exercise template, June 2nd, 2021 |
Dementia
June 2nd, 2021
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Once upon a time, there was a young black kitten that possessed an ability that prevented a realm from being engulfed by darkness and forgotten for all time. "Tom" was what they called him, and Stryker, a magnificent beast so far as seeing Tom as a savior, "The Chosen One," of this realm. Tom spent his childhood in an adventurous and exciting fashion as a believer and recognized as a hero to this realm, swearing to never forget and always to protect. Only a tiny kitten, Tom had the courage to tell the others in his class about his adventures with a mythical creature who rules and protects it. Only one kitten, Giselle, was blown away by Tom's stories, but the others didn't believe him and laughed at his tales.
Tom's bravery faded as he grew older, he became distant from his friends from Dementia, as well as Giselle. The older paws in his school pushed Tom around, accusing him of being childish for believing in that fantasy tales. Because of that, Tom became disheartened and severed all ties between himself, Stryker, and the realm he pledged to protect. Months passed with no change, and the only thing he was able to restore was his childhood friend Giselle. Until one day! Stryker returned with worry filling his face, darkness has risen once again, and without Tom’s presence and belief, Dementia and the civilization there will never exist ever again.
Tom brushed off his sorrow and returned to his realm alongside his friends, hoping to restore the peace in Dementia. To stop the chaos, Tom and Stryker must replenish the magic inside a crystal ball and only a ruler and a hero can do so. The three had to survive black magic when they made their way to the top of Stryker’s castle and when they did. Tom and Stryker placed their paws onto the crystal, with the remaining magic Stryker had left and the courage and belief that Tom had restored, Dementia’s skies were clear once again! And this time no matter what, Tom will always have his place in his realm.
365 words
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| Figure 1.1.2 -Storyboard p1, June 4th,2021 |
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Figure 1.1.3 -Storyboard p2, June 4th,2021
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[Story amendments and character design]
June 4th, 2021(Week 10)-
After presenting and explaining my story to Ms. Anis she suggested a few amendments on how my protagonist in my story grew up as a teenager as the story progresses since he started off as a little kitten. Ms. Anis mentioned how it wasn't necessary for that.
Later then, I did a few character design sheets to introduce the main characters in my story.
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| Figure 1.1.4 - Main Characters Portrait (Left to right: Giselle, Stryker, Tom), June 10th, 2021 |
Getting to know a little bit about the characters is always an important thing to keep in mind. In a way, it helps further diverse how deep the story can be without getting too much into detail since the comic is more of a summary of the whole plot that happens throughout the story.
Character #1:
Tom
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| Figure 1.1.5 - Tom expression/action sheet, June 10th, 2021 |
Tom is the main focus of how the whole story progresses. A little backstory about him, he is a very free-spirited and playful little kitten. He holds the power to be able to foresee and travel to a realm that he belongs to, maybe being sent down by a family member. Tom lives with only his mother that cares for him a little too much but has never met his father which gets to him when he grows a little older.
But as a kitten grew to have an even more adventure-like personality, he spends time in a fantasy realm. The real world would always beat him to the ground but Dementia would always lift his spirits at the end of his days, Tom cares about those he has around.
Character #2:
Giselle
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| Figure 1.1.6 - Giselle expression/action sheet, June 10th, 2021 |
Giselle can be seen as a sort of the side character, she is one of- and well the only friend of Tom. They've been friends ever since they were little kittens. More than that, Giselle is just like any ordinary kitten out there with an adventurous spirit but that spirit is often put down by her father.
Giselle's conflict is that she lost her mother, the only cat that adored Giselle's love for adventures and creativity after her mother's passing, Giselle did her best to bring her dad out of that grief but failed many times, even as far as giving up on her own lively spirit to keep alive.
Until Tom told many tales of his time in Dementia and inspired her to be the kitten she uses to be, with that Giselle believed and Tom allowed her to see the wonders of the realm.
Character #3:
Stryker
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| Figure 1.1.6 - Stryker expression/action sheet, June 10th, 2021 |
Last but definitely not least is Stryker, the ruler of Dementia. A mythical beast that protects Dementia from ruins and creates life within such an alluring realm, Stryker's power, and purpose to be the peace of Dementia and those who believe in Stryker (especially little ones) will be given the chance to walk the realm.
To put it to simpler words, there is a role for every top-tiered beast that invites little kittens, cubs, and pups to Dementia to further their imagination, each beats relates to their kid that they take hand in hand.
Stryker happens to match up with Tom's strong-willed personality, therefore they meet and they keep Dementia safe together, Stryker and Tom are as if two peas in a pod.
Further comic style research:
Before I sketch out my scenes for each comic panel, I decided on researching a little bit on what kind of style I can take inspiration from to start out my comic. The same goes with the kind of comic concept and background style it should be. For most of the art pieces I found, I wanted to have a similar sense of what kind of beings that I'd be designing and put into my story.
So there were many 'Warrior Cats' fan art and concept art and a few feral comic pieces with talking cats or dogs. It was interesting to research the style that best resembles my art style as well. Other than that, I implemented the story's acts and what to expect in my comic.
Comic Panel Sketches:
There are 20 pages in total (including cover) of sketches on how I envision my Comic 'Demntia' to play out. I quickly got onto the line art and coloring and implemented the scenes into their respected panels in photoshop.
Other than that, submitting the comic into webtoon was one of the submissions in the project, I can say honestly I was very strong on the animating part of the comic but I felt like I did a good on the comic part.
Being able to expose our comics on a webcomic website increased my interest in actually making more of these kinds of exercises out of classes. So with that, I added my comic onto Webtoons.
Comic Finalize Outcome:
After completing each page of the panels the next steps were to turn it into a motion comic. I used adobe after effects for this part of the project, I can say I suppose it turned out as good as I can make it be since I wasn't very familiar with after effects but it was worth a shot at learning the program and how it the presets work wit transitioning the different panels in and coming up with relevant effects that correlate to the panels.
Final Motion comic video Outcome:
Reflection
July 10th, 2021
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Experience
Through the 14 weeks of IVN, many experiences were having to do with a much wider perspective when it comes to illustration and writing narratives that will turn into something that is visually in motion. It was an interesting 14-week course. Even though the classes were at the end of every week and felt like it was less but being able to be independent and having Ms. Anis and Mr. Kannan's trust and guidance to carry out our exercises and projects made it really fun!
Observations
I was able to observe through these 14 weeks of IVN was the sheer amount strategies and fixated ideas when implementing them into a narrative or an illustration that correlates to the story. Moreover, Mr. Kannan thought the class a lot on how to function the adobe programs (Illustrator, Photoshop, and After effects), there had to be a lot of observing involve when carrying out that part of the activity but I can say the observing part to this course definitely made me see a bigger picture to enhancing visual narratives that I can hope to apply of my personal narrated projects too!
Findings
What I found intriguing about Ivn is how much there were many general things that I've might have heard of or known before when sitting through the lectures by Ms. Anis. Though listening in or looking through the lecture slides provided by Ms. Anis was a really cool way to look into it much deeper than I did before. I had no clue that something I sort of understanding when it came to narratives had a better way of me doing it on how I did it before. I did a few of these tips and applied them to my own narratives a little and it was much fun and not as complicated to work through it. Therefore I can say that this course definitely helped in, supposedly a hobby I like to do but taken to a level where I can be better at it!
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