Computer Arts Honours Project: October 2015

Saturday, 31 October 2015

Inktober Final Work

Day 23

Day 24

Day 25

Day 26

Day 27

Day 28

Day 29

Day 30

Day 31

I have been unable to complete the last day's Inktober drawing however I plan to have it completed in my spare time. This opportunity has been beneficial for me as it allowed me to quickly create something each day. It also allowed me to look at what I was weak at.

Friday, 30 October 2015

Research Methodology

While I still need to lay the foundations for my research question, I do have a few methods about how I want to carry out my research project.

Here are some questions that I need to ask myself;

Can I convert a story from a literacy source into a wordless narrative in sequential art?
Can the story be told without words in a comic?
How can I take a complicated story such as HP Lovecraft and have it presented as a wordless narrative in the form of sequential art?
Can I apply principals of animation into sequential art?
Does the comic need to be silent in order for me to tell the story especially that of a particular Lovecraft story?
Can it be told through no dialogue and speech bubbles?
How much do characters contribute to a wordless narrative in the form of sequential art?

I plan to explore the aspects that go into making a wordless graphic novel and see if I can take an existing narrative and present in a wordless sequential art format.

Experiment

Since it's a comic, I could show it to other students in my year and ask them if I can see if this is readable without words. It would be a helpful approach for feedback and areas for improvements.

Practice

Practice will help me develop my current skills in illustration. I should look at example of artists and see if I can take some inspiration from their works in regards to composition of characters or layout of characters and postures. This can also apply to my current presentation skills.

Interviews

During an early stage of my project, I sent an email to an artist I saw in a magazine. I asked him why he chose his particular style. He told me that it was all about preferences and that he took some influences from previous artists.

Case Studies

I can do a case study of existing comics both good and bad to see their strengths and weaknesses.
Furthermore, I can look into the different ways sequential comics can be used.

Additional Concerns

My other concern is my business card is requiring a redesign. My current presentation is needing to be updated and expanded upon I think it will need a redesign have additional work to my portfolio. I'm also worried that my work is too broad to the point where I'll be unapproachable.

Tuesday, 27 October 2015

Short Comic Idea

I did have an idea for a short animation for my Advanced Animation Module. However in the end, I decided to scrap the idea and focus on a games related project.

Story

The initial idea for the story was a young fawn that is nothing but a dark silhouette. He is lonely and wants some company. He hears a sound like a flute mimicking a cuckoo bird. He follows the sounds making the same notes as a form of communication. However when he arrives after this journey he finds out that it was just a bird. He leaves and returners to his home disappointed. He remains there sad and depressed until he sees that the bird followed him. The bird cries out and other animals emerge. The bird begins to sing and the faun starts to play joyfully on his flute. What I had in mind was the idea of sketchy visual style. The idea was to keep this about 3 pages at least.

Here is a link to my Rough Animatic.

I was thinking about using this as a starting point. However I went and did some development work for how the character would look.

I looked at various ways the character could appear. The original design was for the character to be a black silhouette. The reason for this was to allow the figure to be drawn more efficiently.However I did not continue with this development.

Use of Lines

In Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics:An Invisible Art (1994), he tells us that lines can help suggest mood and character emotions through the background. Even the way lines are used can tell us of a character's personality and mood. I believe if I go for the HP Lovecraft story I can implement the psychology themes through the use of line work. Since the story is about a morphine addict's story, I could use the idea of unstable lines to reflect his mindset and use backgrounds to reflect his inner emotions. it would allow the reader to see more about his character.
The use of panels and gutters can help emphasis the length and passage of time. The size of panels and the gutter-less ones could help establish a timeless feel and a sense of place.

Reference

McCloud, S. 1994. Understanding comics. New York: HarperPerennial.

Mood Board Concept Development

For this honours project, I have decided to explore the ways that cover certain areas of comics such as designing the characters,the concept art for comics and props.

Comic Character Model Sheet Mood Boards

Here, I looked at how these characters will be designed and references from different angle. Some of these model sheets doe shows poses, gestures and poses.

Weapon and Prop Concept Art Mood Boards

The weapons are shown from one view but at times they can be shown form another angle. I also looked at some weapons props concept from games. The insomniac concept art from the Ratchet and Clank games had a simple grey celled shaded piece.

Comic Character Concept Art Mood Board

The concept art for some comic characters varies from artist to artist.

Dagon Comic Mood Board

http://hoodd.deviantart.com/art/Dagon-page-3-269778293

http://orig08.deviantart.net/2088/f/2013/101/b/c/hpl_s_dagon__for_beginning_readers____p26_27_by_drfaustusau-d618u0c.png

http://dreamers.com/logia/contenido/ha_dagon05.htm

Education Day

I attended the education day event at Edinburgh college of art on Friday and I managed to take part in talk with Mahiro Maeda who work on many animated features such as NGE 3.0 and Hibiki Yoshizaki who worked on the Japanese animation short MEMEME.
The two anime directors were sharing their experience of working on independence short films as a way for many member of the industry to try new things and to spark creativity. Maeda showed examples of his work which were more focused on the traditionally drawn approach to animation whereas Yoshizaki took a more digital-traditional hybrid approach by combining 2D and 3D animation techniques together. The two of them showed to the audience about their breakdown their breakdown of each scene. I found this event to quite helpful as Tom Bryant the founder of Interference Pattern a Edinburgh animation studio spoke to us today and gave us some great details about what it is like to be working as one of the only independent animation studio.
Johnathan Clements did a talk about how the anime industry is changing. I found this talk to be quite interesting as it helped answer questions I had about the direction that the anime is currently heading. I always wondered why the story telling is not as effective in anime as it used to. The reason I considered this was because I find story to be a strong element when it comes to animation,

After the talks finished I headed over to the Edinburgh film house to watch a film called Expelled From Paradise (2014). I enjoy watching anime so I went to see this film to see what the combination of 3D and 2D animation would look in a feature length animated film. Instead of 2D animated characters, they had 3D characters but painted in the same visual appearance as if they were made in 2D. The backgrounds were 2D but when it came to fast action scenes, these were in 3D. This was difficult to judge. At times, it looked like they were drawing in 2D but when they moved it was clearly obvious what it was a 3D model. However, I would give them credit for using this opportunity to experiment with this technique. The animation at times had time to breath between action sequences and there is a reasonable amount of banter between the two leads instead of constant action and little character development. Here the characters do develop and changed at the end. However, it didn't make a big impact on my part. Furthermore in the third act, we are introduced to three characters we don't know and their introduction feels out of place. However I found the biblical themes to be a bit overused, since the main female character in this film is called Angela. However there is a clean contrast between her and the male lead who reminds me of Star War's Han Solo. The giant robot scene also are fast paced and it was the first instance I wasn't too bothered by the 3D models replacing 2D ones. However I still feel that there is room for improvement. While I don't say it's an amazing film, I still enjoyed watching it.

References

Expelled from Paradise. 2014. [film] Directed by Seiji Mizushima. Tokyo: Toei Animation.

Stain Glass Windows Visual Research

Stain glass windows consist of multi coloured forms of glass fused together with lead to create illustrative works that tell a story. At first the early forms of stain glass had little colours but colours were added through the use of chemicals and dyes. As different forms of stain glass were discovered more colours were available to be added to these stain glass pieces. Yellow stain glass was used to high certain elements of an illustration such as a halo or crown.

According to BBC.co.uk church floor plan interactive game (2014), they were in demand for clients, because people believed that they helped provide a sure entry into heaven when they died. Stain glass windows continued to be used and produced but it was until the church reformed in the 1500s when they decided that stain glass was no longer an effective form of sacred art. The art of stain glass making fell into obscurity until the 1850s when the lost art was rediscovered. The stain glass mainly consists of glass shards merged together with lead and are painted over on coloured stain glass. It doesn't have to be a collection of glass pieces together. Sometimes a single glass panel is enough to tell a story. The Archangel Michael Vanquishing the Devil, is a good example of this. What helps emphasis their appearance is that light can pass through them like a normal glass window. In this case, it helps illuminate the painting and give it more effectiveness in this story. In the 1400s, glass windows became common place and affordable by most people. It was long before that that the stain glass windows were used in churches. There was a time when stain glass was used at a smaller scale for houses and families. Some would be used for a family portrait. It was in the sixth century that the head of the catholic church, Pope Gregory requested that artists tell the story the stories of the bible as a way to educate people as it allowed those who could not read books to be able to understand the ideas and stories of the bible's teachings through visual representation. Gies, Joseph and Frances discuss how stainless illustrations allow "illiterate people to learn what books cannot teach them. (Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages, page 130.) as quoted in https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/STORIES-in-GLASS-Stained-Glass-Windows

Stain Glass is still used to these days but the style of it has been used in different ways. In a few examples, this artist has used the style of stain glass to reinterpret the stories depicted in the World of Warcraft MMORPG series. Each of the panels represents the expansion of Warcraft. In the below image, it is a stain glass style mural which tells the story of Garrosh the warlord of the horde and how he ended up in the past. The expansion is about Garrosh travelling to Draenor before the first RTS game in the nineties. The top section of the shows us the warlords of Draenor and the dark portal. the arch of the portal helps act as a frame for a focal point. Garrosh is showing his back while stretching out to grab frames to suggest that he is trying to bend the timelines. The presence of gears and clogs helps indicates the them of time and the concept of time. Underneath Garrosh is an illustration of Garrosh's trial and how he was judged by the four spirits of Draenor. the overlay of warm colours connects with the primary colour them for the expansion.The Black Prince and the bronze dragon aspect is present on the mural

Vision of Time (Guo 2015)

Fall of Arthas (Guo 2011)

Hour of Twilight (Guo 2011)

Another example of this style being used in a different media is in the game legend of Zelda Windwaker.

Legend of Zelda Stain Glass (Nintendo 2002)

Book References
AwesomeStories.com, 2008. Stories in Glass. [online] Available at: https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/STORIES-in-GLASS-Stained-Glass-Windows [Accessed 25 Jan. 2016].

Bbc.co.uk, 2014. BBC - History - British History in depth: Church Interiors Challenge. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/games/church_floorplan/index_embed.shtml [Accessed 25 Jan. 2016].

Gies, F. and Gies, J. 1994. Cathedral, forge, and waterwheel. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Guo, J. 2011. Fall of Arthas. [image] Available at: http://breathing2004.deviantart.com/art/fall-of-Arthas-213820425 [Accessed 27 Oct. 2015].

Guo, J. 2015. Vision of Time. [image] Available at: http://breathing2004.deviantart.com/art/Vision-of-Time-545394498 [Accessed 27 Oct. 2015].

Guo, J. 2011. Hour of Twilight. [image] Available at: http://breathing2004.deviantart.com/art/hour-of-twilight-252584914 [Accessed 27 Oct. 2015].

Khan Academy, n.d. Khan Academy. [online] Available at: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/latin-western-europe/gothic1/a/stained-glass-history-and-technique [Accessed 25 Jan. 2016].

Nintendo, 2002. Legend of Zelda Stain Glass. [image] Available at: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/eb/6d/69/eb6d6903d545a0c9efd0ccc3de12bd2a.jpg [Accessed 27 Oct. 2015].

Stainedglassmuseum.com, 2015. A Brief History of Stained Glass. [online] Available at: http://stainedglassmuseum.com/briefhistory.html [Accessed 25 Jan. 2016].

The Archangel Michael Vanquishing the Devil. 1530. [Colourless glass , oxide paint and silver strain] Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.

Saturday, 24 October 2015

Radio Drama Interpretation and Film Comparison

One form of media test I attempted was to take a scene from Star Wars and illustrate how it was portrayed win the film but also in a radio drama format. Although both mediums told teh same story ,the radio drama had a more in depth description of the story and the characters.

The segment I would like to reinterpret into a visual format is from 2:13:24 to 2:16:40

[UPDATED] This video is no longer available.

I chose the scene where Luke heads home to find the place burnt and his family killed. In the radio drama, this scene is reinterpreted from Obiwan's perspective. Luke heads off home while Obi-wan tells C3P0 to bury the Jawas. Luke returns emotionally scarred and he tells Obi-wan about what he saw so that we, the audience can understand what he saw. In this version, Mark Hamill delivers the lines in a more convincing performance. However it is cut short when he changes his decision quickly and decides to join Obi-wan on his quest. In my opinion, I think it would have been more effective if Obi-wan gave Luke some time to recover from his ordeal and to be by himself.

Here is my sketch of the scene based of the film's visual iteration.

Sketch

Line art

Here is how I visually perceived the scene as it was interpreted through the radio drama.

Sketch

Combination Attempt

Here is an attempt I made to combine the two together so that we cut back and forth to Luke when he's telling Kenobi about what happened. While I made this interpretation of the scene. I showed this to a friend and when we discussed the inconsistent and spontaneous change for Luke to instantly changing his mind and joining Obi-wan on his quest. It felt very rushed. He suggested that he may have been thinking about this while driving back. I had a thought of recreating that scene with Luke thinking about the homestead while driving he gets more upset thinking about it and almost hits a rock when he takes his eyes off the road. He parks alongside a canyon edge and a rest his head on the steeling mechanism. I feel this approach might be effective as it can be told without the character saying a word.

Reference

Daley, B. 1981. Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama. [Radio] Prince Frederick: HighBridge_Audio. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEPba_tdFbk [Accessed 1 Oct. 2015].

Foreign Comic Analysis

A relative returned from Spain to bring me some comics that were in Spanish. One example was oriented for a young female teen demographic and another that was oriented for an audience who main genar interest was horror. I looked at these to see if I can get an idea of the story without trying to understand the language to know what the story is about.

The first one was difficult to fully understand all the panels but I go the idea that it was about a group of five girls who fight the supernatural.
While I couldn't read the Spanish dialogue I could understand that it was a high school drama themed show as well. I also knew that its audience would be an aimed at a young audience as the use of colours are .I could understand this through the character proportions and design , choice of colour and the chosen style. When it came to a flashback or cut away to a retelling of history, I could clearly understand those differences the the use of colour and visual traits. However when it came to understand the entire story fully, there were a few occasions where the previously read pages had to be revisited in order to understand the context.

W.I.T.C.H Page Sample

Creepy Comic Page Samples

The other sample was from the Creepy 1985 magazine. Here, the style is a complete contrast to the girl oriented one. Here, there is only black and white printed worked where the contrast is high an there is major focus on the use of silhouette. there proportions and the choice of colour helps suggest that this aimed at an older audience. With the themes of death, gore and horror shows that this for an older audience. The main style for the narration is they use a black background with white text whereas when the dialogue is represented in white speech bubbles and black text for the dialogue. The style of shots in this comic are more cinematic.

Friday, 23 October 2015

Post Grad Work Oppurtunities

In preparation for post grad work, I decided to observe a job position.

Concept Artist

"Nine Twenty are delighted to be working with an established Mobile Games Studio in Dundee who are looking for a passionate and dedicated concept artist to join the art team!
The company makes games for mobile, tablet and hand held platforms and is successfully expanding with the launch of a second office in 2015. This is an exciting new phase for the studio, building teams around three core areas of the business: partnership, own IP and technology.
The Concept Artist will be involved in the production of work on a number of gaming platforms including mobile, tablet, console and other devices. They will possess a strong ability present their work to potential and existing clients to lead the company to future work opportunities.

The role:

The Concept Artist must be a strong generalist with excellent traditional art skills and demonstrate an ability to manage a wide variety of visual styles and work within the boundaries and guidelines of established properties where necessary. You will have the capacity to work across multiple projects at any one time, working closely with other team members to ensure high standards of visuals are maintained over all projects within minimal scheduled times.
You will be a highly skilled and experienced individual comfortable in a variety of software packages including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects and 3D Studio MAX/Maya.

Responsibilities:

Create high quality concept art that can include gameplay shots, characters, objects, architecture and environments, user interface etc. in a range of art styles.
Actively participate in production and art team meetings.
Pitch concept art to potential and exciting clients.
The capacity to create beautiful concept art quickly, coherently and in a multitude of art styles.
Expected to resolve issues on their own and/or seek out solutions with an appropriate team member.
Show a flexible approach allowing special and/or urgent assignments to be completed with minimum impact.
Mentor/Coach junior members of the art team, helping to develop their skills and capacity.

Requirements:

Candidates will ideally have 3+ years of experience working on PC, console, handheld or mobile gaming platforms.
Will have a distinct ability to quickly create effective and coherent concept, illustrative and sketch art.
Show a strong foundation in traditional drawing skills.
Have a proven track record of multiple drawing styles.
Possess a strong ability to present their work to potential and existing clients.
Show evidence of excellent 2D art creation skills, animation, texturing, graphic design etc.
Show an ability to meet tight deadline and follow direction, technical process and schedules.
Experience with agile development processes and source control systems preferred.
3D conceptual art creation skills using 3DSmax (preferred) or Maya, including modelling, rigging, texturing, animation and lighting is a strong bonus.

Key Personal Attributes:

Strong work ethic, combined with a sense of humour
Ability to multi-task across various projects and styles
Fast workflow
Confident with client based pitches
Excellent teamwork skills, positive attitude and flexibility
Highly motivated with a hunger for on-going learning and development
A passion for games, ideally social, mobile and online game "

The above information was from this link: http://www.jobsite.co.uk/job/concept-artist-954354547?src=search&tmpl=lin&position=14&page=1&engine=&search_referer=

After reading this advert, a few questions have arisen:

How can I make my work presentable?
How can I say in my cover letter that I can do what they are looking for?
Should I considered changing my business card to something more sleeker and modern?

Reference

Bay, J. n.d.. How To Become A Video Game 2D Artist. [online] Gameindustrycareerguide.com. Available at: http://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/how-to-become-a-video-game-2d-artist-animator/ [Accessed 28 Sep. 2015].

Wednesday, 21 October 2015

The Importance of Silence

During my experience of reading and watching media. I have slowly began to show some appreciation of silent moments in comics and films.

When it comes to characters, some times given them too much to talk about can make them annoying. In the Miramax version of the Thief and the Cobbler, the main character and the thief end up saying too much in every scene they are in. For example, there is a scene where the Cobbler escapes a cell and he states that he was free. Another scene where he's changing the Thief he making a lot of yelling and it distracts us from eh intimation of the scene. In the edited version of the film which include unused storyboards, the same scene is a lot better without any of the main characters saying anything. Doug Walker addresses this saying hat instead of the two characters saying anything and instead says the story is told through the animation.

In this re-edit of the film, Thethiefarchive attempted to restore the film to the level that the original; movie's director Richard Williams wanted the story to be about.

In the same instant can be used here with the Spider-Man animated series. There is an entire scene where there is no pace. It feels very rushed and doesn't take a break. The animations moves from scene to scene and it feels like it was very rushed in telling a story. I can see this through the way the frame and timing are set up. Although I am looking into how comics can visual tell a story, comics also have their version of how time can be visually interpreted. Even when there is a scene which can be visually shown to use the voice over still feels obliged to basically state the obvious.

Spider Man TAS Season 01 - Episode 01 (Spider-man: The Animated Series 1994)

Although these examples are a different medium, the idea of using dialogue or words can be applied in comics. At times, visuals can convey a clear message but then the words included in the speech bubble repeat this unnecessarily. Eisner (1996 p.66) explains that it “is important not to repeat the information or to bore the reader by dwelling on details that have already been conveyed with the drawing or with the text”. This means that visuals have the ability to convey ideas without the assistance of words.

References

Eisner, W. 1996. Graphic Storytelling & Visual Narrative. 5th ed. Tamarac: Poorhouse Press.

TheThiefArchive, (2013). The Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled Cut Mark 4 Pt. 1. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZibUpH-AME&list=PL18B0CA620B61D076&index=1 [Accessed 20 Oct. 2015].

S. Templeton, E. (2015). Spider Man TAS Season 01 - Episode 01 (Night Of The Lizard). [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Lv1XrY1Cw [Accessed 20 Oct. 2015].

Spider-man; The Animated Series. 1994. [television broadcast]. Fox Kids. November 10th.

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: Picture and Word Combinations

During my readings, I have found a good book called Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics and in it based on my pursuit for seeing who I can get across my story through comics. He was addressed a series of pictorial-text combination. In Chapter 6, pages 138 to 161, he discusses about the different combinations of how words and pictures can be displayed in a comic.

Word specific - mixture where pictures illustrate but they do not add to the overall idea described in the text.

Picture specific - text adds not very much to picture that already clearly conveys. all it can do is provide some audio to the scene.

Duo specific - the pictures and images basically state the same message that each form is trying to convey. In my opinion this can be much as I would prefer one medium to convey a series of idea rather than both. This video clip from Futurama help understand explain why it does not work.

However in the context of this video, it works for comical effect.

McCloud describes how a children the event at school where we provide something for show and tell, we use a series of images and description to "transmit a series of interconnected ideas" (1994 p. 152)

Additive - Basically this combination shows an image and the text aligned with it helps emphasis the visuals or develops it into further detail. This can be done either way.

Parallel Combination - the text and images don't connect to each to her but they do follow their own path.

Montage- allows the text to become part of the image itself.

p.155

Interdependent combinations- These are where the two pictures and text must work together in order to convey the idea which can only be conveyed with words and pictures.

McCloud says that words and pictures take turns to lead because if both do this then it could lead to problems to achieve the comics goal. (1994 p.156)

He goes on to say that if the pictures provide enough clarify there is more freedom for the text to "explore a wider area"(McCloud 1994 P.157)

"there are other approaches to this such as show sections of the scene and be more specific on particular words. you can even go for abstract segments to enhance the words. There can also be some important emotional moments that can work with teh words and image combined together. (McCloud 1994 p. 160)

Reference

McCloud, S. 1994. Understanding comics. New York: Harper Perennial.

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

Honours Project Blog Aim

The Honours Year Blog should contain evidence of the following:
– Identification of skill gaps and subsequent development of technical skills
– Examples of and critical reflection on creative and artistic practice
– Understanding of and critical engagement with relevant theories
– Personal reflection on your honours experience

You should be sure to present your blog professionally, use appropriate language, provide links and references where necessary, and make use of tags to help with blog navigation.

Identification of skill gaps and subsequent development of technical skills

Here I will look at where I am with my chosen area of field and I should be able to demonstrate my gradual development of skills such as using software packages.

– Examples of and critical reflection on creative and artistic practice

Provide examples of media tests that are analysed and reflect on where my current skills ares in regards to creative practice.

– Understanding of and critical engagement with relevant theories

Here I will need to write down some areas that I have read from books and show that I am observing these theories. In others words I will write about what I know about comics from books I have written then look at examples of where the theories has done well and where it was done poorly.

Analyzing examples I have read.

– Personal reflection on your honours experience

Here I will talk bout my strengths weaknesses at certain points during the project,

Friday, 16 October 2015

Star Wars Rough Thumbnail Diagram Media Test

While I show great interest in Star Wars especially the sci-fi genre, I thought it would be ideal for me to take this opportunity to allow me to carry out some practice for my honours project.

I made series of thumbnails reenacting one of the pivotal scene in the Star Wars films, The destruction of Alderaan.

Star Wars Destruction of Alderaan Storyboard

At the time, I was trying to see if I could try and visualize a particular scene from the movie. What I did was listened to the audio from the scene without visuals and tried to draw quickly how each part of the scene would have been performed. Eventually I revisited the scene for visual reference on the costumes and scene composition. At times I feel that I have succeeded in capturing the performances of characters from the character Tarkin being threatening and menacing to Leia feeling oppressed and intimidated state. However the original scene itself lacked a form of emotion from certain characters. I focused on Leia's face as she witnessed the destruction of her home planet. I wanted to try and capture her emotion during this moment. I kept the visuals very simple to allow me to get an idea of where certain visuals clues would go.While I wish for my project to go for a minimal verbal approach. Star Wars is a major franchise that crosses multiple cultures and to me feels universal. This was just a form of practice to display my skills to tell an existing source materials while using old and new elements.

Rendered Still

I'm also made this drawing from one of the panels I made for this story board.

Star Wars Screenplay to Comic Page Process

Here is my current progress on my comic page interpretation of a screenplay extract. What I did here was read the screen play extract and wrote down the scene I wanted to visualise. I started with a few rough idea of how the comic page could be laid out. I intended to include the main story beats of this particular scene.

Page 1 Process

Initial Sketch

Base colouring of comic characters

Base colouring of Background

Character Shading

Page 2 Process

Initial Roughs

Line Art

Base Colouring

Shading Applied

Lighting Adjustments

Final Page

Final Page 1

Final page 2

Evaluation

I feel that I have achieved a visual approach to converting a screenplay extract into a visual comic page. I feel that I managed to get the characters translated okay in a style and captured the main key traits of their appearance.
An appropriate balance of traditional and digital techniques such as sketches and a graphics tablet was used to produce digital drawings. The characters were translated through a reasonable visual style, capturing the key traits of their appearance and provide a form of exaggeration to allow their facial expressions to be read clearly. The literature source of the screenplay helped provide an insight into how the comic could be visualised. The chosen art style was problematic while implementing the character’s proportions. The continuity of certain objects laid out in the scene varied from panel to panel especially for the background.The line work was thin and rough but it could be improved by thickening the lines and adding weight to them to help provide a more solid drawing.
The backgrounds were the weakest area because they were drawn last. This was overcome by digitally painting over the final comic image as a means of working efficiently without escalating the complication of the layers.
In hindsight, a quick floor plan in the form of a small drawing would have been beneficial. In response to this experiment, the production of the comic pages and the chosen visual style for the project artefact were changed. The inclusion of additional panels would have benefited the narrative.
The media tests were a technical experimentation of production values, including the application of current understanding of comic conventions and how they can be used to visually translate a scene from a screenplay.

In short, this was a test to demonstrate where I was with my skills in illustration.

Reference

Vaz, M., Lucas, G. and Hales, J. 2002. The art of Star wars, episode II, attack of the clones. New York: Ballantine Pub. Group, pp.200, 2004.

Thursday, 15 October 2015

Notes from Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics

I was reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics (1994) and I learned a lot about comic theory and the ways that time can be conveyed through panels,

Panel transitions
moment to moment
Transition moment to moment,
action to action
aspect to aspect

Panels are contained time capsules. the length can determine the space and time of the panel. how long a moment is acts as a gesture to show you when time is divided. The number of speech bubbles along with the direction they are placed in can suggest the length of time is taken between them.
One panel does not mean that each panel last one moment. (McCloud 1994 p. 97)

A timeless feeling can be conveys when there are no borders on a panel. It helps provide a sense of space and can establish mood.

Panels can provide closure he gutter. the phenomenon where once can see part of one thing but is able to be aware of the whole thing. (McCloud 1994 p.82-83)

The use if lines in comics can reflect the artist's moods lines used for suggesting an invisible representation. A visible symbol can end up becoming an invisible symbol. the use of symbols in human civilization is constantly developing. It can even evolve in different places such as eastern symbols have develop in a different direction to western ones. (McCloud 1994 p.124-131)

References

McCloud, S. 1994. Understanding comics. New York: Harper Perennial

Informal Presentations

On the 14th of October, I took part in some informal presentations.

I was able to provide some ideas and feedback to my fellow peers and even asked them a few questionnaires.

When I showed them what I have been doing for my project, the feedback was positive.
Ben was telling me that I should consider quality over quantity and that I should consider looking at Scott McCloud's work about comic book theory. I agreed with his suggestion and backed up this with the fact that the story I was planning to base my comic off was on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft.

Also if I were to do my project in print, I will need to finds places to print out my comic. If that is the case, I will need to know what type of paper to print it off. I will also need to see how it will look like when printed. Therefore I will need to understand what is the best lighting levels so that the paper does not come out too dark.

They also suggested different approaches to my comic such as making it digital and if so I can add in some effects such some visual effects to help make the scene quite lively. For example if I can, I could try add some animated effects.

Dagon Mood Boards

With my decision to produce a comic based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story Dagon, I decided to gather visual research.To begin, I started with collecting various images on certain subjects for visual inspiration.