Week 4 Progress and Meeting

This week has been a bit tiring. I have been finding it difficult to concentrate at university. I can understand why many people prefer to work from home. I had to spend some time on the revised ethics form in order for me to continue with my work. I have made good progress on my line artwork. I have also included extra comic pages to provide additional detail or to further enhance certain moments from the short story. I attended a brief meeting with my supervisor Brian to discuss my ethics form and why it was rejected. The reason the form was rejected was because I did not fill it out correctly. I asked about a few issues I was concerned about, such as the subject matter involving a character taking morphine and the recurring themes of horror and madness, However this was a visual storytelling project that did not involved people so I didn't  need to worry about that. I managed to submit my ethics form again and have received full approval for the project.

Here are some examples of business cards that I currently hold. I decided to scatter them across the floor so that I could capture each individual one. I wanted to focus on how they were arranged and laid out.

I plan to print off a new design of business cards or improve old ones.

For the back to help save on text I decided to see if I can test out a QR code to see if it can make my portfolio site more accessible.

Business Card Test

Week 4 Supervisor Meeting

 This week, I presented my comic pages to Brian and Kier, who was the other student at this meeting.
The meeting with Brian this week was helpful for me. He asked me if there were any additional explanatory text. He suggests that the first few pages could be better if more panels were included. One example was that the German ship could approach the protagonist's ship and we can then see the big picture of the ship being raided,

Original Sketch of Theory illustration

The protagonist sits down and tries to figure out how the black mire came to be. My peers and my supervisor suggested that I remove this thought element as it doesn't clearly show his theory and it also does not really help progress the story. It would be more appropriate if I did not include this in the story. One strategy he told me was that I should perhaps use a segment of text to see how the panel visually communicates the idea. Instead I decided to go with the idea of taking it out of the equation.

They gave me some great feedback on my comic pages. Kier suggested that on the page where the protagonist wakes up. he said that I should perhaps remove the fourth panel and merge the characters pose with the protagonist's pose in the big picture where he's twisting his body around to see what s going on in his new surroundings.
Kier and Brian assumed that in the page where the creatures are lurking underwater, looking up at boats on the surface. they mistook the ship underbellies as arrow heads. They suggested that I can include some waves's and shadows on the ships' underbelly to make it more obvious. Nevertheless I was planning to include some atmospheric perspective when it came to the colouring segment. Brian suggested that I took a look at Miyazaki's Ponyo for some visual reference.

On the final page where the environment suggests that the protagonist jumps out of the window, Brian suggested that I include the use of light or visual hints at the window's presence in the second last panel.
He also suggested that I could make the final page as a huge panel image and make it look dynamic. In the final page of the comic, Brian liked the idea of how the broken window would be enough to conclude the story and the protagonist's fate. However I addressed that I wanted to include the last record of writing. I could still include the pages and have them fly off the table by the wind that  comes though the broken window. I wanted to include a strong use of symmetry and metaphorical meaning.
I was not sure how to visually represent the wind. While Brian suggests the use of curtains, I kept in account that the character I was penniless and would not be able to afford such thing. However it would make sense if it were make shift curtains like two rags with patches on the curtain poles above the window. Since I wanted the idea of how the candle starts out as a full candle and is used for the entire story. In the last few panels, I want the candle to burn out. This would also help conclude the with the first page where it began with the full candle.
The best way that Brian described my current position in the honours project is that I have the dagger in and now I just need to twist it.
Although I managed to get all my line artwork done for the comic, I was unhappy with a few things.
I decided to try out a disorientation effect with a few of the comic pages.While it did show some effect, Brian suggested that it could be a bit frustrating to the reader and could disengage him or her from the reading experience. Also in each of these meetings, I have been trying trying to explain a bit more of Lovecraft's work to Brain to allow to have a understanding of my subject matter.
I still want to leave the comic in an ambiguous interpretation and leave the evidence through the visuals.

Here is the sequence that I used to demonstrate this disorientated effect.

Brian also addressed that the monolith's appearance did not look right. I justified its appearance by making it into the shape of fish's tail but still showing that it was some form of structure. Therefore I explained that one of the first iteration I considered looked more Lovecraftian, an iteration that was inspired by Dead Space's Marker. Although my original design did finally resemble a fish tail , it did not clearly convey this. Therefore I took the time to reiterate  and redesign the monolith

Dead Space Maker

Wooden Fish Photos

I took some photos of a wooden fish ornament that I have at home. I liked the way the object moved in natural motion similar to a real fish. The result of this revision was this design.

I've also implemented it into the pages as well.

Adjusted monolith design is applied in final comic page.

Reference

Dead Space. 2008. [computer game]. Microsoft Xbox 360.Visceral Games