Week Progress 9

With Dunfermline Comic Con taken place on Saturday, I managed to take some time to rest on the Sunday.

On the Monday, I worked on revisiting my front and back cover. I was not happy with the visuals for the framework. So I applied highlights to it and cleaned up the line work to make it less cluttered. I also added a few additional shadows to allow extra depth to the frame. 

Before Revision

After Revision

Some of the changes made to this were the depth of the frame to help add some three dimensional space to the illustration. However for the elements such as the tentacles, I'll need to add some extra shading to help give them a sense of depth. The other changes I've made was reduced the size of the boat to help make the protagonist look more vulnerable. I also adjusted the placement of the horizon to improve the illustration's overall composition.

Here is the design of how I planned to design the back cover. However I decided to adjust the size of the portrait and make it smaller. 

Page 11 Revisited

I looked at the sketch of the protagonist making his descent down  the cliff edge. However I decided that the way it looked did not appear effective as I intended. I applied the idle of using hidden lines found in the shapes of the environment to help the reader's eye flow through the comic.

Before

I was not very happy with how the page turned out. the first panel was meant to show the viewer the height of the chasm from the protagonist's perceptive. The next panel was to show his descent. However I liked the idea of presenting a panel where he looks over his shoulder at something and we are left on a cliff hanger until the next page. The way that he protagonist climbs down the cliff face did not look right. Therefore I decided that this scene would be require a reiteration.

After

Sketch

 Fleshed out Page

Rendered page with visual style applied.

I included a hint of the glow in the second panel which builds up to the final panel. I also like the height of the panel as it can suggest the duration and height of the descent. My main concern for this is  how dark will it look on printed paper. It may be that I will need to go through additional adjustments of the lighting in order to make it visually clear when printed.

H.P. Lovecraft Comic Adaptation Initial Idea

During my time at second year, I've been listening to audio book adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories. The reason I listened to these was because I enjoyed listening to audio which  allowed me to concentrate on my practical work. I have read many comic variations of H.P. Lovecraft's work and each iteration has shown great examples of creativity. I worked on a H.P. Lovecraft inspired project for Spatial Constructs module where I took a scene from a novel and made it into a level.
I decided to pick the Black Mire environment that the protagonist finds himself in. However I was thinking about revisiting this world again and adapt it to a comic format. Although I was quite happy with the way I designed Father Dagon, I wanted to redesign the creature.
I would like to see if I can retell the story of Dagon without using any dialogue. During the next few weeks , I'll try to develop a rough idea of how the story could be told in a visual format.

What is the comic's goal?

To tell the story of Dagon is in a visually enhanced comic format where captions or written text is not the main focus.

What is it's target audience?

It's target audience will be those enjoy reading comic adaptions of existing novels and those who enjoy reading comics.

How long with the comic be?

Long enough for me to tell the key components of the story.

Lynn Week 2 Feedback

Today, I presented to Lynn, my lecturer about what I have been working on. During the tutorial, we were instructed to create a mind map to write down questions we had for the honours project. Most of my questions were centered around character design, transmedia narrative and sequential art. From this, I discovered that I misunderstood the meaning of trans-media narrative. I assumed that adaptation was affiliated with the term "transmedia" as it can sometimes mean taking something from one media format. What I really want out of this honours project is to create a portfolio that displays my strengths and gives me the opportunity to improve my areas of weakness.

These are tasks I plan to do for next week is:

•  Learn more about sequential art, it's meaning and look at what areas it covers.
• Produce or plan a rough adaptation of a segment from a Star Wars screen play.
• Explore different artists and analyse their art style.

Lynn was quite happy with me going in the direction of adaptations because she even said that each adaption will be different and she mentioned Alice in Wonderland based on its diverse audience range. There have many different variations of the same story and yet there is still space for more creative opportunities.
Some of the questions Lynn suggested that I explore were ; 

• How can I adapt a novel into a comic book that can be verbal or non verbal?
• What is the creative process for a comic and see how it has changed?
• How can I take HP Lovecraft's detailed work and translate into a simplified visual medium?
• What is the interpretation / adaption process and what should I take into account?
• Also how can I make it appeal to a modern audience?

I also wondered how true should the adaption be, to the original source. The Lovecraft Anthology, Vol. 1 (2011)  is a series of stories written by HP Lovecraft reinterpreted into comics. They are not written but "adapted" by writers, along with artists who provide illustration and give their own illustrative twist on the Lovecraft stories while keeping true to the main plot of each story. I also like the concept of producing silent comics and I would like to see how close I can get to producing one. I asked Lynn if I could still include the research on character design as I still show great interest in this piece. I could include this in an adaption project as it does come into account of the adaptation development process. One suggestion Lynn made was to include it into my research question. Another idea she considered was "How does character design influence non verbal narrative in sequential art?"

References

Lovecraft, H., Lockwood, D., Edginton, I., Davis, R., Hine, D., Moore, L., Reppion, J., D'Israeli., Oakley, S., Culbard, I., Stafford, M., Gallagher, L., Hartman, D. and Duke, A. (2011). The Lovecraft anthology. London: SelfMadeHero.