Week 13 Summary

Monday - I used today to make some alterations to my project. I wanted to fix some inconsistencies with the frames. I spent a majority of today working on my dissertation, taking out irrelevant information.

Page 2

Page 7

Page 10

Modified Front Cover

I also took the time to work on modifying the front cover by applying highlights on the hand as well as adding sun rays to generate implied lines which direct the reader's eye up to the boat.

I received some feedback about my poster and front cover for my comic. My relatives and peers suggested that: 

• The hand on the front cover replaced the hand on the poster. 
• The poster featured a Lovecraftian vibe through the use of darker colours.

Tuesday ,Wednesday and Thursday involved me overlooking my dissertation and having it proof read by peers. This was a long process. 

Friday - I am still unhappy with the layout I have established for my case studies. I am finding it difficult to summarise these comics as they continue to vary in every page. I do not understand how to analyse an entire comic, .I would have spoken to my supervisor about this but he was unavailable.

However I do have a series of case studies which analyse my understanding of colour, backgrounds, body language and word and picture combinations.

Week 11: Practical Work

After my meeting with the printing service at Dundee University, I found out for the printing service that:

• I just need to to submit a pdf of the entire comic.
• The price for one copy is £ 7 coloured.
• It would take a day when it is not busy.
• The layout just needs top be one single page layout.

I worked on some adjusting some comic pages based off yesterday's feedback from Brian.

Page 16 Before Modification

Some of the issues with this page was the protagonist and the level of depth. Brian's advice was to try and bring him closer with a darker silhouette.

Page 17 Before Modification

 

Page 17 After Modification

The extra panels help provide additional clarity and the last set of panels does help suggest the idea of  disorientation and ambiguity as we have no idea what is approaching the protagonist.

Page 18 Before Modification

Page 18 After Modification

Here, I replaced the sea captain's position with the doctor but I kept him in the background to suggest that he helped rescue the protagonist.

Page 19 Before Modification

Page 19 After modification

I altered the perspective of the monolith and in doing so I actually made the perspective of the scene look greater.

Page 22 Before Modification

Page 22 After Modification

This layout for Page 22 features all the familiar elements from the original version is more angular,suggesting more dynamic movement. There is a triangular composition. However this composition is a lot more cluttered compared to my previous iteration. It is likely that I will stick with my original piece.

Week 6 - Progress

Brian was unwell this week but I managed to make some progress with my dissertation ,starting with my vision statement and introduction. I also took the opportunity to show one of my peers, my work. He gave me some good feedback about what I should do to improve. In addition, I worked on developing the visual style for the segment of the comic which occurred in the past, present and future. I also started considering the idea of a stylish border to help reinforce the idea that these images were seen as segments of memories swirling in the main character's mind. To help suggest this, I have chosen to use a brush which gives the borders a disorderly, torn and vague effect.

This one is still needing some work on it but I do like the effect it gives.

Comic pages with modified borders

Here the monster and the monolith are the only element in the flashback segment of the comic which have colour. The reason for this is to make them appear like they work outside the established rules of the visual style. It could also suggest that the main character clearly remembers this creature so well , he recalls the creature's exact colour scheme. The blue glow is a visual sign to indicate that the monolith shares the same space in the environment.

In terms of case studies, I am not happy with my progress or my structure. I feel like I am just describing what I see page after page and I am having trouble trying to summarise it's content, I think it would be best if I could speak with Brian about this and see what he thinks my direction should be.

I have become concerned how I should answer this bullet point from the proposal.

• Analyse the translation of narrative forms from a text based medium into a visual medium. 

I could answer this through a case study of one of the interpretations of Lovecraft's work and compare it to the production process of a comic. In addition, I have applied for a job that was advertised in Glasgow for an art position. However I have not heard back from them. It was a games artist position at Team Rock. It has made me realise that I have not paid that much attention to internship opportunities that have occurred at the beginning of this course. Therefore I'm a bit worried that I may have missed all the opportunities for the summer placement. Fortunately I have updated my CV and portfolio.

Monolith Development

Creating the monolith was a challenge. Many previous iterations of the obelisk took on a column form. I however wanted to make the monolith look artificial out show a off world architectural style.

Monolith Mood Board

Location Sketches

The above image shows my thoughts about the placement of the monolith as well a rough floor plan of one of the environment I have planned for the comic.

Monolith Sketch

I was eager to avoid the generic round stone or Pyramid top square shaped column approach that were made. However  wanted to integrate curved and angled elements to my final design. I liked the idea of Dead Space's Marker and I even considered making it look a bit like that. I designed the monolith before for a previous project but that version resemble more of the dark portal from Warcraft instead of an obelisk.

Original Monolith from Spatial Constructs project

 Perspective Grid 

Grayscale Illustration of the Monolith

I wanted the final iteration for the monolith to show curved angles and they helped connect with teh organic creatures and appeared like a fish's tail. In addition, I have been slowly making changes to the monolith's design and determining which iteration is the best approach. I like the fish tail motif because it has a native and worldly appearance.

Rough illustrations of the main protagonist encountering the Monolith at the bottom of the chasm.

Here is a colour test to see if the combination of blue, yellow and green can work as a suitable colour scheme for this object.

Gray Scale Iterations

Final Iterations for the Monolith object

To fit the mood of the development work I applied the same brown crumbled up paper art style.

 I also create some hieroglyphs drawings

Early Hieroglyph Sketches

Hieroglyph Iterations

 These are iterations of these drawings are meant to appear on the monolith. I was thinking about allowing the front to show the main hieroglyphs of father Dagon killing a blue whale. I have chosen a blue whale because it helps emphases the creatures' large scale.I also found that hieroglyph drawings were quite difficult to draw with out including perspective.

Monolith Model Sheet

However I felt that there should be more space on the front for the monolith. This may lead to me extruding the model to appear wide enough for the hieroglyph markings to appear.

Revised Monolith Model sheet

Monolith Moodboard Accessed on 24/10/15

http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/077/785/i02/monolith-1.jpg?1439493575
http://www.unmotivating.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/A-Sandstone-Monolith-in-the-Black-Sea.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61bIvQ8YNSL._SX425_.jpg
http://www.konbini.com/en/files/2015/08/71b816cf7dd2bebf1eed94becbe972ac-810x539.jpg
http://www.georgefox.edu/college-admissions/located/slideshow/oregon/or-haystackRock-l.jpg
http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/174552/Crystal_monoliths.jpg
https://usoksglobal.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/moonwatcher.jpg
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/places-you-wont-believe-actually-exist#.rybQjD13Z
http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Low-Angle-View-of-a-Carved-Column-the-Monolith-Gustav-Vigeland-Sculpture-Park-Frogner-Park-Posters_i8285465_.htm
http://www.specialart.ch/galleries/monolith/monolith_2.jpg
http://tuttocartoni.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/schwarzenegger-incontra-lovecraft-dagon.html

Page 1 Development Week 2

I began work on producing the first page. To make the environments, I decided to produce minor 3D objects in Maya 2014 to help get an idea of the perspective.

3D Screenshots of the Street.

Here is how the scene was going to be played out. On the ground  there would be a newspaper which was going to be used to establish the setting.

Screenshot of line art over 3D model

I originally had an idea to begin with a screenshots for an alternate opening shot.

3D Screenshots

I eventually found a way to highlight edges in a vector style  which helps with establishing the traits for the background to help make it resemble line art.

3D Screenshots with vector lines applied 

I then took the screenshots and then painted over them in Photoshop. Here the first iteration of the first page featuring the 3D background. The bottom panel was left as an abstract element because I was not sure what it was going to be.

Rough sketch with screenshots

This was an alternate opening where the first panel starts out as a close up. In each panel after the first one, the camera pans out and we see more that the story begins in a urban environment.

Line Art of Page 1

Supervisor Meeting Week 2

I spoke to Brian in regards to what I was wanting in this comic. He told me that I should consider revising the specific architecture. I had a habit of drawing buildings with the triangular roofs whereas america buildings do not share this. He even suggested that I try and use google maps from the street view as a way to get a picture of what it could be like to be actually there. I made some further adjustments by revising American apartment buildings.

http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Artifact%20Pages/Chicago.htm
http://mycentralnewyork.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/deco-delights-or-mostly-modern-chaumont.html

Modified Establish Shot

Although this is still needing further development it looks more affiliated with America architecture.

Reference

Greenway, T., Morse, S., Hargreaves, J., Perrins, C. and Tilbury, R. ed., (2011). Photoshop for 3d artists v1. 1st ed. Worcester: 3D Total Publishing, pp.157-173.