Sound Effects in Comics

I have had some thoughts about including sound in the comic, especially in the scene where the monster merges. Some of my thoughts were to apply the text in a form where it looks it it is part of the environment in a similar to this panel from the Flash and of Will Esiner's work.

The Flash #1 features a title where the inside of the text features panels of the Flash fighting.The layout of the panels are placed in a circular composition all looking like slices. The gutters all direct towards the Flash in the centre which helps with the overall composition. The colours of the panels behind the Flash are coloured blue which helps make it look further way whereas the panels in the form of the Flash feature warm colours benefiting the depth and perspective of the picture.

I also discovered a blog by Zainab Akhtar that discusses the ways that sound effects are implemented into the comic illustration. He talks about an artist called Frankie Quietly who has deployed sound effects in the illustrations. Akhtar (2015) states that integrated SFX in comics often harmonies with its environment and its context whereas traditional SFX that stands out has more visual impact when elements such as shapes, colour and composition are considered. He also discusses about James Stokoe ,the artist who illustrated Godzilla:The Half-Century War (2013). Within the comic there, minimum sound effects. In one page where Godzilla roars, the sound effect is represented by a distorted, sharp and large illustration with a warm colour scheme. The mixture of these elements help provide an insight of how it would be heard if audible. It also connects with the idea of how the original Gozilla roar was produced through the use of a violin and a rubber glove (Rolfe 2008).

Here is a test I did where I took page 14 and applied sound effects to it.

Page 14

The text produced a curved which helps lead onto the protagonist and it also adds to the impact the splashing water. The chosen text font was "Super Weird". I think it would look better if the text was white like the foam of the waves, making it appear more integrated in the image. 

References

• Rolfe, J. 2008. Godzillathon #1 Godzilla (1954). [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avc4AS3AvcA [Accessed 1 Apr. 2016].
• Stokoe, J. 2013. Godzilla:The Half- Century War. San Diego, Calif.: IDW.
• Akhtar, Z. 2015. Snapshot thoughts on comics sfx: Quitely does it. [Blog] Comics and Cola. Available at: http://www.comicsandcola.com/2015/06/snapshot-thoughts-on-comics-sfx-quitely.html [Accessed 1 Apr. 2016].
• Manapul, F. 2011 Flash #1. [image] Available at: http://comicsalliance.com/files/2011/09/flash01.jpg [Accessed 1 Apr. 2016].
• Manapul, F. 2011. Flash #1. [image] Available at: http://comicsalliance.com/files/2011/09/flash04.jpg [Accessed 1 Apr. 2016].

Batman:The New 52 Analysis

In the first volume where Batman encounters the Court of Owls, there is a technique which I noticed while reading. There is a series of pages where the panels are altered 90 degrees per page until they return to their original state. I found this to be quite effective as Fey (2012) says that this was the author and writer's way to illustrate Batman's sense of disorientation as well as reflect his distorted mind as he travels through their lair.
I would like to apply this at an important scene in the story where the protagonist encounters Father Dagon and it's monolith. My idea is to begin with the scene were the protagonist encounters the monolith which will be orientated in the correct position at 0 degrees.The next page will be at a landscape orientation at 90 degrees. The page with the appearance of Father Dagon will be positioned upside down at 180 degrees and then the next page after that,will be another landscape picture, This time it will be at 270 degrees.
Finally the scene where the monster spots the hero and as he runs away, the orientation will come full circle as a way to reflect the hero's disorientated mind and to further enhance the line for the story;

"I think I went mad then." (Lovecraft,1919, pp.23-29)

Here is a test of what to expect.

First Page

Second Page

Third Page

Fourth Page

References
Fey, E. 2012. Batman: Court of Owls (New 52) Volume 1 (2/2). [Blog] Era Fey Gossips. Available at: http://erafeygossips.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/batman-court-of-owls-new-52-volume-1-22.html [Accessed 27 Jan. 2016].

Lovecraft, H.P. 1919. Dagon. The Vagrant. (11): pp.23–29.

Visual Style Development:Framestore

I have considered some ideas for how the visuals could be portrayed in my comic.Since the story is told through an account by the narrator. What we could do is use the idea of how this story is being told by lettering on paper. I could make it look like it was one a story.

The tale of the Three Brothers

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010), there is a scene where the Deathly Hallows are explained in the form of a fairy tale, The tale of the Three Brothers. The animated sequence is very stylized and reminiscence of a dark fable and shadow puppetry. I remembered watching this scene in a supermarket but unfortunately I could not hear the audio. Instead, I had to rely on the visuals and I under stood what was going on. what i also like is how the sequence has an overlay of a parchment texture to help enhance the idea that it was from a written story. There is colour but there are strong silhouette and lighting contrasts.The use of body language helped give me an idea of some of the charters's personality.

This link lead to the Framestore website where they discuss details about the animated sequence.
http://www.framestore.com/work/harry-potter-and-deathly-hallows-p1-tale-three-brothers

I could do this through applying existing parchment textures available online from this website.
http://www.ucreative.com/resources/40-plus-various-high-quality-free-paper-patterns-and-textures/

However I would prefer to see what I can create myself.

Here was a inked picture I made at Ryan's Inktober Event on the 27th of October.

I also included crunched up paper and some cloud effects through Photoshop to add some dampness  to the texture.

Scrunched up paper texture

Here are my attempts to adapt the Framestore style that they used during the animated sequence.

Frame Store Visual Style Test

Visual Style Tests

As you can see from the test, The silhouettes are not as effective as depicted in the animation. Therefore I will consider another approach to represent the characters. However I do admire the paper texture that is applied.

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].

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.

Inktober?

As a way for me to enable some practice. I am considering doing an ink drawing for each day of October. This could help me get more practice in illustration.

http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober

Comic Adaption Practice Progress: Referencing, Adapting and Roughs

With the announcement of a new Star Wars movie being released in December this year, I was slowly getting into the Star wars mood. This helped me motive myself when creating practical work. To explore where I was with producing comics, I decided to start a test where I would take a scene from a screenplay that did not make it into the final film as a way to see how I can adapt a form of literacy into a visual format.

This collection of images was from one of the deleted scenes from one of the Star Wars prequels where we get to see Padme's parents. I found it to be quite interesting because the get to see more of Padme's characters in it. To me, it was like a high school girl bringing her boyfriend for dinner. Sadly it was never used because it didn't really assist the plot in any way and that the certain things which were established were already addressed in later scene. I was planning to recreate this scene as a comic page but instead I decided to make it into a single panel. 

Here are a few sketches of how I could draw the characters in the deleted scene.

Deleted Scene Characters

Screenplay Line adapted in sketch

Rendered Test

Coloured and rendered test with speech bubbles with the Komika text font.

The flow in this panel was quite poor because I was trying to follow the source material in regards to staging and camera shots. I feel that it would be more suited if it flowed from left to right in a western comic style. Furthermore speech bubble placement is one of my weakest areas when making comics.

Original Rendered Panel

Original rendered panel with flow

However as you can see here I have some changes to correct the flow. I made another attempt at this media test. This time, I took another scene from the film and recreated it in the form of a comic. I wanted to visualize a scene from the film that never made it to the final cut. I took a look at the Art of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and found out it actually had a screenplay by George Lucas and Johnathan Hales. I noticed in some sections of the story, there were scenes that were not the original film nor the deleted scenes on the DVD. However I understand that the prequels are very flawed in acting performance and script writing. Nevertheless I I still think Its worth exploring and hopefully this test will allow me to give a little bit of character to many of these character  who were portrayed poorly in the films.

Mood board featuring screenshots from Star Wars Episode 2

Rough Sketches

Page 1

Page 2

Rough drawings of the scene

I found this practical exercise to be quite a challenging because I had some problems with keeping the style consistent including the consistent placement of objects. I kept this restricted to 2 pages.

References

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. 2002. [DVD] Lucasfilm Ltd: George Lucas.

Vaz, M.C., Lucas, G. and Hales, J. 2002. The Art of Star Wars, Episode II, Attack of the Clones. New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group.