Graphic Narrative Evaluation

Use this template to help you evaluate your project.

You should give specific details about your work.

You should provide both written and visual examples to explain your project.

You should find areas to praise in your work. Be specific about why you think they are good or why you are proud of them.

You should also find areas that could be improved. Look for areas that you could make better if you went back to them. Be specific about what you would improve.

Add additional slides as you need to. Don’t be restricted by what is here.

Any blank slides should be deleted before submission.

Does your final product reflect your original intentions?

• The mice within the original flat plans that I made have been altered to make the characters that I eventually ended up with. They were very much based on the three blind mice out of Shrek, I thought that they represented the idea that I had in my head. With the exceptions of the hats which I decided to add to make sure people knew they were Jamaican, people normally represent the Rasta hats with the Jamaican culture and simplifies the whole thing for kids. In my digital flat plans I found inspiration from the thought of making my farmers wife a very dark character, as she is the one who chops off the tails of the mice in the story. I really wanted to make sure she came across as a nasty, dark character, someone who is very evil, but instead ditched that design and went with someone who is actually very colourful with over exaggerated features, like the giant head.

As you can see the two farmers wives are very different, I wanted to go for the whole dark and sinister look but instead ended up with this cartoon women. The cartoon women in herself isn’t scary at all but I thought I’d go for that approach instead because it is a children’s book and don’t want to end up with kids being scared by a women who is far too scary for her own good. The whole over exaggerated head I thought would make her seem less aggressive to look at, it also helps her fit into the whole cartoon like approach I was taking which is also seen in the way I made the forest look very cartoon like. The image on the left shows what my plan was from my digital flat plan, I took inspiration from the English countryside and decided from that to make the trees very cartoon like and very colourful so it would keep the attention of young children.

How well have you constructed your images?

• I decided to go for a Family Guy like approach with my backgrounds and my farmers wife. By this I mean very block standard colours that make the whole thing seem more appealing to the eye and people can see the clear lines between the different objects. I put the black stroke around the trees to make it more cartoon like and make them seem smoother, Family Guy have a similar approach, maybe not to the same amount of using the thick stoke around their characters, but this helps when making the whole thing very cartoon like. I used the blue sky and the sun in many of my forest scenes to make it seem happier and more colourful, whenever you use a blue sky and a sun it will make the reader feel warm instead of looking at a bland dark scene which will not make them feel very warm.

As you can see from my first attempts at rotoscoping, my final work that I added into my storybook look a lot better compared to my first attempts. The one on the left at the top looks like his face is made out of different varieties of ice cream, his features are also very pig like, altogether he doesn’t look all that human. The one that I did on the right looks a lot better but still his ears look like they aren’t supposed to be attached to his body. I wanted to learn how to use the rotoscoping method because I felt that it would help me make my characters look as good as possible, and also help me bring out more features within the animals. Although I have just made them block colours, this helps with making them fit into the whole scene that I was wanting to make.

How well have you used text to anchor your images

• I went for the folk tale three blind mice to base by book around, and because this is a folk tale it doesn’t have an awful lot of text throughout so I had to do the best I could with making the scenes more eye catching to compensate for the lack of text.

You can see that I have used very minimalistic text to create this simple book that is easy for younger kids to read. The thick text that is based in front of the green tree’s would help people see them easier and make the text easier to read. I put the black stroke over the top of the text so that it would be so much easier to see over the top of everything else that is going on in the scene. Because the colours are block colours, kids get drawn towards block colours and will have a harder time concentrating on the text because of all the loud colours that are going on in the scene, but when they have a black stroke over the top of them they will be able to decipher between the text and the background.

In the three blind mice there isn’t that much text so I didn’t have a lot of text to add to each scene in the book, this is when I had the idea to start each word with a capital letter. Although this might make it harder to read, which it shouldn’t, if anything it might make it a little easier for kids to read because they can treat each word like a separate word and sound it out as they speak. It will help them learn each word as they go along, it also looks a lot better than just having it like a sentence.

Is your product suitable for your audience?

• When I made my proposal I had a target audience of kids aged between 6-9 which looking back at it now was a mistake. It was a mistake because after I made the book and what I had in mind whilst I was making the book I should have made it with an age range of about 3-6, this is the age that kids start to read properly or at least start learning how to read. Because the book was also aimed at both genders I decided to add males and females into the book. The farmers wife is supposed to be in the story because she is in the original story, I did consider changing her into a male character for a split second, this was only because is society men seem to be scarier than women, I mean when was the last time you watched a horror movie that’s been in the main stream and seen a women killing loads of people. I decided to keep the women as the main person who is the mean person in it this is because I thought back to horror films with female protagonists, two movies spring to mind, The Ring being one and Chuckies Bride being another. This book is nowhere near being a horror film, but these are just two examples of stories that have a female as the protagonist and not a male.

• My final piece was being aimed at people who are in the ABC1 bracket, this is because they are the people who will be able to afford things like books, things that aren’t a matter of having to stay alive. The social class I will be aiming my children’s book would fit into ABC1, this is because this social class will be able to afford things that aren’t a necessity. I am referencing this from my planning because I feel I managed to make a book that fits straight into this bracket. The house that they go into looks very nice and not run down, this could show that they have money and people with money like to read books about other people with money.

My final piece was being aimed at people who are in the ABC1 bracket, this is because they are the people who will be able to afford things like books, things that aren’t a matter of having to stay alive. The social class I will be aiming my children’s book would fit into ABC1, this is because this social class will be able to afford things that aren’t a necessity. I am referencing this from my planning because I feel I managed to make a book that fits straight into this bracket. The house that they go into looks very nice and not run down, this could show that they have money and people with money like to read books about other people with money.

What do you like/dislike about the techniques you have used?

• The character on the left was one of my mice in the final stage of my book after he had his tail chopped off by the farmers wife. I made this character using nothing but the lasso tool to rotoscope the characters outline. I got the inspiration for the body off the internet, but the rest of his limbs and hat were made free hand with the use of the lasso tool, this wasn’t as easy as it could have been but it made the whole thing come out looking good. Once I got the hang of it, it became very simple and it made it easy for me to get details around the mouse so I could make it look like he was running. The lasso tool also made it easier for me to create a more detailed banana, the gradient tool also helped me out with making the banana look more like a banana. I also used the shape tool to make the bushes, by linking up many different circles I managed to make something that looks a little bit like a bush, it gets the job done, but that’s all I used the shaping tool for, I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

There’s not an awful lot of stuff that I disliked whilst I was making this and after looking at the final product I think it turned out better than what I had hoped when I started out.

This is probably the one thing that I am not happy about, I changed her up in the second page she is in, this is because of the outline around her head, it came out thicker than I first thought it was, and compared to my mice she looks a little out of place. She looks a little bit too cartoon like for me, which is stupid because I’m the one who created her. It does work and if I didn’t point it out you might not notice it at first glance because she fits in, well the rest of her body does. My mice along side her make her look more cartoon like because they have been rotoscoped so it makes it look a little unprofessional, but it’s not too drastic.

What do you like/dislike about how your final product looks?

• The thing I like the most about my final piece is how it ended up looking. When I first started out I didn’t think that it would come out looking that good, this is because I wasn’t that good at rottoscoping when I started the project, but as the project went along and through the use of practicing they ended up coming out looking better. I thought I’d go for the same technique that the creatures of The Gruffalo went for, using an outer stroke on the objects in the background made it stand out more and give everything it’s own body. Much like the gruffalo I decided to set the whole thing in a forest instead of in the countryside like the original three blind mice story. Something I dislike about my work is the fact that I wanted more tree’s within my book, I could have made more tree’s but I decided to only make four different tree’s and use them repeatedly throughout the book. This helped save time so I could focus more on my characters, but even then I used the same body for all of them, just changing some of the items that they were wearing or the objects in their hands. Much like Scooby Doo I wanted to use the same objects in the background so it was easier to create the scenes.

Why did you include the content you used?

• The reason I made it so bright is because I wanted to gets kids attention, its proven that bright colours and shapes grab kids attention and they will stay focused on the book if the book is colourful. As you can see from this scene, the colours are very vibrant which makes the whole thing seem happier. In one of my first pages I have a giant yellow sun which makes people feel happier rather than looking at a dull grey sky which makes you feel cold.

• As you can also see from the image on the far right, I decided to change the sky to a red sky because I wanted it to look like the sun was setting, bringing an end to the story and to the end of the day. I also decided to make the sky brighter because it will go with my theme of making the whole book seem more colourful.

• As you can see I went for the Serif text, this is because I wanted to make the text seem more like a fairytale, it also makes the whole thing seem nicer. With all the little flicks and the mystical magical way it makes the text seem more appealing to the eye.

• As you can see I followed along the same lines as the gruffalo with the Serif font, it made the page look a lot nicer and more attractive.

What signs, symbols or codes have your used in your work?

• The colour and the setting go hand in hand, I wanted to set my work in the forest, quote my development pro-forma, ‘When I took the picture I wanted to try and show that some of my settings would be based around forests and that’s why I took a picture of a bush to try and bring that across’. I wanted to do this because I thought it would look much better set in a forest with a colour that you can bring into it. Forests with the types of the tree’s I used aren’t normally all that colourful, but I decided to over exaggerate the colours within the book to make it more eye catching. I also thought that it makes it more of a romantic and classic setting having it in a forest, normally forests have a bad reputation of being a dark, silent and scary place, but if you add a little bit of colour it makes it look much better.

• As you can see, the middle picture is a scene out of the gruffalo, this is what I took inspiration off when I was making the forest scenes. I've also said before that my one regret from the book was the fact I didn’t use more trees throughout the book to make the forests look a lot more forest like.

• The scene within the kitchen I decided that it would be a good idea to make the whole thing colourful as well. Even though the mice are coming to there inevitable fait, and there’s something quite sinister about the whole thing, because you know what’s going to happen but they don’t. And to get rid of some of this fear I decided to make it colourful to make it more child friendly. And also make her head over exaggerated, this will take away some of the fear that might be present because she’s a angry farmers wife with a pitch folk and knife.

• You could say without even really thinking about it I made the kitchen look nice and not run down like some farm houses are, well not run down but slightly less up to scratch than most town houses because they are looked after a little less and generally there is more mess (the one’s I’ve been in). But when I started making it, subconsciously I started to make it look more like a middle class home, maybe I had the demographic of middle classed people in my mind, maybe not, but it still came out looking like a middle class home, with the big kitchen and the big window looking out onto tree’s. • The character design was designed to be slick, except for the farmers wife, she was supposed to look over exaggerated purely because I was trying to take away some of the tension. Her head was supposed to be oversized with a thick black outline, the only bad thing is her head changes in the second scene, with the outline getting less.

What representations can be found in your work?

• There aren’t really many characters in my book, mainly just mice and a farmers wife, but you could say that without really thinking about it I made the character white. This is a theme throughout all fairytales to be honest, all the characters that are made aren’t of any other ethnicity, they all seem to be white Caucasian males or females. I think this is something that dates much further back to the 1800’s where people of ethnicity were treated differently, especially black people. And I think this theme has carried on from that, most fairytales have been around for many years, and if you try to find a black person in a fairy tale you will have a hard time of it. You could say that Aladdin is ethnic, but that’s a Disney film not a fairytale, plus he is Egyptian which would make him Arabian. Without really thinking about it though I made my farmers wife white, not trying to be racist but you don’t find many black farmers.

• You could say that the farmers wife is middle class, purely from the setting that she is in, the kitchen scene is fairly middle class because it looks very clean and modern, this is appealing to my audience that I am making the book for. They will like to see the storybook that they can relate to, if the kid lives in a middle class house they will see the nice kitchen and relate to it in a way, rather than it being messy and run down which they won’t really understand.

• Because it is just mice you wouldn’t say they are a race, but I did try to bring in a Jamaican theme to help them look more Jamaican, this could be seen as a race, but I didn’t really use any stereotypes, unless you see the hats as a stereotype, but I’ve seen many English people wearing Jamaican hats around so it’s not a stereotype.

What style have you employed in your products?

• The first thing that I knew I wanted to do was to repeat the backgrounds, this came from my childhood and noticing that when the characters out of Scooby Doo are running the same buildings would repeat after every four or five buildings they’d just start again. This is the simplistic approach that I wanted to bring across to my work, and I think I brought that approach across successfully.

• Another approach that I wanted to use was the block colours from Scooby Doo, this is something that I thought would make my work look better, rather than having loads of complicated colours throughout my book, I thought I’d make a lot of vibrant colours so that kids enjoy the book, rather than having loads of colours that might confuse them.

• The stroke around the characters that you can see in both Scooby Doo and the Gruffalo is something that I wanted to add to my work as well, it helps make the characters look more real (in cartoon terms) rather them having smooth edges and makes them have a bit of body. I didn’t want them to look like just flat bodies on a page.

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the pre-production and planning

• Time keeping wise everything came together very well, I didn’t fall behind at any stage and I worked all the way through without any miss haps except for losing my memory stick. This set me behind but I slowly caught up while making my final piece. But apart from that I didn’t lose any time and finished my final piece on time.

One of my weaknesses during pre-production was the shape task, as you can see they came out looking just fine, but they aren’t as good as they could have been and I’m not all that happy with how they turned out. This helped me when it came to production because I knew that I wasn’t that good at it so I just left it out of my final piece. I did use it for the bushes, but not really for anything else.

Going out and taking photographs around college also helped me in the sense that it gave me an idea on what I wanted to do and where I wanted to set my story. The picture helped me realize that I wanted to set my story within a forest and make tree’s that look like the one that I photographed, obviously it didn’t end up that way, but if it wasn’t for going out I wouldn’t have realized that I wanted to set my story in a forest.

Historical and cultural context

• My book was highly influenced by the three blind mice, this book came about as a folk tale but has also been turned into a longer folk tale that could also be classed as a story. In that version though it explains how the three blind mice started off as three happy mice that could see, but as the tale goes along they get there eyes scratched and blinded by a bramble bush, then get their tales chopped off. I decided to stay away from that version of the book because it wouldn’t be very nice for the kids to read. Another thing that influenced me was the three blind mice out of Shrek, I wanted my characters to have similar characteristics, back when the folk tale was first told they wouldn’t of had walking sticks, so I took influence from this and added them to my characters. The only difference was that I wanted to make them more unique as different characters, as you can see the mice from Shrek pretty much are all the same, same colour, same glasses, same stick, I wanted mine to have a bit of character so you can tell them apart.

Peer Feedback

• Summarise peer feedback and discuss– Responses you agree with– Responses you disagree with