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?

In the planning stage for my story, I first decided that I would focus my book on the story of Rumpelstiltskin. I followed this first stage on planning and my book is a retelling of this traditional story. However during the planning stage I first decided that I should create the aspects of my story through rotoscoping, this however changed when creating my first test page. When I was creating my test page, I found it was too difficult to create all of the parts of the page through rotoscoping. Also I found that I would have to base characters and scenes on already existing images, This would have meant that the book was not quite as original and it was a more lengthy process. So I decided that I would create my story with shapes, warping and combining them to build up a full image. I found that this technique was much easier and it allowed me to full create every aspect of the story making it totally original.As for my flat plans, I mostly stuck to the ideas I came up with, apart from changes in characters positioning and some slight background design. The major change from my flat plans came when I was in production:

In my flat plans, I showed how the text would change from page to page in positioning. However in production it became clear that this design layout was quite confusing and it was quite distracting, to have to keep looking for the text and ignoring the images. So I then changed every page to have the text at the top, making the design consistent throughout the whole story. Later on once production was nearly finished, the layout was changed again, to a more traditional story book layout. The pages now have one side full of text and one side a full image, this gave the book an over all better appearance and kept the design traditional and consistent.Overall I would say that my final product defiantly reflects the intentions I had in the planning stage, Although I changed some plans, I believe that the product I have created is better than what I had originally planned.

Original Planned Layout

Final Layout Design

How well have you constructed your images?

• How well have you constructed your images? You could talk about the overall visual appearance and well as the use of texture and colour.

Overall I think I have constructed my images very well, although every aspect of the story began as a simple shape, I believe it is easy to understand what every page is showing.

This page shows the two main characters as well as an castle background. Everything on the image is entirely made up of simple shapes. I think this image style works well for a children's book and think that the simplistic sort of feel makes the story easy for younger children to understand.

Process:To create this image I first started by looking at the the flat plan and then added the sky and grass. For this image I had to make it look like there was some distance between the castle so I made the foreground grass lighter to give some appearance of the different grass. I wanted the two children to appear like they were throwing a ball between each other so I added a round shape with a lighter line on, to give depth. However the ball still distracted from the rest of the image, so to make it blend in better I added a slight motion blur, which gives it the appearance of movement. Another feature of the image was the stream flowing through the centre of the image, because the rocks appeared to be floating on top of the water I decided to add a layer on top of the rocks and turn down the opacity to make it look like they were partly in the water.

Shaded Grass

Motion Blur

Water Detail

CharactersWhen creating my characters I knew it was really important to be able to change the characters pose and facial expression, while it still being clear it is the same character. Therefore I designed my characters so that I could have various versions by just moving arms and clothing, along with facial expression to suit what the character needed to be doing in the image.

Step 1: Open the finished character the needed for the image.

Step 2: I would decide on how the character would need to look.

Step 3: Then I would make the character look in the right direction.

Step 4: make sure that the mouth and eye brows make the expression complete.

Step 5: I would then move the characters arms to match the pose needed.

Step 6: I would then move the legs in the same way as the arms. Then once happy with the character I would place it onto the correct page

PagesOnce I had created all the components of the image I would position them on the background, fitting with the planned page on my flat plans. Creating the image and the text separately allowed me to alter things if they didn’t look right on the page. Once the image and text were finished I would bring them together on the template page layout and put everything together.

Step 1: Open blank template of page layout.

Step 2: Open the finished image needed for that page. Save the image as a JPEG so it can be imported to the final layout page.

Step 3: Open the JPEG version of the image and bring it into the layout page, Resizing and enlarging to zoom in on the focus of the image.

Step 4: I would then bring in the correct text for the page, from the previous draft . I would then make sure that it was the same as all of the other pages in size and spacing.Then for one final detail I would add something from the image to the text page

How well have you used text to anchor your images

• You should talk about the combination of words, images and text.

First Draft Layout: Through planning and production I change the layout of my pages several times. This way the first page layout I created and I was very close to the original planned layout. This page consisted of an image with text at the top of the page. At first the text was in a white box, but this didn’t blend with image and seamed to stand out to much. So I decided to change this and added the brown rectangle, with a slight warp that varied from page to page. I hoped this would give a scroll effect while work to blend the image with the text and be less distracting. As for the text I really like the font I used (Noteworthy Size 10), it blended with the style of image well and enlarging the starting letter worked to make the text more traditional.

Final Layout Design

However, Later on I decided that It would be better if the layout was changed again, This time to have the image and text separate. This layout is one that would be found in more traditional story books, and was even used in one of the books I found wile doing my research (Hairy Maclary’s Rumpus at the Vet by Lynley Dodd).Overall I think this design works better and the text us now much larger so children could read it better and its positioning does not distract from the image. I even kept them linked by adding a small detail from an image onto every text page, this made the link between the two even more obvious and would provide more aesthetic value for the text page. I kept the same font from the first draft because I felt it clearly showed the style of the book.

Text and Image Together

I believe that the images I have create do company the text well, and show what is being said.For example this page is showing when Elizabeth gets released from the dungeon. The text states that the king arrives and is so mesmerised by all the gold he stays down in the dungeon. I think that the image definitely shows this, if you look at the King character he is focused on the gold in the room and his eyes are fixed on the mountain of it. However there are some details of the text that simply are not shown on the page, like the part where it says that Elizabeth ran home to tell her father of what had happened. At this point it is clear to see that this detail is not shown in the image, this is because I chose to focus on the most important part of the text that Elizabeth leaves the dungeon and the King stays. To do this I decided to have the prince in the image, this helped to show that he helped Elizabeth leave and it also set up the events of the next few pages.

Is your product suitable for your audience?

• Reference your proposal• Give an audience profile and describe suitability in reference to content

In my proposal I sated that the dimension of my book and how many pages there would be. However, because I changed the layout the dimensions had to change too. Each half page is still 25 by 19cm but the width had to be doubled so that each half could be put together. Also I have created more pages that I set out to. It was my original plan to have 11 pages, however in production I found that I could add more a few more pages so that the story had more detail and more images. The final version of my book has 13 pages and a front cover.Throughout the whole of my production time I continued to use the PDF format until the pages were finished and then I saved a JPEG version of every page. I also stuck heavily to the story overview as I most stuck to the original story

In my proposal I stated that the production method I would use was Rotoscoping. I said that I wanted a cartoon and realistic style. However when working on my test page I decided that this was not the best method to use as it would take far to long and the content would not be as original as making it from scratch. So I decide that using shapes to create every aspect of the story would be far better for originality. I also proposed that my target market way 4-8 year old boys and girls, I was slightly worried for the younger ages because of the traditionally scary character of Rumpelstiltskin. However through the style I have created I think that this audience will defiantly read this book and appreciate the style of images. The style is very cartoon like and the only threat of violence is so minor that even the really young audience wouldn't be afraid.The final part of my proposal. Overall I would say that because I have mostly stuck to the proposal the product I have created is defiantly suitable to the 4-8 year old market that I was aiming towards with my product.

Hairy Maclary’s Rumpus at the Vet by Lynley

In the planning stage I stated that my book would be aimed at 4-8 year old boys and girls. A book which I believe is aimed at similar ages is Hairy Maclary. Looking at the books together it is clear to see that my story has more risk to it, which may concern some of the younger children. It is also easy to see that Hairy Maclary’s plot is a lot more comedic and based on light and fun plots. However my story is based on quite a serious plot which actually has consequences for the characters in the story. Overall looking at another story which will have a similar audience has made me decide that my story is suitable for my target market of 4-8 year olds. The style and design of the book make it very clear that it is for children and the content only has very mildly threat at a few points

Another Children's book

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

The technique I chose to use when creating my images was shape. I would start by selecting which shape I needed and then you warp the shape to become the way I needed it I would do this again and again to build up different objects, characters and backgrounds. I found that using shapes was very easy and because everything on a page could be moved about if I didn’t like something I could just remove that part of the image and change anything quite easily.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Rotoscoping

In the planning stage, I sated that I would make my book using mostly the rotoscoping technique. However this changed when making my test page because I felt that the process to too long and had to be based on an already existing image, therefore the components were not as original. However if I had made my story through rotoscoping this is the technique I would have used.

Step 1: Choose an image, that fits the page.

Step 2: Select polygon lasso tool, then start to trace around small sections of the original image.

Step 3: once there is a section selected, right click and select layer via copy, then recolor the section to what is needed.

Step 4: continue to build up the image using the same process until the image is complete.

Comic Book Effect Another technique that I could have used to create the images for my story is the comic book effect. The technique involved using and image and applying an effect in Photoshop to make it seem cartoon like. However this would have meant that I would have either have to have used existing images, which greatly lowers the originality, or go and take my own images this would have been an interesting way of doing the story however it would have taken a lot longer than any other the other technique. If I had used the comic book effect to create my images I would have used this technique.

Step 1: Choose an image, that fits the page. Or use one taken for the page

Step 2: duplicate the image, so you have two copies.

Step 3: select on of the layers and apply the cut-out filter in the gallery.

Step 4: select the other layer and apply the threshold. This will be the detail on the images.

Step 5: merge the two layer together once happy to create a comic book like image.

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

I really like the look of my product and I feel it has a unique style that would catch peoples attention. One aspect of my design that I think works really well, is how the shapes come together. I feel that for most of the parts of the images the shapes have come together to create an image that is easily decipherable. Another think that I like about the visuals of my product is how the style runs throughout making the whole story consistent. One possible downside to the product I feel is that some of the story had to be cut down so that the images could be more interesting and show the best bits of the story while still making sense, this had to happen so that the story was not to long. But because some plot point had to be

Cut out, I feel that some of the good visual parts of the story could have been missed.However I do feel like the visuals that have been shown are very exiting, for example the images where Rumpelstiltskin uses his appear/disappear magic are the ones that I think younger children would find very interesting to look at. Another visual in my images is the characters and I feel this is one of the best aspects of all of my pages, I feel like the characters stand out and are easily recognised in each page even when wearing different outfits or having different expressions.Overall I an extremely happy with the book I have created and I feel that it is to the high standard I wanted it to be.

Children's fairy-tales

Looking at other children’s fairy-tale books it is easy to see that there is a huge variety is styles. Some have gone for more realistic look and others for a very stylised approach. Looking at my style I think it does fit in with the others but also stands out as being quite different in style to others.Overall I think that my book does fit with other fairy-tale story’s, it has the bright colours, backgrounds, interesting characters and traditional feel of other children's story books. My book visually looks different to others available for sale but is made up of most of the same components. I really like my final product in comparison with other products it fits in with its traditional story, but stands out with its simple style.

Why did you include the content you used?

• Images, fonts, effects, colours

When decided on what I wanted each page to be like I would first look at the flat plans to give me a rough idea of what each page should be like. Then I would create the basic background for the page, When choosing colours for the pages I would keep the colours as realistic as possible, I wanted everything to look like it could be there even though there is the magical aspects. I would keep everything quite simple. The characters also followed my theme of realistic colours. I also tried to make the characters suitable to the medieval time period. I also tried to show an obvious change for the main character between when she is poor and when she is royal, this is clearly shown as she wears brighter close when wealthier.

Through production I changed the font several times as each time I found one which I felt suited the style better. Then when creating my final version of my story I decided that Noteworthy was the font I should go with. I chose this font because I feel it suites the other visuals in the story I think it blends well with the style I have used. As well as having the font I chose to enlarge the start letter of every section of text. This gave the story a more traditional feel in contrast with the slightly modern text. I chose to enlarge the start letters because it was done in many old traditional fairy tale books, although mine changes slightly for a new audience I do feel it is still very close to the original and therefore the text works as nostalgia to traditional story books.

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

One Symbol which is defiantly noticeable is Rumpelstiltskins boil which shows the reader that this character is bad as it has connotations of witches who are bad and evil.Theirs is also the castle which is a symbol of royalty and power, for children it will easily show who has the power.Apart from this I don’t think there is any other deliberate symbolism in my images, the rest are totally made up for the story. Personally I think this is better because young children would understand typical fair-tale symbols. However there are some symbols and hidden meaning that I have accidently show in my images.

This page actually contains one major bit of symbolism. When constructing the page I didn't actually think about what I was doing. But accidentally I have created a dived in the page, on one side is the small village which appears quite basing. However on the other side there is the huge castle, which in comparison looks much grander than the small village homes. This obviously shows a rich, poor divide, this is further shown by the fact that he prince and the little girl stand on opposite sides clearly showing they are from different backgrounds of the characters . Overall I think this works well to show the kind of culture of the sort of medieval times, where rich people had more power, and I think that some children may understand the differences between the two characters.

What representations can be found in your work?

In my story there is a range of different representations of characters. One of the most obvious examples of this is the fact that the stories main character is a woman and she is shown in two different stages of her life childhood and adulthood. In fact most of the character do vary in age. For example the miller character is one of the oldest in my story the way I have shown him is to be very elderly and need a walking stick to move about. I then have three characters of adult age, the Prince, Elizabeth and Rumpelstiltskin, even though all of these fall into he adult age I feel it is still easy to see a slight difference in age between them. I also show two character as children and a baby later on in the story. Here I feel it is easy to see that in my story there is a vast representation of age. However something that my stories images does lack is a representation of race or religion. Although personally I feel that my story follows the traditional telling in which religion and race are not mentioned, therefore I do not feel like my story is missing anything in relation to representation. One aspect of the story that is difficult is the depiction of Rumpelstiltskin, In my story I show him as a dwarf/goblin person with mystical powers. I understand how some people may not like the depiction of this character, but personally I feel that I have followed other traditional stories that also depict people like this. I don’t feel like any thing I have done with the character is offensive and the story does not show his height as a focus point. As well as his visual appearance there is also the depiction of his living. In one page there is Rumpelstiltskins caravan which obviously has connotations of travellers, in this period of time people who travelled where seen as suspicious and strange there for I believe this suites the character who turns up and nobody knows anything about him.

In my story there is one character who has more power than the rest, that is the king. In my story I chose to depict him as quite an elderly man who was is quite fat. This actually creates a obvious visual difference between the characters, but actually is emphasises his greed. The kings greed is shown in a number of ways in my story, it is stated that he is greedy and will take anything he wants at the beginning of the story. His greed is further shown through his weight, it is obvious that he eats well from his rounded appearance, but actually this also shows that his greed leads to the poorer villagers being thinner as it is most likely that the best food would be saved for the king. The kings robe also shows his power as its grand appearance shows is obvious wealthy, this is the same with the prince both characters wear traditional royal colours blues and reds and compared to the other characters clothes they appear much brighter and more detailed. As well as his physical appearance the way he acts also shows his power and greed over other people. In one page the king locks up Elizabeth because he has heard that she can spin straw into gold. There are two possible reason why he does this, one could be that he wants the gold for his greedy nature. Alternatively he could have locked her away because he believes that her talent could bring her fortune and he doesn't want her to have it to herself.

What style have you employed in your products?

I decided that I wanted my stories images to be very simple and cartoon like in style. Personally I feel like the style I have used is quite unique, and I entirely designed every aspect of the stories images myself. As for influences from existing products, I mostly took inspiration from the original version of the story, as for the visuals I tried to keep the story very traditional like old fashioned fairy-tale books, while making them appropriate for modern audiences. Overall I would say that the style is really unique to my product because everything was created from scratch. its modern appearance, I feel would work better with modern audiences who are used to this type of graphics and visuals.

Technique and Style

Although my style is quite unique, there are other cartoons that are made in the same way. South Park, is a animated comedy TV show. The style of the show has some similarity's to the style I have used in my story. Both styles are basically made up of simple shapes, however personally I feel that my characters have a more human look. It is easy to see that other products have used similar styles to ones I have, however south park and my story have very different target audiences and because the this there is obvious differences between the two. For example South parks style has all the characters bodies built up very similarly. But my characters have totally different shapes and pieces, making every character different.

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

I would say that the planning came in very useful when it came down to production time, this is mostly because through planning I had already decided on most aspects of my book. The initial research helped me to decide upon a story to follow and the flat plans and mood boards allowed me to decide what I would need to make during production. When the production started I found that I was able to complete much more in every session then I had initially planned. This meant that I had finished my first draft quite quickly. However this then meant that I could go on and make amendments and even change the whole layout of the story book. Although I had finished the parts of the story much faster than expected, I was then able to add a final page and even design a front cover. The only weakness of the planning I feel was deciding what technique to use before testing them fully. In the planning process I decided to create my books images using the rotoscoping technique, this is because at that time I felt like it would provide the highest quality in images. However this wasn't true during the production of my test page I found that is would be harder and less original to create all of the story's content through rotoscoping. Therefore I decided that I would use shapes instead, this allowed me to create truly original content as well as having much more time to improve and redraft my book. Another downside to the planning is perhaps when I was creating my test pages, when doing this I should have considered different layouts instead of having to change them when I had finished. Overall I think that the planning and preproduction preparation work came in very useful, and allowed me to create the images needed to a high standard.

Historical and cultural contextI chose to base my story book on the traditional fairy-tale Rumpelstiltskin. There have been many versions of this story and most stick to the original tale. Looking at older versions of the story it is easy to see that it is just like any other fairy-tale and therefore has a similar appearance in every retelling. Most of the other versions of this book have there images hand drawn, I believe this makes my version ,which is totally digitally created, stand out from previous versions.There is lots of other versions for sale, but I believe that non of them resemble the product I have created, in fact even between the ones available there is a huge variation in style.In terms of layout one children's book from my research is very similar, Hairy Maclary’s Rumpus at the Vet by Lynley Dodd, has a very similar layout to my product. Both have a two page spread where one contains and image and the other the accompanying text. I believe this layout is very traditional for a children's story. Overall I believe that my product does take inspiration from traditional fairy-tale book, this means that there is obvious homage to classic fairy-tales which is what I tried to do with my product.

Historical and cultural contextAnother Version of Rumpelstiltskin“At first she said, "Is your name Conrad?" "No." "Is your name Harry?" "No." "Perhaps your name is Rumpelstiltskin?" "The devil has told you that! The devil has told you that," cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in, and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.” Rumpelstiltskin by Brothers Grimm

Comparing my version of Rumplestiltskin to the original Brothers Grimm, it is easy to see that the original is much darker than my story. In the Brothers Grimm version Rumpelstiltskin tears himself apart, this is quite violent and dark for children to read. In my version he turns into smoke. I feel that my ending is much more appropriate for modern audiences, the violence of the original will have been more appropriate in the times it was originally created. There have been many versions of this story and each differs slightly to suit different audiences, Overall I feel the product I have created sticks strongly enough to the original tale but has enough changes and new content to make it new.

Peer Feedback by Becky Coughlin– You have a lot of detail in this evaluation and I can clearly see your influences and

decisions you made to create this children’s book.– I think you could talk more about your planning, what you did and if you could

have done more to help improve your book.Delete the slides you don’t need.– Talk more about your representation, think about the colours you have used, why

the millers daughter has blonde hair and why the Prince is wearing blue etc. – Add more symbolism, the spinning wheel, the straw and gold, magic etc.– Really good use of pictures to show what you are talking about. You could use

your own pages more and point things out, such as the symbolism in the pages.– Show all your flatplans and talk about how they helped you and what you

changed from your original intentions.– Talk more about why you chose to create your characters how you did, was it

easier, quicker or did you like this technique more?