graphic novel process book

The Graphic Novel Project

by Sarah Burgess

I would like you to consider this Digital Process Book as not only a booklet of the digital development process, but as a design project within itself. Produc-ing these books allows me to working/learning layouts, displayed in a digital sketchbook. The aims of this brief are to develop my sense of complimentary colours through my work, in this case, in a completely graphical context, following a storyline.

Something to consider

Contents

Developing a Story

Initial Thoughts

Primary & Secondary Research

Character Design

Digital Developments

Moodboards & Colour Tests

Inside Pattern Page Design

Developing the Storyboard

Arranging Signitures

Book Cover Design

Binding Research & Practise

Exploring Layouts

The Final Bind

The Final Illustrations

Photographed Final Book

In context

E-Book

Summary & Reflection

7 - 12

3 - 6

13 - 22

31 - 34

35 - 50

23 - 30

53 - 58

51 - 52

59 - 109

110-111

123-124

112-113

125

114-122

126

127-128

129

130

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Initial thoughts

Image to the left

From working at Birming-ham Zine Festival 2012 I bought these small pieces of work. Talking to the artists themselves and discussing this whole scene of ‘zines’ gave me a boost of enthusiasm for giving such a project a try. The couple who I met (artists of ‘Stealin baby’ zine) advised me to really consider the colour, if I was going to do a project on a ‘graphic novel’ style book. This book gave me many ideas for my own work once I finished work-ing this Festival.

Over summer I looked in as many book stores and librarys as possible to gain inspiration for this brief. Picture books, Graphic Novels, Pop-up books, flipbooks

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Sketchbook Scans

Brainstorming possible ideas in terms of the actual item itself, a book, an app, a mural etc. At this stage my ideas began to development towards a book format.

The Brainstorming that pushed my Ideas forward.(refer to paper sketches)

‘Story writing’ ‘circus theme fantasy’ ‘children playing and reading the book’

Drawing characters gave me a nice idea for a pos-sible storyline.

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The BEST stories have a STRONG THEME, a FASCINATING PLOT, a fitting STRUCTURE, unforgettable CHARACTERS, a well- chosen SET-TING, and an appealing STYLE.

Development on story

Taking to the library, I read books on ‘How to write Sto-ries’ and ‘How to Storyboard’. After this I broke down some themes that could hold a great storyline.

I began to develop a storyline in my head at this stage, it related back to a childhood memory of mine own involving a pet I once owned when I was very young and my lack of responsability and care for this animal.

Themes

underwater

JOURNEYunderground

Rafis underwater adventure!

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND!

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There is a young boy, obsessed with the ocean. He sits in his mini boat in the morning pretending he is at sea :) he wears goggles and a thisrt with shorts, he leaves the tap on as the fish tank overflows, he falls to sleep. His room fills with water and as he dreams, his fish turn to enormous creatures and take him on a undersea adventure through the underwater city.

Exploring Narratives

Highlighting the important sections of the story

Chosen story: Broken down

Young girl, gets tangled in her french plait whilst doing her hair. An animal human finds her and saves the day

An old man, obese and alone, finds a freind in sleeping/a dream/a robot

A wolfman, lost in space, discovers a hole that sig-nals to a magical land, he takes the path and takes the ride.

A dream, the girl in her bed gets trapped in her dream and has to find her way back home.

A fish tank in a young girls bedroom over flows in her dream and she floats through an under-water adventure...

he goes to school but its closed, so he goes to visit his grandpa and discovers his big secret.

Moneky man has to find his way out of the forest, to save his family before the trees are taken by futuristic robots.

A young boy finds a shell on the beach that talks to him, the shelll tells him all kinds of storys that lead him through crazy imaginative dreams.

A middle aged woman gets stuck in the bath, the whole planet freezes, a magical trip takes place.

An old woman, knits her way day by day, until one day, oe of her [atterned quilts, creatures, comes to life as she puts her head to rest at night.

A young boy lives in a lighthouse. each day he goes to fish, one day he is fishing and drops some-thing in the water, as he reachs in to the water, he feels something latch on to his hand as he tries to pull away, the thing on the other side, pulls him in to the deep ocean.

Here was an exploration of all the very random and dreamy storylines I had thought up. For this project, I wanted it to be fun and exciting, however, I needed to keep in mind a concept and audience was still needed.

1. boy looking through fish bowl2. fills up the bowl3. goes to lay down, falls asleep4. tap is still running 5. the fish bowl overflows and as the fish hits the edge, it turns in to a large seawolf creature with the young boys face6. the room fills up with water7. The seawolf carries the young boy asleep to the ocean where he is stuck in a barrel in the middle of the sea

8. the seawolf throws himself in to the deep ocean9. as the boy sits in the barel in the ocean, he is in a world of beauty, blue skies and blue sea, vast beauty10. suddenly it clouds over and the skies turn grey, its starts raining heavily and the sea throws him back and forth11. dark black sea creatures appear, they all look the same but there in large clusters, they start moving towards him and all around him12. the barrel tips on its side and his arms and face go underwater, as he goes under, he finds an underwater

city thats full of colour and beauty and alien creatures.13. he falls in the sea and goes under to the new found world, he swims down until he comes face to face with the seawolf who took him there14. the seawolf glides him so fast through the ocean where there is colour all around and slight glimpses of underwater creatures.15. the seawolf throws him to the top of the sea where he flies in to the air and lands back in the barrel, once inside a sucktion from beneath the barrell pulls his legs and body through the bottom16. He falls through the tap and lands in the fishbowl17. A boy who looks exactly like him, stares back at him as he swims inside the bowl alone

1. boy looking through fish bowl2. fills up the bowl3. goes to lay down, falls asleep4. tap is still running 5. the fish bowl overflows and as the fish hits the edge, it turns in to a large seawolf creature with the young boys face6. the room fills up with water7. The seawolf carries the young boy asleep to the ocean where he is stuck in a barrel in the middle of the sea8. the seawolf throws himself in to the deep ocean9. as the boy sits in the barel in the ocean, he is in a world of beauty, blue skies and blue sea, vast beauty10. suddenly it clouds over and the skies turn grey, its starts raining heavily and the sea throws him back and forth11. dark black sea creatures appear, they all look the same but there in large clusters, they start moving towards him and all around him12. the barrel tips on its side and his arms and face go underwater, as he goes under, he finds an underwater city thats full of colour and beauty and alien creatures.13. he falls in the sea and goes under to the new found world, he swims down until he comes face to face with the seawolf who took him there14. the seawolf glides him so fast through the ocean where there is colour all around and slight glimpses of underwater creatures.15. the seawolf throws him to the top of the sea where he flies in to the air and lands back in the barrel, once inside a suction from beneath the barrell pulls his legs and body through the bottom16. He falls through the tap and lands in the fishbowl17. A boy who looks exactly like him, stares back at him as he swims inside the bowl alone

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Through taking into ac-count a personal experi-ence of my own from my childhood, this storyline will relate to this issue. Here is an exploration of the narrative. I have written the bulk story but I will only focus on one chapter for the final production of work.

The Story: developments and ammendments

Breaking down the chapters

Rafi was a nine year old boy with a love for the sea. His best friend was his pet fish, Apollo. Yet this one morning, Rafi didn’t feel so awake and made a terrible mistake of leaving Apollo at the bottom of his fish bowl, with the tap left on. As Rafi stumbled half asleep back to the comfort of his bed, he was soon to dis-cover his best friend, was not always who he thought he was. Rafi lived in Elmerway, a small seaside town, wellknown for it’s wonderful cafes and seaside gift stores. Elli, Rafi’s mother, owned the local bakery that each morning gave a wonderful whiff of fresh cooked bread to leave a trail of mouthwatering flavours through the rickety streets of the town. Rafi had a view of the ocean from his bedroom window. He didn’t enjoy school as much as some of the other children be-cause all he wanted to do was explore what was under the sea. He envied the fishermen down at the docks, as each day they were allowed to play on the water and collect fish from the sea, but Rafi’s mum wouldn’t allow him to do so. It was Tuesday morning and Rafi woke to the loud ringing of his standard 7:00AM alarm clock. He felt more sleepy than usual this particular morning and removing himself from the comfort of his bed, was an enormous effort. His mum shouted every morning around 7:10AM to make sure he was up and ready for school, this Tuesday morning, his mother shouted “Are you up sweetheart?” “Don’t forget to clean Apollos water before going to school today, okay?” In a sleepy haze Rafi made his way towards Apollos fish bowl, picked up Apollo in his bowl and for-getting to tip the old water out, he turned the sink tap on and made his way back to the comfort of his bed. The warm, coziness of his bed, left him to drift off into a deep sleep. Leaving Apollos bowl to overflow…

The fish tank fills up more and more, but Rafi is fast asleep and forgotten about the tap and his best friend Apollo. As Apollo falls ovet the edge of the fish bowl, he begins to change, his skin begins to change colour, his head starts to feel fuzzy and different although he was evolving into a large, damp creature. Apollo, now in his new form, realises he can breath out of water, scared, annoyed at his owner/friend and worried about what has just happened, Apollo makes his way towards Rafi’s bedroom to tell Rafi the news. He slips across the floor and down the coridor to Rafi’s bedroom. He pokes Rafi, who’s still deep in sleep. Rafi gradually

wakes up, shocked and surprised, Apollo engulfs his dear owner in his large hands and heads for the window. Float-ing in the global ocean, Rafi, alone and confused wonders who it is in front of him bobbing along in the ocean next to him. All of a sudden a rush of storm develops and there both sucked underwater. Beneath them, there is an underwater village, Pods of villages float-ing with small creatures, cafe’s, a petrol store and an atmospheric BUZZ of underwater life. It all turns dark. “Who are you? Where have you comes from? Take me home!!” Rafi shouts. Moving through layers of worlds underwater they fall hand in hand deeper and deeper.

Next to be explored is the three layers...

}Theme: Taking Responsibility

Plot: Rafi trying to get home

Characters: Rafi, sea creatures and his mum

Settings: Rafi’s Bedroom, Bathroom and Underwater

Storys tone: Ominous, Mysterious, Afriad, Confused

1. School day: raffi is asleep2. Alarm goes off3. His mother shouted “Are you up sweetheart?” “Don’t forget to clean Apollos water before going to school today, okay?”4. Stretch/ yawn, raffi gets up, half asleep plod-ding across the room

After this, I decided Chapter two’s storyline could hold an exciting set of imagery in terms of a comic layout, I’ve chosen this chapter to Illustrate.

Chapter 1: Fish Tank

1. In a sleepy haze Rafi made his way towards Apollos fish bowl, picked up Apollo in his bowl and forgetting to tip the old water out, he turned the sink tap on and made his way back to the comfort of his bed.2. The warm, coziness of his bed, left him to drift off into a deep sleep. Leaving Apollos bowl to overflow…3. As Apollo falls ovet the edge of the fish bowl, he begins to change4. Apollo makes his way towards Rafi’s bedroom5. Apollo engulfs his dear owner in his large hands

Chapter 2: Ominous Dreaming

1. Heads for the window.2. Floating in the global ocean, Rafi, alone and confused wonders who it is in front of him bobbing along in the ocean next to him. 3. a rush of storm de-velops and there both sucked underwater.4. Beneath them, there is an underwater village5. Moving through layers of worlds underwater they fall hand in hand deeper and deeper.

Chapter 3: The Aban-doned Underworld

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PRIMARY RESEARCHIn such early stages of the project. I felt that in any case of a brief, there should always be an audience to aim towards, one that can maybe relate to the experi-ence I had during my childhood.

Personalexperience

Sooty the rabbit I once owned that I accidently overfed

Ruddy the rabbit who’s cage my sister left open one summer and she ran away and came back 3 weeks later pregnant

my sister once left Milky out in the cold of winter and forgot until two day’s later

The aims of this section was to give my storyline valid content. After a few online responses I felt it wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped so I took to the streets and landed myself in a Primary School just as it was home time, which was perfect. I was unable to get pictures of me talking to the children, as the parents and the school didn’t feel too comfortable with this idea but here are some responses from the parents and children I spoke to which were written down (Helmsley Primary School was the school in which I gained this informa-tion)

Facebook Results Facebook was the next idea I came across for broaden-ing the options regarding the age group for my project. Some of the stories I got from one of my posts was interesting to say the least.

The Question posted to Facebook

The replies from facebook usersQUESTIONAIRRE

This project then developed after I brainstormed my personal experiences. So, I decided to carry out some tests to see if this issue did not only apply to me but the public. This lead me to conduct an online Ques-tionairre, talking to parents and children at a Primary School and social websites such as Facebook. This was to give me a variety of age groups to survey. It was an interesting set of results which eventually determined the age group and gender I was to aim for in this work

“We got the girls a hamster each, i normally end up cleaning the cages out though if im honest, because the girls always moan over who’s turn it is to do it”– Helen Kitchen

“Our kids look after the fish by feeding them when they have to yes, sometimes a bit too much I think” – Elaine Robinson

13 14

secondary RESEARCH

After reviewing the results from the street survey including the parents and childrens con-versations in the Primary School and the Face-book Results. I have realised that the ‘Graphic Novel’ I intend on producing is for a rather niche market and so I will not so much class this primary research as a search for a certain adult, child, parent etc. as I think it depends on the individuals interest. However, the children I spoke to who were at stages of losing inter-est in the pets they had begged for, like in my own experience, were around the age of 10-13. Also, there seemed to be a lot more boys who decided “mum can do it”. For this reason, my main character will be a boy, around the re-searched age group.

Analysis of results

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Developing the StoryboardDuring the Character Design, I was also working on the storyboard bit by bit. As mentioned later, at this stage I began to panic with the time left for developments and a final idea. With a story ready after the Primary research was a success, the sketches and possible il-lustrations began to take shape.

oh

dear

w

hat

has

23 24

Storyboarding Page 2

Sections of devel-opment towards the storyboarding was rather difficult without knowing the exact structure of each page.

looking towards small arm, con-fused eyes

twitch, twitch

25 26

27 28



to consider:

faceeyesfeethandsmain bodyhairTEXTURES

what is hap-pening to me?

Here, I moved to digital stortboarding as I felt it gave a bigger gap for changing and moving boxes around to capture the movement through the comic format. I thoroughly enjoyed, taking apart images and enlarging sizes and moving the page layout around. Viewpoint was aslo a great way to capture a small thumb-nail image with so much detail too. Perspective was explored massively in section where close up illustrations took place.

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Mood Board 1:Underwater Colours

- beneath the sea- eye catching- turquoise - light sources- feeling of wetness - lost - forgotten- deep blue - youthful- boy-ish tones

Underwater

UnderwaterShades

Goldfish Bowl

Two Lost Souls

Dirty Fish Bowl

Cold

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Mood Board 2:Sea Creature colors

Mood Board Analysis

Snapper

Orange Teal Try

Weird Fish

Colour is an aspect of my work, I’ve always struggled with. For this project, I de-cided, I was going to limit myself from the beginning, allowing myself to understand how I can work with complimentary limited colour throughout and hopefully gain an understanding of my work and colour along the way. Producing moodboards really helps me to find colours in relation to the subject matter, breaking colours down gives me an insight in to what will relate well to the imagery. To the left, are 12 final colour choices that I feel reflect the storyline well, I am going to try stick to these 12 in limitation, below here, I have chosen my favourite 4 colours from the exercise that I feel compliment each other very well. These are the final four colour choices below.

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character designI felt I needed to consider the design of the characters by this point so I could move on to the storyboard and have a clear Idea of how the characters will be drawn in there environments.

Rafis Character

Using pencil, I started sketching faces out for Rafi’s character. Doing a rough pencil sketch to begin with helps in my process. I’ve gradually in the course of the last year, really lent to the medium of digital and drawing straight from tablet to screen. This was my next step after this.

35 36

Scanning the pencil drawings, I moved onto the digital developments of Rafi. Taken from a helpful crit, Rafi needed to look more ‘childlike and realistic’ in order for audiences to comprehend with his actions.

Searching images on google, Flickr, tumblr and many other pages. I developed Rafi’s character into a more realistic young boy, with a twist of my personal style in the facial features and use ‘eyebrow meets nose’ style.

Incorporating digital

37 38

Final DesignThis is the final full length character design for Rafi. I have attempted the limited colour as much as possible in relation to my final choices and moodboards. My style of people usually have rounded cheek sections and this style of nose meets eyebrow, so I hope it can still be recognised as my own.

Using white as a colour has given me chance to see it as a col-our of itself, yet, it is limiting my palette as the paper will be printed on white.

This was a small mistake but I really enjoy the effect of the shadows and it is still sticking to the limited colours too

Apollos first Character

At this stage of the project, I worried a lot for the deadline I had set myself as there were other projects I wanted to do this semester, I rushed this character. I simply found a fish that interested me and I felt would fit the story well, and attempted to put a unique twist on its features. I explored facial expressions and angles of the character to get a better perspective of it’s whole body. If I were to do this again I’d spend much more time on this characters development.

oh

myDAYS!

39 40

Apollos second Character

Final DesignThis is Apollo’s first charatcer design when he is still living in Rafi’s fish bowl. I feel this character was very rushed in it’s design, however, I am happy with the results in a very short panic over this project and it’s time scale. Not ever doing a comic project, I wasn’t so sure on it’s time scale, which is something I certainly know now.

I’m very happy I have managed the limitations of colours still within this character’s design.

I wanted Apollos second character to still have characteristics of the old one. e.g. his eyes/ eye-brows so he is recognisable to the reader still.

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Sketchbook scansAfter the failure of time management over this pro-ject, but the importance of Apollos second character, I spent more time on the development of this design.

The same process again, I scanned in the drawings of Apollo’s second character and carried on with the development of the design in digital.

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Further digitalAfter scanning in the previous pages images, I drew over the lines with a tablet and satrted to work digitally to develop on colour and the illus-tration itself.

47 48

Developemt of Apollos character wasn’t cap-tured too well in the process as using digital, each change happened rather quickly. The arms, legs and textures were addedd along the way.

Apollos Second character: final

49 50

5 6

←

page num-

5

Page ArrangementsDesigning the layout of each page was difficult and as I progrressed along with all the imagery, some pieces worked better than others in circular com-persitions or rectangle instead of square. This was difficult to storyboard, having never worked in this format before.

rough guide to the pages in relation to the illustratuons

51 52

Binding research and practise

53 54

Having a big interest in Book Binding already. This pro-ject allowed me to explore this love of mine further. I began to look at bindings of Graphic Novel’s, how the inside pages refer to the novels cover and how differ-ent binds, require alternate signitures, and with signi-tures, comes a lot of organisation of pages.

Book BindingExperiment Between all the character design and storyboard-ing, I was considering the binding of the graphic novel, here is so work I did in exploration of this area. I produced two books with two seperate binding methods.

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The Final Book & Bind

The Photographed Process: Step-by-Step MakingI booked a slotted time with Pete from Print making in FIne art to teach me how to do a ‘Perfect Bind’. Through research this style of bind was very popu-lar. In projects I enjoy learning the insides out of crafts and learning the skills. This was a great opportunity for me to attempt the entire process from Illus-tration outcomes, to print, right down the making of the book.

The Photographed Process: The Final Books

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Digital Developments of the story

Here are some digital developments that I chose not to display through the paper sketches as it is easier to show in digital format. This consists of a high-lighted journey through the development of each illustration. Starting from number 1 through to Illustration number 71.

Oh dear

yawnnnnnn!

OFF!

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the Final illustrationFinal Illustration, opening chapter; Ominous Dreaming. Typography is not my strength, so taking to the world

of facebook, tumblr and Flickr, my dicision was made based on the feedback taken from others who have a better eye for typefaces.

A test of typo

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Illustration No.1

Above: Adjusting perspective to the fit composi-tion of the illustration to the top right.

Right: Also, I felt the walls should have mpre detail as the colour feels so flap. So I accessorised with sea creatures, here is a zoomed in version.

Adding small details to the illustration so they become more lively.

63 64

VINCENT PRICE.DAVID TOMLINSON.TAB HUNTER.SUSAN HARTEDGAE ALLAN POE’S

produced by people willocentCOLOUR and SCOPE

Illustration No.2

about

bloody time he changed my water

about bloody time he changed my water

The development for each image is restructured from other Illustrations. This enables me to recycle my work giving more time for other longer pieces whih involve the environment changing

The Final Illustration

65 66

about bloody time he changed my water

about


The above image shows a close up version of Apollo in the fish bowl. By magnifying the illus-tration it captures a more detailed illustration that I was hoping for.


Illustration No.3&4

67 68

As you can already tell from previous illustrations, this image conjures up the asepcts of Illustration number 1. I took parts of other illustration to make up different illustration. This saved time and I was still able to give a different feel to the illustration.


69 70

Illustration No.5, 6 & 7

RAFI, THE TAP THE TAP!

71 72

Somebody

turn

the tap

OFF!


Illustration No.8

73 74

Illustration No.9,10,11,12

For the water effect I decided to use a plunge to try capture an over-flowed effect in the il-lustration. I also thought photographing water myself could give a good effect but I hand too little hands to capture the im-age in good time

noooooo!

Final Illustration: Outlined

noooooo!

Final Illustration: No outline

noooooo!

VERY LAST FINAL(altered hand)

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please refer to the digi-tal CD enclosed in this book for the extended pages of development

Illustration No.13&17

This illustration was rather easy as most of the image had already been drawn and used in previous images. I just needed to add Rafi who has also already been drawn, I just needed to rotate him and add a hand that was clingy on to the side of the bowl. Using the rubber tool on Illustrator, I’ve cut up the illustration again so it works bet-ter. Also, adding the water flowing onto the outside ground us-ing transparency tools

HELP!!


77 78

Illustration No.14,15,16


79 80

Illustration No. 17,18,19


81 82


twitchtwitch


83 84



Illustration No. 28-39

85 86


Oh

dear...

87 88

Illustration No. 40-55

89 90

Illustration No. 56

This Illustration required a large amount of emotion in the facial expression. Attempting to compress Apollo in to a confined space by illustrating features and characteris-tics to this was difficult. However, playing with the hands and eyes helped develop a sense of “Help” to this characters situa-tion. Most deveopment for this character was carried out digitally.

Adding spin lines to Apol-los head was an attempt to suggest a “compact” feeling.

91 92

93 94

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT TO APOLLO

The Final IllustrationS

95 96

WITH LINES OR WITHOUT LINES FOR THE HEAD? After feedback from other, I stuck with no lines.

Illustration No. 57 & 60

97 98

I better go find Rafi.

The Final Illustrations


tip

toe

99 100

Illustration No. 58,59,61

Illustration No. 62

101 102



under the sea

THE RAINBOW FISH MARCUS PFISTER

ZZ

Z

Z


103 104

Illustration No. 63,64,65,66


Overview of the page

ZZ

105 106

Illustration No. 67,68,69,70

107 108


Inside Page Design

109 110

Taken from many of the Illustrations you have seen throughout the development of this project, these are the inside pages for the Graphic novel.


Book Cover Design

In the brief I wasn’t expecting to create a front book and back cover. Howeve,r it felt unfinished without me doing this, so I used an old original image from the first development stages and worked around this for a short cover page, design.

111 112


The final Illustrations

Ominous Dreaming

10

Chapter 2

113 114



Somebody

turn

the tap

OFF!

about


noooooo!

HELP!!

something doesn’t feel quite right

twitchtwitch

115 116

Oh

dear...

ohhhhhhhhhhhh

NOOOO

what is happening

to me?

117 118

119 120


tip

toe

ZZ



under the sea

THE RAINBOW FISH MARCUS PFISTER

ZZ

Z

Z

So, there they are, the final illustrations for the Graphic Novel Project. There are some spreads I am very happy with, in terms of imagery and exploration of viewpoints, as for final handin, I have printed these spreads on A3 so you can see a larger scale example of the illustra-tions.

121 122

Arranging signiture pages for binding

123 124

The final Binding

Graphic novel

f i n a l p r i n t

125 126

Your probably thinking what I was as I binded my novel together. Where has the perfect bind come in to practise after those books I produced earlier? Well, Due to a limited amount of pages, as this is only a chapter from the story, there wasn’t enough pages to create a good looking full book of work and I felt doing a Perfect Bind may degrade my work. So I chose a simple sewn bind like I saw pre-viously whilst working at Birmingham Zine Festi-val. This way, the bind complimented my work.

I decided to go to Wa-terStones to photograph my final packaged book. I chose here as there was a large selection of Graphic Novels to chose from with a variety of topics too. Placing my work in context, helped me to consider where it would sit in the indus-try if I was to persue it further. There were a few faults I recognised which was the typography. I will further discuss this in the ‘Reflection’ at the back of this Process Book.

Graphic Novel

In context

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Summary & Reflections

E-book ideaAfter placing my Final binded book in context within the Book Store. I walked passed a adver-tisement for E-Books and thought giving this a test run could be a nice idea. As I sat in Starbucks I realised, there were more people on ipads than there were tradition paper books. It would be silly not to test this concept for the sake of the Market

MANAGING OF THE PROJECT.

Firstly I would like to admit the naivety of time management within this brief. I thoroughly enjoy organising time effectively, however, never produc-ing a Graphic Novel before, I was unaware of how much time this brief would take. However, I stuck to my set deadline, as to me this is an important factor of working in the Industry, yet, this left gaps in certain areas of this project which were rather important.

FAILURES.

The main failures with having this time constraint left me with a situation of worry. Making very fast decisions, which in some cases, I have defi-natly learnt from, although the Storyboard, panel design and environments needed a lot more de-velopment than was produced. In the future this will be extended by at least a 2 week period for reflection also. However, trying to see the posi-tives to all sides of work, I’ve become much faster at decision making.

HIGHLIGHTS.

The highlights of this brief have been working to such restrictions of space. This restriction has allowed me to understand my passion for explora-tions of view points and detailed illustrations to shape the illustration from within the guide lines. Playing with images consisted over 4 squares and illustrations in circular format was very fun. An-other highlight, my break in to COLOUR, my one down fall to my work, I can never seem to express imagery through good colour and those that com-pliment on another. However, in this brief, I feel the restrictions of colour almost bring the story to life even more.

MAKING CHANGES.

If I were to do this brief again, the very first as-pect I would reconsider and possibly gain primary research for would be, the time it takes to do a Graphic Novel Chapter. I would give myself at least 7 weeks to complete all areas of the project, this mainly speaking for the development and storyboarding. Also, as the project developed I considered the bind and the inside pages, but for-got about the Front & Back Cover, so by the time it got to binding the Booklet, it felt ‘unfinished’ and so in a quick decision, I gave myself a 3-day-brief for producing a Front and Back cover design including typography and illustration. I am not happy with the final cover design, to me, it does not reflect the illustration and storyline within. I feel this is one big mistake I made with this pro-ject, If I were to do it again, I would either stick to just producing the inside pages, or I would plan in to the brief for a Front & Back cover design.

swipe

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graphic novel process book

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