Illustration & Visual Narrative / Project 3 & Final Project
30.5.2021-11.7.2021 (Week 9 - Week 15 )
Lew Se Win / 0347637 / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Illustration and Visual Narrative
Project 3 & Final Project / Webtoon & Motion Comic
LECTURES
Week 9:
Ms. Anis provided us a pre-recorded lecture for this week. This week's lecture is the briefing for Project 3. After that, she talks about storytelling basics.
- Central theme
- Major Theme: repeated
- Minor Theme: subtly - Conflict
- create tension and build suspense - Characters
- Central Character
- Protagonist
- Antagonist - 3-Acts Structure
- Setup
- Conflict
- Resolution
Week 10:
Mr. Kannan taught us simple transitions in Adobe After Effects for us to create motion comics.
We are required to write a story with the theme of "Feels Good" using the 3-acts structure. At first, I do not have any ideas to start this project. Later on, I think that I could write about a story that is similar to my experience. I was a flute player in high school's Chinese Orchestra team. I remember that one year we practiced very hard for a competition National Chinese Orchestra Competition. However, most of us did not perform well in the first round and we got eliminated in the first round. We know that everyone is disappointed that year. Therefore, we practiced very hard for next year's competition. With that, we managed to win the champion in the following year. Besides, many of the parents opposed their kids to join our weekly practices and wanted them to focus on their studies. Hence, the idea of this story was inspired by them.
Act 1:
Once upon a time, there was a flute player named Serine. She was passionate about music and she was a hardworking girl. Every day, she would practice for at least 2 hours to improve on herself/her skills.
Act 2:
One day, Serine participated in a competition. She was very nervous before she went on the stage. Because of that, she did not perform well on stage due to over-anxious and her body is shaking. Hence, she lost the competition. She was very sad and disappointed with her performance. Because of that too, her parents blame her for wasting time because they want her to focus on their studies. However, she never plans to give up. She continues to practice harder.
Act 3:
One year later, she decided to join the same competition because she wanted to prove herself. For this time, she told herself that she could not repeat the same mistake. She calms down and took a deep breath. With that, she enjoyed the stage and successfully plays the whole song without mistake. All the audience claps for her. She won the champion. Her parents apologize to her and said “We are proud of you”.
After that, I start to sketch out my ideas using Adobe Illustrator. I decided to use the charcoal-feather brush for this comic. I first sketch out the different facial expressions of my character. Later on, I sketch out some poses that are needed to indicate some of the scenes.
However, I decided to not use the face shape of my character in the first sketch. This is because I would like to create a character that has a squarer face like me.😁 After that, I modified my character and started to plan the transitions of my comic.
After receiving feedback from Ms. Anis, I decided to modify the transition of "one year later" to calendars.
After that, I tried to add colors for my comic. I decided to use the color combinations of soft color in the library of color swatches.
However, I was not satisfied with the color used. Hence, I decided to do more research on the color palettes used for comics.
After research, I still want my comic colored with soft colors. Hence, I searched for pastel color palettes.
Later on, I decided to change the typeface to the typeface that is suggested by Ms. Anis, which is the Milk Mustache BB Bold.
We are required to create a motion comic using project 3's outcome. Hence, I started with planning the motion of panels.
At first, I did not realize that I have to separate the elements so that they can be animated. Hence, I stuck in the progress and I figured it out after watching different tutorial videos online.
I used the brush tool in Adobe After Effects to create the animation of marking the important parts on the music sheet.
After that, I decided to make some modifications. I added background music to the motion comic and added the title at the front and the ending at the end of the video. I used the YouTube audio library to find the music for my motion comic.
I had a very hard time finding the music. Hence, I tried different music and the outcomes are very different.
After that, I decided to change the name of the story because I realized that "my story" is not attractive enough.
Music:
Cocktails - Underbelly & Ty Mayer
No. 4 Piano Journey - Esther Abrami
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/B4cI9FI2O8I
FEEDBACK
Week 10:
Ms. Anis said that my storyline looks alright but the moment that she realized she needs to calm down, I have to find a moment to highlight that.
Week 12:
Ms. Anis said that my draft looks okay. The training montage needs more montage. I can add more panels that show the flow of time.
Week 14:
Ms. Anis said that my comic is cute and the flow is nice but can put the texts in speech bubbles. Besides, Mr. Kannan also said that my comic is good to go and I can move on to motion comic.
Week 15:
Mr. Kannan said that I can add some music to my motion comic. Besides, Ms. Anis said that is a nicely adapted motion comic.
REFLECTION
Experience:
I have zero experience in drawing or creating a comic. Hence, I faced a lot of difficulties while I am doing this project. At first, I struggled to think of a storyline then I struggled to draw my story out because I got limited by my drawing skills. After that, I faced difficulties in choosing colors for my comic. Till the motion comic part, I did not face as many problems as the previous part but the hardest part is to choose music. Overall, I faced many difficulties in this project but I still enjoyed doing this project because I learned a lot throughout this project.
Observation:
I observed that the flow of comics is important to narrate an interesting story. I realized that some of the short stories can be very interesting too. They can convey an important message of the story to the viewer using a shorter timeline. Not just that, I observed that planning for animation is very important. Besides, I am more familiar with Adobe After Effects after completing this project.
Finding:
I found out that it is very challenging for me to draw things out based on my narrative. I have to spend a lot of time planning the actions of my character and the flow of the comic. Besides, I found out that I personally prefer doing the animation part compared to the drawing part. This is because I was limited to my drawing skills and I hope that I can improve as soon as possible.
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