Assignment 4: Building Stories

Assignment 4 - Building Stories

This assignment is meant to put together all the learnings from the previous exercises and put them into practice in a 8-page narrative sequence.

A few things I had to bear in mind for this assignment were to develop a narrative across a minimum sequence of six stages (from Nigel Watts 8 point story arc); to choose from those stages (4.3 Story structures); planning the images across the 8 pages of the book; to think about the approaches I have already practiced and use any that might be useful to structure my work.

My approach 

I had developed in previous units, in the Pareidolia exercise specifically, a character called "Brushman" and since I enjoyed the potential of this character to build a story, there was no better assignment than this one to further to develop a narrative with him as a protagonist.

This assignment was also a good opportunity to put into practice the story structures i’ve read in the research task 4.3, to apply them with this character as I had zero experience in this matter. Furthermore, it was also the ideal time to combine and explore the rapid drawings from exercise 4.0 Fill it up fast! with the more slower drawing from 4.3 - conversations with pictures to rework the pictures and use the imagery to aid on the development of the story for this assignment.

The process leading to the final illustration was somewhat laborious and involved some trial and error, there were times that I’ve written a 6 page story and  to end up in the bin as I was not happy. Following this approach and not being happy with it,I used the Foldy Zine method from part 2 to create the story with no idea of what was to follow from the first page onwards. 

The images below show my first attempt in creating the short story, which in the end served as a springboard to the final illustrations and also the drawings were guided by Nigel watts 8-point story arc, in that a single image represented a  part of the story structure. I used a double sided sharpie marker and a blue non-photographic pencil for the thumbnails.

These images then aided me in "defogging" what was lying ahead in terms of building the story, but I still had no clear idea at this stage.

Following this stage, I stepped into my iPad Pro to further develop the story, I used the typical comic page dimensions to build the story, 11" by 17". 

I liked the thought of making the Brushman origin story, something from which to build other "episodes " from, a sort of trigger from which a quest would be originated from, giving opportunity to build other stories to portray that quest, resulting in a climax at the final episode.   

Due to time restraints and the complexity that I’ve let myself into for this assignment, the story stayed at the critical choice stage , which in the end, I think it was effective because it created a cliffhanger in the narrative.

My process for every page started with quick thumbnails, working on the page layout  and composition within the panels. all the panels.

These panels were a bit messy and served as a way to lay the elements in pleasing and clear manner.

The story I’ve made was somewhat simple, and i’ll add the stages of the story arc in consonance  with the actual story.

Stasis - Shows my character´s everyday, with outside establishing shot, the picture I used was the illustration from exercise 4.3 - Conversations with pictures. It also shows "Phil Hayes" within his context.

Trigger - A spacecraft arrives from the outer space and crashes in his backyard.

Quest - "Phil Hayes" to his backyard to investigate what happened.

Surprise  - He opens a hatch on the spaceship, as he opens he realises it’s his wife who disappeared, she is dying due to the crash but she gets to say her final words asking him to take the helmet, ""the brushman helmet" and there will  originate the quest to find out what has happened to her.

Critical choice - He looks at the mask, and is thinking whether or not he should put it on.

END.

Final Artwork 

Below you will find the final drawings with the pages in the correct order.

Some observations about the final artwork:

-The dialogue was made in a somewhat spontaneous fashion, I added them after the artwork was made.

I added them in  a way to embed as part of the images, making them as a visual element that has weight and impacts visually on the overall reading of the images and flow of the story, therefore I made an aesthetic decision on how a designed them and where I distributed them within the panels.

-Lettering was something I haven’t made before, so I took inspiration from the "Watchmen" graphic novel, from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, particularly the captions from the character Rorschach which I thought would suit well within the vibe of this story in particular.

-Another aspect which I haven’t mentioned yet was my participation in the inktober challenge 2020, which gave me ideas and shed some light into how the character will look and behave in future panels.

-I believe that this story has the potential for further development, and it is something I’m very excited to carry on with, if possible within this course or outside.

-Most of the art made within the story was drawn from imagination, I used previously learned skills such as perspective, my anatomy studies and  several life drawing sessions which helped me build a visual database that ultimately coalesced in the creation of this story, however, this is an ongoing process and these are aspect which I continually strive to practice as well as seeking inspiration from other artists.

Reflection 

The brief asked me to "reflect in your learning log about what you learned and enjoyed most from this part of the course and what you might use in the next section where you will choose the direction of your final assignment ".

From this part, I enjoyed the exercises that involved aspects relevant with comic book drawing as it is the main reason why I joined this course, I particularly enjoyed the storyboard exercise 4.2 and 4.4 - Using basic narrative structure as they helped me to write a story in an instinctive way by having in mind a simple phrase like "What might come next?". 

This part was the one I wished to do the most and at the same time the hardest thus far, perhaps due to circumstances in my private life which made it more challenging or the current pandemic and its consequences on one’s mental health or a combination of both with the fact that the exercises were difficult on their own, nonetheless, I feel I benefited tremendously from it and it impacted me the most so far. On the other hand, it followed that saying that the "things you need to do the most in order to be successful, your mind conspires against you in order not to do it", and I felt that during this stage of the course.

These two exercises aided me in the final artwork for the assignment and this story will be my choice as a direction for my final assignment.

How did including written description alongside your drawing affect the way you were ‘capturing’ information? 

This has helped me enter into the sequential art mindset and to become mindful that words have as much weight as the images to create a ‘marriage’ between them as a single aesthetic element.

How did you find the process of moving from descriptive drawings towards fictional narratives?

 This process assisted me creating a more fluid and natural transition between them in that it became less overwhelming than starting into fictional narratives straight away, I feel that this transition made me internalise the mechanics of creating fictional narrative in an intuitive way.

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