COMIC NARRATIVE WITH GARETH

Topical comic 

We was set the task of drawing a topical comic about a current event that week in the news. I went with the most ironic headline Donald trump getting corona virus. 

3 topics comic 

for the next comic as a class we voted on 3 different topics and we was to take that away and try create a comic based off that. the three themes where Halloween celebrity's and the closure of Disney channel. I chose to make mine about the Disney channel closure and did some digging into the subject to better understand the situation Disney and sky could not come to a deal on the channel i would use this in the creation of my comic. 

4 panel of choice 

for the 4 panel we could go with whatever we liked we could make it 3 4 or more panels long but I decided a nice 4 panel comic for mine decided to go with a fun little transformers comic. 

park royal 

for this project we are going to be working with the school children from park royal to develop there crazy creations further and really make them pop. This is a very interesting project and a bit of a challenge since there is a recipient at the end of it a customer so to say. I must be very considerate of the theme how far I can go with developing these drawings. 

The drawings where handed out at random I was given drawing 20 and 26 both bunny characters funnily enough. 

Now drawings in hand it was down to decide how I was going to tackle translating these into my own style while keeping what the child initially designed in tact. 

Bunny one  

I went with my favourite looking one first and had a bit of fun sketching out this design. while sketching I took into account the notes on the original sketch such as having crooked teeth using whoopie cushions giant feet.  

Of course I couldn't use this as a final quite terrifying with those void black eyes but I like some aspects of this so ill change a few things then see how it I feel then.  

After redesigning a few things I came to a design that still incorporates everything the child put in as well as not been creepy. Now time to add the dog and colour it. 

 

now all coloured and dog added its all finished up and ready to be sent off.

Bunny two

After being done with the first character I jumped to two where I would have to really go into a cutesy style. 

First draft of the character and her little companion.  

With design I am going to go forward with I changed up the design of the companion as well ditching the background and adding the effect of the companions jumping into the air. 

Colour added as well as adding a small explosion of cereal bars giving the effect that the characters have succeeded on there mission. 

Park royal outcome 

It was good to see the characters we did on the bookmarks sent out to the children. it genuinely was a very interesting assignment because usually you are just doing a project for the tutor and your grade but this time it felt like you had a customer to please and other things to think about that you wouldn't usually do a pretty interesting experience overall. 

The Limerick the big read 

For this lovely project we have all been given a limerick to create into a A3 spread that will be put into a small booklet with everyone's in the class. 

There once was a dancing dragon,

Who liked to ride in a wagon,

It found something once,

A penguin that honks,

And his cape had a flag on .

Already with my limerick I was excited mainly for the dragon so I got down to sketching out ideas for the dragon and the penguin.  

Dragon sketch

penguin sketch

After coming up with these sketch's I then started to draw up roughs of what both characters might be doing or look like in the limerick page.  

Part way through producing the limerick the tutor wanted to see a little progress report on how the limerick was going I sketched up dragon and coloured him in and sent him off with the other sketches that where previously done. 

line art 

coloured 

After sending in the coloured I had a bit of feedback on my dragon and my tutor even did a little recolour and switch around with it. After looking over I know how I can improve my pieces from now and how a few extra details can really make characters pop.  

After having all this feedback I decided to redesign the dragon completely to a different type of dragon.

While working on the limerick page the tutor asked for a character to use on the cover of the booklet which will house all the other limericks from the class. I decided this would be a good chance to send in my redesign. 

As you can see I went with a more Asian style for the dragon I was going going use this to make the limerick interesting as well as taking on some of the tips given in previous feedback.

Line art 

When talking about the redesign and how I would incorporate the new dragon into the limerick this is the design I meant having him wrap around the page in a snake like way. I also put the limerick onto a scroll more in terms with theme of fantasy.     

coloured art

Final coloured piece that will submitted for the book. 

Bonus limerick 

In some interesting circumstances the tutor needed one last limerick to be done before the deadline I decided to put myself forward more experience is always better a few other classmates Sam and Jacob  hopped on to help so we would tackle this as a group and we was in a call and chatting straight away. 

The limerick 

I went to the barbers for my regular cut,

When a strange feeling hit my butt,

Oh god, not now, I started to cringe,

It happened halfway through cutting my fringe,

Then horror struck as it reached my foot.

Definitely a comedic limerick so we got to work we had Sam designing the layout and background Jacob coming up with a few character designs and me on inking and colouring. We first started looking at ways it could be presented I thought a good idea was to have the limerick on a barber shop sign that would usually sit outside with prices and deals. 

Jacob came up with the character design 

Jacobs pencil sketch 

Jacobs digital sketch 

Digital trace over 

My trace over and clean up and colouring 

after finishing up the trace over and colouring as well as adding shadows we came to the conclusion to drop the bottom character in the final piece.  

First take on a final design. as well as the limerick we would all add our own poo to show that we had all worked as group to get this done. 

few initial ideas on my poo 

my final poo 

After been done with everything we brought it all together to start construct the final piece we added bits of detail to the piece as well as adding our own little poo characters ready to be submitted.  

Final piece 

Overall it was fun little experience with classmates to bash this out so quickly and work together on something and when working together something that seems big for one person when split into three can be achieved so quickly.   

4 pocket comics 

For the first task I decided to go with the 4 pocket comics I did quite enjoy doing the comics at the beginning of the semester even though some hit and some missed. Doing these 4 would allow me to free with subjects and to hone my skills.  

With this one I put my opinion that if you believe out of the whole celebrations box that the bounty is the best chocolate your a bit of funny person. This joke may not click with bounty lovers.  

A joke I have been thinking of doing for a little bit just a small spin on being misheard. 

With this one I had already thought with the way he has handled the current climate in the pandemic that this would of worked but on the night he announced different Christmas rules only a few days before the festive event I knew this was very very fitting pocket comic to produce.    

Without context this joke may go in one ear and out the other this is more tailored towards fans of a particular popular that has just released with its main tagline as wake up samurai we got a city to burn but with the launch of said game it was released in a very bad glitchy state so the joke is to prod that there is no point in waking up it broke itself down.  

Overall I liked some of the comics I have produced through this task even to the point of putting one of them on my Instagram some I feel could already use some changes and improvement to make the humour and joke pop.   

Conan's comic redraw

The task is redo Conan's little information comic about the course for new students who are looking at joining.  

Reflective feedback 

How has your work evolved during this module?

I think overall throughout this module the different projects and the different bits of feedback have affected my style and it has improved a bit I now know when doing pieces of work features to add such as when it comes to character line widths and shading as well as more development on showing and keeping all the different sketches used for a project. 

In context, please outline your contribution to the big read project? 

My contribution to the big read project was the limerick I was given to produce into an A3 spread that would be inserted into a booklet with everyone else's in my class. As well as this a bonus limerick that was offered out to be done when a classmate was unable to complete it. This was also to be done in 24 hours I took on the job with a few students and we managed to complete it quite quickly. 

Please provide an example of a design problem you encountered and how di you resolve it ? 

I believe a design problem I had was not being satisfied with the way my original A3 limerick was designed with the characters and the way they would flow this pushed me to redesign the dragon and allowed me to make the limerick a lot more interesting in design.  

Who is your audience for your single panel comic and how have you tried to appeal to this audience? 

I believe my audience is quite late teen to young adult with the themes of my pocket comics ranging from politics to subjects only person around the age of 18 to 25 maybe a lot older than that. The way I have appealed by using subjects that are current and that a person of that age would be keeping up with as well as having a bit of dark humour. 

Please provide an example of working collaboratively during this module? 

As previously stated during the big read project an extra limerick needed to be completed by a few classmates we rounded together broke the limerick apart in terms of layout colouring character designs and all worked on them with the way we went about this the limerick page was completed in an amazing time. This really showed a good collaborative energy and the fact that when as a group a task that is usually quite long solo is quite quick an fast.