Illustration & Visual Narrative: Task 03 & Final Project
28/10/2021 - 05/12/2021 (Week 10 - Week 14)
Adena Tan Sue Lynn / 0345769 / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Illustration and Visual Narrative
Lectures
1. Moment-to-moment
Indicates change of time or story in narrative. Used
during a chain of events.
2. Action-to-action
3. Subject-to-subject
Usually involves 2-3 characters,
4. Scene-to-scene
Series of events happening in same location & time.
5. Aspect-to-aspect
Interesting method to jump around a scene.
Concentrates on small details of space itself.
6. Symbolic
Depicts contents. Can use colours to showcase symbolism.
7. Rolling
Instead of using specific panels with definite gutters, it
rolls out. However, should be used sparingly as it can tire out readers.
However, there are no rules! As long as the piece can be read, everything is well.
- Don't forget to use motion & lines (Onomatopoeia). It can be used to represent a lot of things (etc: violence, movement, etc)
- Gutters: Links from one panel to another. Brings a sense of change from the first scene to another scene.
Planning the Story
Firstly, we were given the task to write a summary of our story using the 3-Act Structure. Below is what I wrote for the summary:
Once upon a time, there was a spoilt girl who lived with her father. She had lost her mother five years ago due to a car crash. Every day, she's displeased with the meals her father provides, no matter how exquisite and mouth-watering they were. Her meals always go to waste, as they could never compare to her mother's cooking which is filled with care and love. Nothing could satisfy her unlike her mother's cooking.
One day, she is writing in her journal late into the night when she gets a paper cut on her finger. Because of that, she places her finger into her mouth, to get rid of the bleeding. Then, something ignites in her. Her blood is delicious enough for her liking. Because of that too, she starts trying to consume more of her own blood, purposely cutting into her skin and drinking the blood, like a vampire.
Until finally, the spoilt girl was not satisfied with just her blood anymore. She bit into her arm, doing her best to pierce through her own flesh and tear it away. She continues eating her raw, supple, bloody flesh. She’s finally at peace for the first time since the day before her mother’s death. A few days later, her father discovers a pungent smell which leads to her room. Opening her door, he is greeted by her body, or what is left of it as well as a tremendous amount of blood splattered around the room. Nothing could satisfy her unlike her mother's creations.
Sketching Panels
After I was satisfied with the story as well as the planning of panels, I decided to start sketching them. For this, I used Medibang Paint Pro. Firstly, I drew out all the panels to make it easier for future me to draw them out, and get an idea of how many panels to fit into a page.
Below is my sketches of the WebToon.
\To start, I transferred the sketches onto Illustrator to make life easier. I started by outlining, following some sketches. For this, I used red outlines, which made them look somewhat creepy, but it allowed for me to see and not get confused between the sketches and the final outlines. Below is an example.
During this process, I also cleaned up some of the sketches. For example, the top panel in Page 06 of the sketch PDF has a very messy hand, which I cleaned up in Illustrator.
Then, it led to colouring. Below was my screenshot in the middle of the process. As it's obvious, I didn't colour in order, and mostly did whatever I was feeling like, which made the process more fun. I also utilized a lot of the gradient function, and decided on a black & white with red accents colour palette.
Animating Motion Video
Firstly, I followed Ms Jennifer's showcase of planning in Illustrator and then transporting them into Adobe After Effects. Below are some screenshots of the files!
Then, I proceeded to edit. Below is a screenshot of how I managed my compositions.
For some of my compositions, I noticed they were super fast when I played them. I wanted to slow them down, so I found this particular tutorial on how to extend the timeline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTpf-jpE_UI
After I compiled all the compositions together, I added the following audio:
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"MELANCHOLIA" Music Box |Sad, creepy song|
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Water Dripping Sound Effects
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Animal Crossing Isabelle Voice Clips (NO BACKGROUND MUSIC)
For the music, I decided to use MELANCHOLIA, as I thought it was playful and soothing, but still held a sense of creepiness in the tone of the song, which I thought would be perfect for it. For the water dripping effects, I knew I wanted to use them for the blood drop scenes. Finally, I wanted Soya, the bear, to have a voice which brightened the overall mood, playing into a sense of comedy into the horror.
Final Submission:
Link to WebToon: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/soyas-family-stories/list?title_no=710545
Overall, I’m very grateful to have experienced this project. Firstly, I was wondered how people created WebToons, but now I finally know! I used to think I could never do it, but I enjoyed the process, even with my struggle to constantly draw with the same amount of quality in every panel. I also have never fully built a story so intimately unlike this one. Usually, I would write the story and try to describe using fancy schmancy words, but this project forced me to think more about how things look like, and made me realize how important settings are, and how characters are portrayed to the viewer. I am grateful for that, as I don’t think I would have realized the importance of it had it not been for this project. Also, this project provided a great learning experience on how to transfer Adobe Illustrator to After Effects for animation. I have never done it before, but it was a process which made me stick my eyes to the screen in interest. Overall, I’m pleased with this final project, and the knowledge I’ve gathered along the way.
