Module Evaluation

This module definitely posed a challenge in balancing both practical and and written work. I went through a few different ideas when deciding on my practical, but in the end decided to do my original idea of a comic, which is more relevant to this project than just character designs since I don't focus too much on archetypes and characters, but rather the character's journey and story. After getting further through my research and exploring the differences between the Hero's and Heroine's journeys, I thought it would be ore relevant to my project to create different scripts or stories, perhaps showing the same story but following the Hero's Journey structure, one following the Heroine' Journey structure and one with both, but I would not have had time to create that many practical projects and by that point I was already too far into my current idea to change it.

Though I do like my idea of a comic, I think that just telling one story is not enough after looking at what I have written in my dissertation. It does show a female character undergo a Hero's Journey, and after receiving feedback from my peers I have heard that nothing seems out of place either - you can not tell that this is a journey only for males to undergo, because it seems completely normal with a female character too. I've realised after analysing a few different animations that the best stories tend to have a mix of both journeys; they may lean more towards one, but elements of both is what make the characters deeper, and the story feel more resolved. None of them seem to follow the structures completely which I am glad to have noticed; I feel like my story writing will be much stronger in the future now that I am aware of these structures and also their downfalls. I can decide if one structure may help me tell a certain story better, and I can see where and how to add other elements if I so choose. This will also make me more aware of possible ideas and opinions people could have of my work if I did choose to write it in a certain way, as both structures receive criticism for parts/or the use of these structures, and I am also more aware of how different audiences have different opinions if this.

I enjoyed drawing my comic, but I am not completely happy with how it turned out. This is in part because of time management; I spent a lot more time researching comic panels and layouts than I should have, as well as Hero's Journey research earlier on. I feel like I have learned more from this than if I had finished the comic, but it would have been nice to actually have it drawn out and finished, even more so if I could have spent more time on the thumbnails and story.

I didn't plan to write so much on the Heroine's Journey or have it feature so much in my essay, which is why I think it spent more time on the essay in the latter part of the project, and partly why I am not happy with my practical piece. If I'd have written the essay much earlier and had it near finished before beginning my practical, the whole project would have turned out very different. Because of this, I would like to get as much research and writing done in the future as I can before starting my practical pieces when I can.

Comic Pages

Finishing Pages

Robert Valley Influence
I know that I can not finish my whole comic in colour (or even in grey scale) which is a shame, but I wanted to do at least a couple of images to an almost finished standard to show what the comic could look like when completed.

I wanted to take inspiration from Robert Valley's use of gradients, making every scene much more dramatic, especially since they work just as well in both his colour and grey scale work. I needed to use blacks and more dramatic contrast still, which I often find a little intimidating because it's not too hard to go overboard with gradients. I would like to edit these more if I have time but if not, then this is something like what my final comic could have looked like.

Changing Panels

While actually drawing out some of the pages of my practical, I realised that I may have been a little ambitious and point, and other parts just didn't work compared to the thumbnails, so  made minor changes on some. Page 15, below, probably got the most changes; the panels at the bottom went in the other direction, with a different fight sequence. I thought that a throw would work out better, but I had to use some reference from that.

I tried to pick out some of the more dramatic poses that, together, would give the viewer more of a sense of what was happening. I don't think I did too badly on this, although I think the last panel needs a bit more 'oomph' which I might try to fix if I have time.

Rough Pages

I'm drawing the comic pages on my tablet because, though my drawing can often be better traditionally, I do not have as much time as I would like to finish all of the pages; drawing digitally allows me to finish off the lines as I draw the images. Usually I wouldn't do this as moving my drawings from traditional to digital helps me to see and fix more mistakes, but I just don't have time for that so digital will be the most efficient way more me to finish these pages right now.