Illustration and Visual Narrative / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media / Taylor's Design School
Project 3 & Final Project: Webtoon & Motion Comic
LECTURE
Week 9: 3-Acts Structure
Central theme- what a story is about, the main idea/ underlying meaning Major theme- an idea that is intertwined and repeated throughout the whole narrative Minor theme- an idea that appears more subtly and doesn't necessarily repeat.
Conflict - what drives the story. Conflict creates tension and builds suspense, making a story interesting.
Characters- a few and each with a different role or purpose Central characters- vital to the story. The plot revolves around them. Protagonist- the main character of the story. has a clear goal to accomplish or conflict to overcome. Antagonist- oppose protagonists, creating obstacles for the protagonist. Can be a person, place, thing or situation.
3-Acts structure- a narrative model that divides stories into 3 parts- Act 1, 2 and 3, or rather, a beginning, middle and end.
Fig 1.1, 1.2. 3-Acts Structure notes
Week 10: Comic Transitions
Moment-to-moment: - metaphorically a blink or two between seconds of a film. USed to slow down and draw out action - overusing this can make comics dull and laborious to read
Action-to-action: - less finely sliced version of Moment-to-Moment, typically focuses on significant events or movements.
Subject-to-subject: - a cut between two related moments - focusing on different subjects in the same scene
Scene-to-scene: - series of events that happen in one location and continuous period of time a change of location or significant hump in time between panels is considered the end of a scene and the start of a new one
Aspect-to-aspect: - a way to jump around a scene, taking in key details - a way to introduce their environment to the reader, inviting the eyes of the reader away from the main character for a bit.
After that, Mr Kannan taught us how to animate our panels and create interesting transitions on Adobe After Effects. He also showed us the various types of art styles suitable to be used in our Webtoon comic. He emphasized simplicity but not too simple to the point where there is no shadows used or background scenery illustrated
Before developing my story plot, I went on and studied comic compositions and layouts. I observe the techniques and art styles artists have used in their comics. The placement of the panels, the colouring and lighting and the illustration effects all contribute to the mood of the comic.
As learnt in our Design Principles module, I came to a realisation that movement is very important in comics. They direct the audience's eyes from one action to another. In Fig 2.1, the arrows show the flow of the comic, which creates a sense of direction for the viewer. Other than that, the use of contrast and hierarchy plays a significant role as well, bringing emphasis to certain details, characters or actions during a particular scene.
Fig 2.1 Comic composition study
From there, I continued on analysing character designs. How facial expressions play a vital role in helping the audience understand the mood and situation. The colour choices should also have some level of contrast from the background, emphasizing the main characters of a story. The background, on the other hand, should not be overly detailed as it might be difficult to distinguish between the character and background, or rather, "figure" and "ground" as learnt in Design Principles module.
Fig 2.2 Character designs and facial expressions study
As shown in Fig 2.3 and 2.4 below, an interesting colour palette can really catch a viewer's attention. I further dissected each scene, analysing the different design principles and Gestalt theory used. One of the examples of the Repetition principle can be seen in almost all of the panels below. Repetition is the placement of similar shapes or elements together, forming patterns. This creates rhythm, consistency and thus building contrast, bringing emphasis as well as harmony to the whole peice.
Other than that, I also realised the Visual Technique taught by Ms Anis earlier in the semester can also be applied here. In the first panel of Thomas Wellman's comic in Fig 2.3, he used the trees to "frame" the main characters in the middle, riding their abnormally drawn horses. In the first panel of Celia Lowenthal's work, she used establishing and bird's eye view shots to create a compelling composition. Good compositions consist of a balanced distribution of positive and negative spaces; as taught by Mr Kannan.
The consideration of perspectives can generate depth and optical illusions. This can cause 2D surfaces to look 3D. There are different types of perspectives;1 point, 2 point, 3 point, 4-5 points (fisheye). Additionally, the "Parallax effect" is often used in comics to create layers to depict depth. The use of different shades of the same colour is a useful technique to achieve this effect by visually creating the foreground, middle ground and background.
Fig 2.3, 2.4 Visual research
Week 10: Developing story plot
Our task is to create a short story with the theme "Slice of Life". It is the depiction of mundane experiences in art and internment. A seemingly arbitrary sequence of events in a character's life, often lacking plot development, conflict and exposition, as well as often having an open ending.
Right off the start, I wanted to create a short story about kindness. I was initially inspired by this little comic I stumbled on when I was on TikTok (Fig 2.5). It very much captured what I wanted to draw up, which included many animals and minimal human characters.
Fig 2.5, Inspiration work
My idea then developed, eventually becoming a sequence of good deeds, with one catalysed by a human being nice to a little bunny. The whole concept was an act of kindness creating a butterfly effect, sending ripples of other altruistic occurrences from one to another. The goodwill eventually lands back n the human herself, making a full circle, or rather a ring (cue to the engagement ring! haha!)
Initially, I wanted to include more animals like otters and frogs but the comic would turn out too long. After consulting Miss Anis, she suggested I should cut down the chain so the story can remain short and precise. I have also created my 2 main human character designs and the overall colour palette.
Week 11, 12 & 13: Comic Digitalisation
Below is my 2 weeks of sketching, story development and illustration compiled into a 2 minutes short time-lapse!
Before moving onto After Effects, I merged my work into a minimal amount of layers on Adobe Photoshop. I then organised and named them accordingly to ensure a smoother process when I begin working on animating each layer on AE.
Fig 4.1 Converting into simple layers on Adobe Photoshop
For this particular scene below, I used an existing effect preset called Wigglerama to mimic the bunny struggling in the plastic bag. To make the wiggling look more realistic, I then adjusted the wiggle speed, wiggle nervousness position and others as shown in Fig 4.2.
Fig 4.2 Adjusting Wigglerama effect
For the same page of the comic, I was careful to colour coordinate them so I can group them into a composition, which is easier to be edited. I placed their different positions on different keyframes, making sure the elements move smoothly with no obvious kinks in their paths.
Fig 4.3 Elements path
Below, you can see I adjusted their positions and opacity on different time frames. This screenshot was particularly for the scene where the engagement ring was sparkling, particularly at 0.21 of the final motion comic video.
Fig 4.4 Position and Opacity
The screenshot below shows a small part of the whole video edit keyframes, which you can see each page is colour coordinated into their own groups for easier reference and smoother editing process.
Comments
Post a Comment