Final Assignment (5)

The day for submission- Final is here.

I learnt a lot- comic drawing is not as simple as I thought. There are so much to think through and plan. From now on, I will read comic with a greater appreciation of how they play with frames, angles etc.

In addition, I also learnt how to do up a website, create interactivity in a web, played with gif animation and how to make a full story through multiple storyline.

Overall, I enjoyed this module. Although all the assignments can be really demanding but they were all pretty fun. At the end of each assignment I always have this great accomplishment :)
(The feeling would be even better if the grades were higher. haha)

I'm so glad I learnt all these skills on html and managed to improve some design skills.
This would be really useful in my future endeavour for designing :)

THE END

Final Assignment (4)

Finally we reach the part where we have to present at week13.

Very different from other group is that we managed to finish our coloring first, while other groups were done with their track instead.
Well, this is because coding is a problem in our group. We are really not familiar with html coding, so we had a hard time trying to search and figure out how to do the effects we thought of implementing in our story to create interactivity.

- This is shows that each team has different strategy.
Learnt: It is important to have a timeline and strategy to how we can work on the development of the project.
(Because after the session, I realised that html is the part taking alot of our time and is more critical than coloring appeal)

Anyway, as soon as I have done with coloring, I went on to help our group with the html.
Main contribution towards coding is the Rollover Image techniques that is most used throughout our story. This is mainly used to create the action-to-action transition.

Then again,  to enhance the userbility, we decided to make use to a visual effect, which I managed to add in.

PS: one of the thing i managed to selflearn from this assignment is to do gif animation!

Final Assignment (3)

After we finalised with our story path.



We start to work on the html. But at this point of time I was still working on my colouring.

During the second critique session, there wasn't any remarks on the coloring but as managed to make changes to our story after the first critique.
1) We were told if alien should look ugly
2) Make the scene somewhere out of US
3) Importance of making realistic visual appeal

we took that into consideration but after discussion we decided to reject some of the suggestions. For example, 1) to make the alien look ugly- our main aim were to sproof how hollywood movies always make alien ugly/ weird looking, hence we decided to keep it to have our alien look human-ish.

2) We thought that was not very critical and we hope to follow the opening scene of the movie itself, hence, we did not follow the recommendation.

After the second critique it was the start of battle to work and keep in time towards submission.
Learnt: During this phase, it was important that we had a consensus on concrete layout, color and design. Because this would save us from later for the continuous changes.

Final Assignment (2)

I was saying I am incharge of colouring and it is not an easy task.

Specially within a group, you cannot just do according to your own preference.
Group members consent are important. (We work as a team.)

So I actually ended up recolouring twice. Take for example:

Its pretty obvious I had a total make over for my spaceship. haha

When I first attempt to color, personally I thought the spaceship would be like sliver aluminium type but after discussing with my group member; I had to change it. Because steampunk should be brownish-yellow.

same goes for this page- I tend to color too lightly and had to recolor it. Together with yinghui's, we agree to follow the same color scheme throughout the art.

Learnt: In a team, there are always someone that can help to spot flaws and suggest ways for improvement :) (see, isnt the 2nd attempt so much more appealing? Haha)

Final Assignment (1)

Let me do some recall. (first milestone)

We finally come to a consensus of which idea to use. But we faced a challenge, because we had an story idea first instead of choosing which movie to sproof.
We actually took a day to find movies that can sproof and build towards our story idea and we almost drop the idea because it was really difficult to find.

Thankfully, somehow we managed to find the right movie.
Afterwhich, we start to think of the story... the path... the characters... our duties.

We decided to spilt jobs base on what we are better familiar with :)
For the first phase of our project.
The best artistic in our group, koko is incharge of drawing.
I am assigned to be incharge of colouring our frames with the help of yinghui.
Xinyi and yoges will help to start off with some html and report.


One of things I learnt to consider for in this art project is to deliver the consistent style/ design. As it is pretty important to avoid letting audience feel detached from the sequential art. 
Because different people have different style and tactics in drawing...

Final Assignment brainstorm

for the final assignment.
Our team meet up together and came out with several ideas.
But it was really difficult to spoof movie because most of it are already awesome.

During the meeting, we just throw up all kinds of ideas and I remember having this random idea of "Mankind are the cause of the end of the world"
I thought of spoofing the move: 2012/ End of the world

Where we put people into vicious, selfish mankind that will do anything to survive.
The idea was to have people start to fight for survival; after they thought the world is coming to an end. However, the prediction was wrong. There were tsunami but it was not the cause to world end, it was  humans that started to fight against each other and caused the end of mankind...

Sounds good? haha

BUT it was not really realistic. Ms Jing commented, such situation might just make people more bonded and helpful towards each other. Well, come to think of it, i totally agree.
So we dropped this idea. And move on to our "supernatural" theme.

Assignment 3_Process Development (2)

Final submission of assignment 3.
I did faced a few problems during the proccess of implementing it to web.
1) The codes that enable us to freely arrange the image
2) To allow the web to expand/ scroll infinitly
3) Seamless repetition of background image

Thankfully all the problems were solved.
For problem 1, we solved the problem with div tag. We can place our image into the div box and freely move it around, with the positioning set as absolute and auto.
For problem 2, it was solved when I don't set the width and height for the web.
For problem 3, I actually edited the background photo multiple times in order to make the edges seamless when the image repeat. (The edge isnt obvious unless I zoomout max...)

Here is a screenshot of my final assignments :)
Story is with a mixture of metaphor- haha. Metaphors are pervasive in everyday life; I tried to display the lonely side of an only child, whose parent is always too busy for them (which is pretty common nowadays). They yearn companions and envy those that they came across, but they may not explicitly show.

Some tactics I used:

• This image is filled up to about ¾ of the screen to create a sense of place, and part of the arrow is revealed to create anticipation and help direct readers.
• As compared to having the use of gutters, I took away the gutters for part of the sequence to create a sense of infinite space. (The part as if the girl is flying beyond the “space” and views from above.)
• With the help of both long line and images placed in a wider distance, it gives readers a longer duration of time passed. 
• Frames are placed closer together with tight scrolling pace to give a sense of shorter time transaction from scene to scene.

Last but not least, the reason for my arrangement:
From the start, it depicts main character being "lonely" with static and linear arrangement before she flies off with the kite. The frames go up as she flew to create a sense of optimism and anticipation, in addition, without the gutter for an impression of infinity. As she landed, the frames go down to depict her "lonely" once again and also in linear arrangement to show that she is back to her static lonely life.

Assignment 3_Development Process (1)

The theme of assignment 3: A lonely Theme
From this assignmentm we have to make use of web and we are supposed to apply Mccloud's Mad Scientists Approach to make use of the web paneling and infinite factor of web.

I really had a brain stuck for this assignments, I tried really hard to come out with storyline that fit into the theme. Well, at the end of the day... you still needs to produce something :X

For the critique session I decided to submit my 1st idea: A lonely Child- relatively metaphorical.
I tried to play with the positong, but it was placed accordingly to the "action" of the girl, instead of trying to make use of it to stress the "feeling" of the story.

These are the few critiques I received:

• The part when my character is flying, I have to add more people to show that others are having fun with in a group.
• Its not explicitly showing the girl is feeling lonely and the dad play much attention to her.
• The arrangement of images can be fine-tune to help embrace the loneliness of the girl when she has to head home.

What I learnt from this assignment is to consider how we can play with the positioning of frames to help stress my story. For example, when she is lonely we can place it in a linear static arrangement and place it upwards to help increase the perception of hope/ anticipation.
Likewise, according to Mccloud, length of scrolling can also help to give readers the sense of time. However, I had not played with the tactics in my assignment draft.

Lecture Exercise_wk8

Jason Lex, the amphibian’s lullaby

For this exercise we were to study on this art based online.

Today, we learnt about Mccloud's Mad Scientist Approach web paneling and infinite factor of the web. Personally, I thought its really interesting to discover the different experiences we can have between normal comic strip on book and comic placed in web.

The experience I gained from this story style is really very unique, because its an artstyle I never seen before. It is presented in a way that is so different from the traditional comic book format. The artistic actually bended the rules of sequential storytelling, illustration and computer coloring.

The images are arranged in a "U" shape instead of traditional placement of comic frames. When the images places downwards it seems like the artist is trying to give us a sense of the characters "dismay"... 
Additionally, there were no gutter and the artist played so much on collage to allow readers to imagine with all the mixture of different colors to "depict" his hallucination.

I guess all this breaking of rules that the artist did is not possible in comic book, web with no borders or limits to the space makes everything so much more intesting and possible. 
PS: Online comic really helps to save cost for color printing.

Assignment 2_Development Process (2)

Changes to Initial HEAVEN idea:
Since I had a lot of buildings to show the sign of overcrowding, I've decided to change my topic to overcrowding with the new-settlers are coming in.

In the final story,

• I generalised the new-settlers and represented them as "angles" and with different color clothes to signify different race/ ethnic groups. My story has changes to Overcrowding.
• With more settlers coming into Singapore, we faced with the increase of crowd and congestion. Even our transportsm for instance the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) have to increase its frequence to cater the rising crowd.

In the end, with the increasing new-settlers in Heaven, the place seems to be overloaded and unable to hold any more... it SINKS.

The issue in story of Singapore is implicitly shown.

Hope you will enjoy it :)

Assignment 2_Development Process (1)

For assignment 2, we were assigned with the theme: Issues people facing in singapore.

(We were also allowed to make use of TEXT)

In the initial process of thinking for storyline, I got most of my ideas inspired from Singapore Studies module since is a sociology module talking all about the "critical side" of Singapore.

My idea was to tap on how our Culture has been influenced and revolutionized by the new-settlers in Singapore over the years.

Topic: The changes in Singaporean.

I tried to illustrate my idea in a subtle and interpretative way, so it was less specific and direct. 
For this illustration, I actually wanted people to relate themselves with the Singapore context.

Well, here is my drawing for first submission- critique:

The text was just a rough idea.

In the critique session, I had a few comments from teacher & friends:

1) If Singapore had its own culture?

2) If the western is the only one influencing Singapore's Culture.

3) If my story should be more direct, to the point of critic the changes/ effects the new-settlers had brought.

However, after the critique I actually came out with a new storyline and a bit of changes to my initial story idea.

The another story idea:

It’s about certain people facing an issue of “unfairness”, where resources are not equally distributed to certain patient.

Well, here is my story; I hope you guys can understand. 

A really rough first draft sketch of my story.

In this story, I compared people who suffered from cancer due to smoking, and the HIV patients respectively.

So my idea is to illustrate how people don't accept HIV patient, even the "law/ policy", they think it’s their fault. Where else people who suffered cancer due to excessive smoking and drinking, they can receive subsides. It’s their choice/ faults to smoke and caused them to suffer from cancer… But, people don't blame them and still give enough subsides to help.

So when I compared them together, I guess HIV patients got treated unfairly. Smoker could have stop smoking and prevent from cancer. But I guess it is really hard to depict a cause. So Ms Jing suggested me into talking about the health care subsidies inequalities rather than its causes. However, I do not know much details towards the full Health Care policies. So i decided to drop the idea :( and go on to my HEAVEN STORY :) 

Lecture class exercise_wk5

In this week lecture, we were taught about the relationship between image and text. 

Usually, texts are like navigator, it has the ability to direct where and how the story will flow, and can be used to depict as a voiceless voice to express ideas. After doing assignment 1, not sure what my other class mates feel, but I’m sure that having text on image helps a story. It can easily bring out the flow of the image. 

The readings mentioned 7 categories of image/text interactive by Scott McCloud:

• Word Specific 
•  Picture Specific
•  Duo-Specific
• Additive
• Parallel
• Montage
• Interdependent

In this week class exercise, we were given these 4 identical images with empty speech bubbles to be filled in. After realising, it’s actually a practice for text-image relationships. We are supposed to fill in the speech bubbles in contrast with 4 different relationships:

• 1  Redundant - where the words and images say the same thing.
• 2  Contrasting - where the words and images portray different ideas.
• 3  Complementary - where the words and images add up to tell an idea that neither one alone can express.
• 4  Unrelated - where the words and images have no apparent connection.

This meaningful exercise had proven how text can change the meaning of a picture completely. It is important to take note that text can be misleading for the image if it is wrongly used.

And, here is my work:

After this exercise, it’s comprehensible that with text comes great depiction, either for the good or bad. Furthermore, to add on in regards to comic artist earlier on and like I’ve said, text-image relationship is pretty straightforward and simple. Dialogues in comic strip can be in speech bubbles, narrative in text box or their sound effects presented in special fonts. Comic book artists are best in making use of such text to create sound effects by taking up various shapes and sizes depending on the effect needed. 

Class Tutorial Exersice

DRAWING TIME!

During tutorial class, we were given the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme and asked to sketch a comic strip to illustrate the scenario.

This is my final product:

In this exercise, we all tried to play with panel-to-panel tactics.

For myself, I also used moment-to-moment, action-to-action and subject-to-subject.

It was quite fun.

Before we draw out our final story, we also tried to do up a few different panel layout.

Assignment1_Development Process

Two weeks ago, we were assigned with our first individual assignment; to illustrate a story with 5 frames of pictures. And I had came out with a storyline inspired from the Valentine's Day.

Before I review my story, do take a look at my first draft for group critique session :)

I had a couple of feedbacks from my tutorial class, and the main tip given was that photography is used to depict reality. Therefore, my story (photo) have to be believable. Hence, I realised my location choice was not ideal- the 4th frame

I had the presents placed in a location that may be not used in reality, and this was the main critique I received.










A few advice given was to make sure the alignment of photos are to be straight, which I did not realised my 1st frame was actually a little tiled. 


It is better to make sure our background is "clean", this will help audience to see where the focus point is. 

Last but not least, to help amplify the ending of the story, it is better to have shown the actor's facial expression of disappointment.

After taking all the feedbacks into consideration, I had adjusted my story and reshot all my scenes.

I actually came out with 2 scenarios to illustrate my story; a confession on Valentine's Day was backfired by the popularity of the girl.
1)                                                        2)

 

After considering and receiving some feedbacks from friends on which scenarios would deliver a better believable story... My final choice is 1 (with the girl throwing the gift away). 
That is because the mailbox was not a strong tool used to show the girl has received a lot of presents and to actually cause the guy to give up.

(I added color filter, hope it can give the story a warm feel)

After adjusting and doing final touch up... I decided to change my last frame.

I chose to show the face of the girl; being indifferent after receiving the present

That's for my assignment 1.

THANKYOU.

Wk3_Class Exercise 3

This week exercises we have to look through and state the technique use for time change on the comics- Some People by LUKE PEARSON

http://lukepearson.com/2009/09/some-people.html

Our group thinks of a few ways the artists had played with to show time change:

- Color changes from Red-Yellow to show the greater years of time change.

- No Gutter/ borders were used for time change

- Indication of character with same clothes and same hairstyle (consistence)

- Played with a color scheme of mainly brown and red

Other things noticed from the comic (shared by classmates):

- The image below, shown the background in brown color seems to indicate the time has freezed; and the girl at the foreground indicted to change with time.

- Red color used as background are generally for "angry/ unpleasant"

- Other kinds of object can also be use to split frame. In this comic, the trees are used to spilt the frame which are another way used.

The color used did really help to enhance the sense of transition for changes in time. The panels without gutter did help to bring the FEEL of time being stretches longer...

From this comic and lesson, I really learnt the difference in time (longer, shorter, time pass) can actually be created by the changes in gutter length and border.

WK2_Types of Transition

Today our class is taught with the various types of panel-to-panel transition, and I think it's really amazing. It is something that I’ve neither thought of nor pay attention to when I read comics.

According to Scott McCloud's, there are 6 categories of panel-to-panel transitions.

And here are the types of transition my group discussed during lesson with the help of the following pictures provided for class exercise 2...

TRANSITION 1

[Moment-to-moment]

I guess it's quite obvious the stages progress very slowly and requires very little closure for us to associate on what is happening.

TRANSITION 2

[Action-to-action]

The action-to-action transitions feature a single subject in distinct action-to-action progressions.

I think moment-to-moment and action-to-action is rather similar but action seems to portray instantly rather than “slow motion” by identifying every moment. (You can compare the image for Moment with Action)

TRANSITION 3

[Subject-to-subject]

The panels-to-panels still stays within a scene or an idea, which requires considerably degree of reading involvement to render these transitions meaningful.

But if you compare action with subject transition, I think closure is required more for subject transition compared to action.

TRANSITION 4

[Scene-to-scene]

One of the example done with the pictures given for the exercise, but I'm not really sure if this work correctly. I am trying to show the transportation in time, from morning to night. I think it's a little difficult to relate the frames together for a story without text. In this case, a deductive reasoning is required in reading these transitions, which transport reader across significant distances of time and space.  

This is a proper example from lecture slides by Scott McCloud.

TRANSITION 5

 [Aspect-to-aspect]

As for the 5th transition, it normally bypasses time for the most part and sets a wandering eye on different aspects of a place, idea or mood. So I gave a different mood for the pictures above, hope it's right :) This kind of transition seems to be more illustrated for opening sequence.

TRANSITION 6

[Non Sequitur]

Every frame offers no logical relationship what-so-ever, and the image above is a very direct example from Scott. :D

ANIMATION/FILM vs COMICS

animation/flim seems like a faster pace of sequential art with more frame presented.

but the difference between them is that animation are continuous frame in the same space, and comics is able to present different space for every single frame.

-personally I think animation filled us with 25frames per sec to fill up the space, unlike comics presenting1sec by 1 frame.

WK1_Defining Sequential Art

Today is the first lesson of NM3228 and we had a Class Exercise (1).

For the exercise, we were told to come out with our definition of Sequential Art.
We were given plenty of pictures, and after comparing the pictures in my group.

Here are the 3 main characterises of our definition for Sequential Art:

1) By comparing between images and text. We felt that image should be the main "medium" to convey out the story/ information.
The image itself should make sense for the viewer and the short text act as a supporting role to help further enhance the story/ information.        Here is an example:

 By comparing the two images, I think it is quite obvious to what I mean.
--> Without the help of text, readers can still get a clear idea of the story/ information.



(Sequential Art)

---> I guess readers wouldn't understand what is it trying to convey without the help of those texts.


(Not Sequential Art)

---> As for this image, the text is a complement to help further understand the images.




(Sequential Art)





2) The frame of pictures can be different but the sequence must be connected (there should be a connection) to help make sense; to make up the story or convey an information.
Here is an example:

(Not Sequential Art)

By comparing the images above and the one on the left, our group finds that the image (TOP) doesn't have a strong connector that helps to convey a story/ information through the the 3 images.

There should be a flow in before and after of each subsequence frame like the image (LEFT), the images/ scenarios are all different but there is an identical connector (strawberry) to help the story flow.








(Sequential Art)




3) The main icon within the progression of a story/ information should be in a timeline, instead of snap shot of images of different images that won't make up a story/ information when they are together. (I guess it's also pretty similar to the 2nd point)                      For example:

By comparing the two images:

The image (LEFT) tells a very clear information of the progress of the town when you read left to right.



(Sequential Art)




As for the Chingmingscoll (below), there is no main icon/ character to focus that helps to tell a story through the image. It is just different parts of the city being stitch together. Hence, if you try reading from left-right or vice versa, it doesn't make up a story/ information when they are together. Perhaps, it only to shows us how this city look like but not conveying a story/ information by a sequence.            (Not Sequential Art)

For my conclusion, the word “sequential” in the term “sequential art” means when many different images are set and put into a sequence, it should help to make sense for viewer. As for "art", I guess "art" is something that depends on how every individual sees it, mostly would base on their own point of view or how the "art" are being appreciated. Hence, the gap of the sequence of images may allow different viewers to have different expression of imaginations- which the expression of imaginations would be consider as "art".

Some other images we consider as not a sequential art but simply as a art piece.

That's about all :)