CHARLOTTE BANCHINI
RESEARCH
INITIAL THOUGHTS
AUDIENCE:
The audience is who the product is aimed towards, the pool of people it's made to be consumed by. Prominent examples include age, culture, interests, geographical location, society.
CONTEXT:
The context for our project is the purpose or "why?" of the product being made, what are the reasons you want to make it, what it's inspired by or what the idea is based on to begin with.
THEMES:
The theme is the key concepts and ideas present in the product, recurring motifs, overall genre or topic etc. For example, our FMP for last year had the theme of diversity we had to follow
AUDIENCE: In this project, the main audience is my friends - but as a more broader concept, dedicated to anyone who has ever experienced the sort of bonds that come with college, maintaining friendships while going through the pandemic, and especially dedicated to people in my age group who are experiencing the end of childhood and phasing into the adult part of their lives.
CONTEXT: For my FMP the context will be based around college, my time spent here and the friends I've made through the time I've been here. The purpose of my project is, at its core, is to represent and immortalise the memories I've made with my friends and give a hopeful sendoff to the years we've spent together. It'll naturally be based on the memories I've made, and I'll be reinterpreting them into a visual space that in a way that follows the progression of me going through college.
THEME: We have no set theme for our FMP this year, so it's pretty falls on our shoulders to decide what the theme of our project revolves around, if any. For me, some of the key themes are friendship, love, the concept of things changing, the forming of our own identities as we grow up, and a sense of loss in the way that we're moving on from our childhoods.
POSSIBLE RESEARCH:
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Composition
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Storytelling
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Colour Psychology
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How to Make a Comic
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Writing Poetry
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Character Design
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Perspective
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Symbolism/Motifs
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Pacing
OVERVIEW OF IDEA
Compared to other projects I've done, this one is entirely personal to me. Last year’s FMP was fanart, I put my own spin on a pre existing piece of media and reimagined it in a way that made it suitable to the brief. The year before last, my FMP was more creative in the fact I used my own characters, but the driving force of that project was a pre existing song, it carried the narrative more than the visuals did and took away from the originality of my idea.
My intention this FMP is to create something different. For one, I'm not doing an animation like I initially thought, which itself has felt like a risk. But as this is the FMP, we have a lot more freedom of the sorts of mediums I could use. I've gone back and forth on my decision, but I know it's better to take into account my own limitations, health and current motivation in conjunction to art. Secondly, I'm making something that is 100% mine, not basing my project on anything except my life.
My idea for this FMP is to create a several page comic, each one playing a part in illustrating and interpreting my most core memories from college, creatively formatting them to depict the most impactful moments of the past three years. The reason I’m doing this now, rather than as my FMP during level 4, is that while I’ll be progressing and staying at the college for another year, not everyone I’ve grown to know because of college will. This is our final time being on campus all together, and I want to commemorate that by making something that outlives the amount of time we’ve known each other. My friends mean a lot to me, and words can only go so far, so the next step is to use something that fills in the gaps, art.
COMIC INSPIRATION
I think my recent infatuation with creating a comic, in opposition to my natural instinct to create something "big" and animated as my FMP, has come from a desire to make something very true to myself. Not to say that animating isn't a passion of mine, but I want to make something that feels handmade, outside of the lines and borders I've made for myself, poetic and artistic in a messy and not-entirely-clean way. I want to create something that depicts, visually, how my memories of moments with my friends feel. I want to make that warmth and love palpable to a viewer who has no idea who me or my friends are. I want people to be able to look at my FMP this year and be able to relate it to the love that exists in their own lives.
I think these comics above depict the visual style I'm going for perfectly. I'm leaning more towards the first one as my main point of inspiration, as I admire the way the text is apart of the scene, rather than off to the side in the second, and how the colours are used. The colour palette is almost entirely complementary, and yet not washed out or muddy, it's warm and bright and full of expertly used light (especially in the final page.) In the first page, there's almost no use of pure white, then in the final page it's the main focus, it quite literally beams out at you and fills the whole page, it's the sole focus. A simple comparison between the first and third pages very clearly show a sense of progression, and of the notion that "less is more", at least to begin with. The colours in the third comic are also extremely to close to what I'd like to emulate, everything being washed in a warm, orange-pink tone.
The format and structuring of a comic itself, with different types of boxes and speech bubbles and shapes is something I need to learn from the very beginning. I like the look of the fiest two comics because they're very open, the first one using a lot of free space to emphasise the size of things, the second almost using columns - one for art, one for text. The third is the most regularly formatted comic of the three, with hand drawn boxes all of similar shapes and progressing in the natural left to right way. I've never made a comic before, so to understand the basics of formatting and how to lay out my comic in an easily understood way that still conveys the desired feelings without feeling static is something I need to develop from the ground up.
The style is also very watercolour-like in the first comic, and that in of itself is very appealing to me. I'm not a fan of doing traditional art, so real watercolour isn't a route I'd go down for this project, but it presents opportunity to possible experimentation. Art of this style is something I want to research more into; how it can be recreated digitally using different techniques, textures and brushes etc. For a comic about the tides of change, time passing, growing up, creating bonds and memories and coping with the "loss" of a time of our lives is something a very soft, painterly style feels suited for. Watercolour art has a very specific, dreamy feel to it, it's what my memories can sometimes feels like, slightly hazy but glowing with warmth.
Two of the comics here feature text, but this isn't always the case with comics, others, like the third comic, are void of text altogether and the art is left to speak for itself! The choice to keep a comic vague, or to carry the story's narrative along using poetry or lyrics etc. is completely up to the artist. I think for my comic to have it's fullest impact, I'll have to use words.
Reflection:
For my first big piece of research, I looked into a few different multi-page comics that were made by small artists in comparison to looking at already established franchises of comics such as Marvel or DC. I felt this would be a good choice as it feels more applicable to my situation, as these comics were produced wholly by one person, as will mine be. Looking at big pre-existing comic series', while a good source of inspiration, are not a realistic goal for me to achieve in this project as they have a much bigger team, more resources and a pre-established story to visually represent. For smaller artists I find via platforms like Tumblr and Twitter, their art is more easy for me to see myself achieving while pushing my skills. Comics are something I've never researched heavily into before, so easing myself in my looking at comics that inspire my style of drawing and storytelling is a big help in starting off.
INSPO FROM MY OWN LIFE
From the very beginning of this college year I'd planned to make this year's FMP a "homage" of sorts to my college years. Because despite the fact I'll be returning next year for Level 4, not everyone who I've gone through college the past 3 years is. So I want to visually immortalise these moments of my life in a sense, so that the love I have for those moments isn't lost or forgotten when friends are miles away at university or in work. Because when words aren't enough, art can fill in the gaps and that's what the aim is with my project. These are our last months of all being together on the same campus and I want to make sure not a moment of the bond we've created is lost to time passing. I want to make something that outlives the amount of time we've all spent here.
I want to make something that is 100% a representation of me, no outside source dictating the way my FMP is, in first year it was a song, last year it was a pre existing piece of media. Now I want to make something that's mine and my friends, but digestible to anyone else who has ever experienced what I have. As it is, I have a lot of material to work with to piece together a storyboard of my college years from real life pictures, videos etc. So reference pictures won't be an issue at all, and in fact it will help me easily formulate a 'skeleton' of the plot of my comic. Most days of my life at college have been documented in some way and that's something that is monumentally helpful in the structuring of this idea.
Aside from pictures and videos, for most days of college since 2019 I've kept a diary. It's compiled of every inside joke my friends and I have, every first meeting, every standout moment that may have felt mundane in the moment but now feels big and life changing. Even additionally to that, the idealised daydreams that my friends and I have had, but have not yet followed through with, I can take inspiration of them and create my own interpretation of them and visualise into reality. The point of this whole idea is to show how much my friends have shaped me in the last 3 years, and show that development and unwavering love. I can't think of any better way to show that than a loving creative reimagining of moments of our lives, and moments of our lives we haven't lived yet.
Reflection:
In most of my projects, primary research has been lacking either because of covid restrictions or due to just not having relevant areas of interest I could research into on my own accord. However, this project is very different because it relies so heavily on my own life experiences, so by looking into those experiences I've had, going over three years worth of memories, photos and messages I'm effectively using them as primary research! I believe this research is quite vital to my project, because of just how much my comic revolves around the experiences we've shared. And by doing this research I find myself more able to accurately grasp and intellectualise ways to format those memories into an understandable comic for all audiences. Going further beyond this, this research inspires me further to do photo studies of specific places and of the people who will be featured in my comic, so this is something I will carry out soon!
POETRY INSPO
Initially, I thought about using lyrics from a pre existing song or poem I associate with my friends and the time I've spent at college to use alongside my comic (or to use as inspiration for the subject matter of my comic entirely.) However, in alignment with my own predetermined goal of making something 100% me, I thought it would be a good change of pace for me to make something myself to be alongside my comic. For the past couple years I've written poetry without any intention of sharing it, but I felt it would be nice to change that by writing something in dedication to my friends. This is a separate 'mini project' to the art I'll be making, but it would only make sense if the art reflects the sentiments that the words of my eventual poem try to convey. So I'll be documenting my process for that aspect of my project too.
To begin with, however, I thought it would be good to look into the songs and poems that grapple with the themes I'll be attempting to tackle in my own poem and comic. The ones that are immediately come to mind are love, change, identity and loss. Each of these four themes are a monumental part of what has made my college years, and the friends I've made because of these years, so impactful. We've grown to love each other, we're going through constant change as we watch each other grow up, we're all learning who we are and how to exist comfortably in our own skin, and we're facing the loss of this phase of our lives that we're currently in now together as some of us experience our last months on campus. Everything is changing, but we're all going through it together, and that's what I'm trying to find the lyrics and poetry to represent.
THEME: LOVE
Here is a collection of poetry excerpts I've compiled, all representing what I interpret as being about love, the persevering nature of love beyond all adversities and love people regardless of how much they change. This is a key concept for the idea of my project, as my friends and I grow throughout our college years into the people we are now and hope to keep loving each other regardless of where we go after this year is over.
Love is a feeling, an action, even a choice, and it takes many forms. Within these few excerpts alone we can see very different acts of love, a lot of these examples fitting the '5 Love Languages' that have been popularised in an online space. In the book, titled 'The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate', published in 1992. While the book's author is known to have been homophobic and an overall bigot, thus his interpretation of love likely to be very restrictive to a heteronormative view, reimagining those proposed love languages in a platonic context, such as with my friends, can add another layer of decisions behind my creative process.
The 5 love languages are as follows:
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Words of affirmation.
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Quality time.
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Physical touch.
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Acts of service.
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Receiving gifts.
Everyone has different love languages, and maybe not all of them are compatible - one friend may like physical touch and someone else may only like it to a certain amount, and being friends doesn't mean your love languages have to match, it just has to mean that you respect their boundaries with whatever love language you both have.
References:
Heidi Priebe
Natalie Wee
Sarah Ruhl
Warsan Shire
Thomas Merton
THEME: CHANGE
In a similar vein to love, change is present. In love, change is found in the promise to keep loving despite or in spite of change. Change itself though is very hard to capture in poetry and in visuals without being spelled out plainly. So here are just a few quotes and song lyrics that remind me of that theme of change, specifically in regards to growing up and an exit from childhood and becoming a different person throughout that exit.
Change is on the horizon right now, and by the end of this project some changes are gonna change the lives of my friends and I forever. With others going to uni and others staying on for Level 4, the group will be a bit more spread out and so much of who we are will go unknown by friends who are further away until we meet again. But it's that promise of things constantly changing that we hold onto, because if things are always changing then it means that we can still all be together again.
In a convoluted way, the constant theme of change throughout life and especially within bonds formed at this time is its own form of love. Being able to change and grow, and yet not grow apart from people and instead somehow grow inwards towards each other is love.
References:
Ribs by Lorde
First Love / Late Spring by Mitski
Richard Siken
@Unmecha on Tumblr
Mikko Harvey
Jennifer Willoughby
Alain de Botton
THEME: IDENTITY
Identity is like change, in the fact that it's always happening, being reformed and reshaped and made anew by each day. In relation to this project though, it's about my friends and I, at a very important part of our lives where we're going from teenagers to adults, from college to uni or otherwise. Our identities are being formed by the day as we discover who we are and share that with the people who love us. College has been monumental to a lot of us realising big parts of who we are, and healing from other things, so I want to communicate that in my project by showing what "identity" means to us now, compared to first year for example.
References:
Bianca Sparacino
Danez Smith
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Fernando Pessoa
Marie Howe
THEME: LOSS
A final theme I want to communicate in my comic is loss. While morbid on the surface, when you look into it deeper loss is just another form of love. Missing something, not being able to go back to it but wanting to, it's that feeling of longing that makes loss much more beautiful than it first seems. In a way, we are losing our childhood and college years, but it's the fact that our time is finite that makes it more meaningful as well, we miss things because they meant so much to us. This ending of college is a loss, but after the ending there is always rebirth, a new beginning, a new era. That's what comes after, it's the change that loss brings.
The fear of losing people is a big one many people face, and in my comic and poem I want to try and represent the arc of coming to believe and accept that idea. The truth is that sometimes people will leave, but those who stay really do want to stay and it's that choice and continued action of staying that makes all the difference. Saying goodbye is tough and I'll have to say goodbye when my best friend goes to uni after this summer, but him going to uni doesn't mean I'm losing him or that he's losing me, life isn't as black and white as that. The continued effort of two people is what makes a friendship work, not just the convenience of having each other in a singular moment or circumstance.
References:
David Levithan
Ada Limón
Langston Hughes
Richard Siken
Jamie Anderson
T. R. Hummer
Reflection:
By looking into these themes in the context of lyrics and poetry prose (which is a medium I'll be utilising in the end result of my own project as well) I can find and lay the foundation for elements I wish to include in my poem that will go alongside the comic. These themes are all huge pillars of what make up my thoughts when I think of the last few years spent at college with people I care about, and with further research into poetry of these topics I can use the poets' words and metaphors to create my own interpretation in a poem of my own! I believe that this research is much more important than I first thought, as without it I would be lost on how to start writing a poem about these themes in an artistic and emotional way that wasn't blunt or spelling out the meaning. I want my poem to be vague enough that is applicable to most people's experiences with love, while also being made specifically for the people I love, about my own friendships with them that only they fully understand.
COMPOSITION IN PHOTOGRAPHY & ART
In this project, composition and pacing are important elements, maybe even more important than those elements are within the context of an animated project. Because I'm making a comic, there is a big emphasis put on composition and the pacing, as there is no movement to otherwise compensate or cover up those elements, the composition has to be a lot more purposeful and thought out.
The layout of a comic is its foundation, and without a strong foundation and base idea for how to lay out the comic, the final product will be a mess. I also have to account for the space needed to include the captions of my comic, as well as thinking out the placement of each of my characters so that they're both recognisable and given equal amounts of "screen time".
For my initial research, I looked into composition in real life photography as it will give me real life reference material to do figure drawing practice with. I thought this would be the best first step for looking into composition because using real life models as reference means that my anatomy in my own interpretation of those composition styles would be accurate. Using existing art pieces as my beginning research into composition would mean that my perception of composition would be inherently stylised and not inherently accurate in comparison to using real life reference.
I first learnt via this website that there are a lot of elements that go into composition - specifically in the realm of photography - though they can also be applied to the context of making a piece of art. Some of these elements are patterns, texture, symmetry, depth of field, contrast, negative space and filled space, to name a few. By employing these different elements, my compositions will be much more pleasing to look at and overall more enriching to the viewer.
Within photography there is also a few very popular techniques that are followed, such as the rule of thirds which is the most common composition technique, as it's very balanced. Leading lines are also a very popular one as the very purposeful placement of the leading lines can affect where the viewer's eye will be drawn, which can be additionally helpful to creating a story arc.
Another element that is very vital to composition is symmetry versus asymmetry. In the picture above, almost all of it is symmetrical, but it's set off by the bucket in the right hand corner, it creates a much more interesting composition using only a very small difference and it draws the viewer's eye very easily. This technique can easily be used in conjunction with other ones, like the rule of thirds etc. because something can fit within that rule while the subject matter is asymmetrical.
Finally, after this I looked into composition in art itself rather than real life as it would give me a direct interpretation of how other artists use composition in art but specifically comics, where the composition is much more limited and defined by the size of the comic panels - which I will research into later when talking about pacing. In art, the rules of photography are much looser because we can easily scale, crop, add and remove different elements of a scene whereas in real life you can only alter how the existing scene looks by changing angles, positioning etc. Anything goes in art and comics because they're so easily stylised, in real life we are much more limited.
Here are a couple examples of the rule of thirds and the use of leading lines. In the rule of thirds example, you can see how things are split up into a 3 by 3 grid, and it's notable how to the horizon lines up with the window, and the top of the light house lines up with the edge of the clouds. In the leading lines example, it's very clear where our eye is meant to be drawn as shown by the road and how it's framed by the trees and how the scene gradually gets less busy the further down you go if you follow the road.
After this, I researched specifically into portrait photography as human figures are the main subject of my comic. Most of the same rules apply, but there's ones that are specifically in place to specifically aid in human portraits. The rule of thirds is already used as commonplace in portrait photography, but some other techniques are to centre the subject, use diagonal lines, keep the background simple and use high/low horizon lines. I got this information from this website and below are some examples of each technique I listed.
Here are some of my favourite art pieces, made by a digital artist who I've taken a lot of inspiration from especially recently as her style is one that is very similar to the type of style I'd like to emulate. It's semi realistic, but clearly stylised with very purposeful brush stokes and a painterly style of shading.
Noticeably, the common 'rules' and techniques of photography composition still make appearances within her art. Centring her subjects, the rule of thirds, horizon lines and asymmetry being ones that jumped out to me the most. In fact, there's almost no 100% symmetry in her art which I find to be something that is uniquely captivating, but also makes sense considering the abundance of enriching backgrounds she uses. There are exceptions for this of course, the wings for one being pretty symmetrical and framing the subject in the first piece.
I'll be doing further research into this artist for the sake of my project but this is where I'll leave it for talking about her use of composition in digital art.
Here are some of my favourite art pieces, made by a digital artist who I've taken a lot of inspiration from especially recently as her style is one that is very similar to the type of style I'd like to emulate. It's semi realistic, but clearly stylised with very purposeful brush stokes and a painterly style of shading.
Noticeably, the common 'rules' and techniques of photography composition still make appearances within her art. Centring her subjects, the rule of thirds, horizon lines and asymmetry being ones that jumped out to me the most. In fact, there's almost no 100% symmetry in her art which I find to be something that is uniquely captivating, but also makes sense considering the abundance of enriching backgrounds she uses. There are exceptions for this of course, the wings for one being pretty symmetrical and framing the subject in the first piece.
I'll be doing further research into this artist for the sake of my project but this is where I'll leave it for talking about her use of composition in digital art.
The reason this research into composition will play a big part in the production of my comic is due to the fact that the sizing of my panels itself, as well as how each panel's subjects are framed and positioned within them, will be a factor in the feelings the panel makes the viewer feel. For example, a wide shot panel that is narrow vertically and have one definable subject centred by comparably less detailed surroundings will create a claustrophobic feeling as well as a sense of urgency or isolation. In comparison, a scene that has a lot of free space will feel exactly what it seems, free. Having a lot of empty space in a panel is not always a negative thing, and it can be used especially to make it feel like your subject is a lot more small or 'insignificant' in comparison to something else.
Additionally to this, some other impacts composition can have on my comic is the overall pacing of it, as bigger panels will allow the reader more time to process on them, whereas a series of multiple small panels maybe even overlaid on top of each other will quicken the pace up. This is good for action scenes, of which there aren't any in the type of narrative I'm trying to convey. My comic is meant to be personal and sincere, it isn't something to be rushed through so using a fast paced type of storytelling for my composition would not fit the actual storyline at all.
Reflection:
In conclusion, this extensive look into composition has greatly informed how I'll go ahead with constructing my comic panels to further emphasise the emotional impact, draw the viewer's eye where it needs to be. By using different techniques and composition types, I'll be able to make the viewer see something from my perspective, or feel the emotional weight of a moment by having one panel be quite sparse, then grow in visual information and crowdedness in the next. I believe that this research has been very important to the early development of my FMP because it gives me both real life and artistic reference for how the composition of a scene can impact how it is viewed and interpreted. As my project is largely based on bonds, love and the emotions that come with growing up and the theme of change that is woven throughout our college years, it's important to me that the composition will fit with the overall message I intend to convey.
COMIC PACING
Because my FMP is not an animation, my pacing is much more reliant on just the still visuals and especially on the comic panels themselves. The first principal that dictates pacing is text, as the amount of text on the panel will immediately correlate to how long the reader lingers on the panel. As my panel will definitely feature text in the form of a poem, this is something I should pay attention to when structuring my comic. But because the text my comic will feature is a poem it gives me more freedom to have the text be more split up across different panels so it flows better with the narrative.
Sizing of panels also plays a big part in how the pacing is in a comic. For example, if the sizing of the panels is small it will make the pace go faster since there will be less content for the viewer to process if the panel cannot fit as much content. On the the opposite end of this, big panels or panels that take up the whole page will slow down the pace as the viewer will take a longer time to take in all parts of the scene so that they do not miss out on any details or additional context provided by the larger scale of visuals given. Additionally to this, the amount of content given in a panel will also play a part in how long it takes a reader to move on from it to go onto the next one, if a panel has a lot of visual information it will naturally take a longer time to process, so playing around with complicated versus simple scenes will be beneficial to figuring out how to pace the comic in the end result.
In this scene for example, the panels all of the same size which gives the sequence a very consistent pace, additionally there is no text and a very limited colour palette/amount of visual information which quickens the pace even more. However, this scene almost has a slow motion style effect with how much motion is conveyed between each panel, each panel is quite similar to the last and it perfectly represents the rapid succession of the movements while still feeling like a complete scene.
This sequence is very different because it features three different styles of comic composition, as well as showing a smooth progression between theme. In the first section of panels, there is an initial slow build up by using the big, horizontal panels. Below this, the next panels come in rapid succession, the small vertical panels overlapping with each other in a messy skewed format, the panels looking as chaotic as the scene should feel. In the second selection of panels, they're back to being evenly spaced and sized, slowing down the pace and making it more digestible ot the reader. And finally, in the last section we return to big horizontal panels, slowing down the pace further as the fight calms and the heroes take back control.
Lastly, I used this post as some additional research into the emotional impact that purposefully letting emotions and tensions rise and breathe by using decompression or compression in your comics has. In a very simple scene, you can make it go very quick by it being two small panels right beside each other or even overlaid one over the other. But if you want to let the beats go slower and for there to be additional weight building up throughout the scenes, you can turn a 2 panel scene into 5, only subtly changing your panel sizing and positioning of your 'camera' in the digital stage of framing to create a much heavier impact.
In my comic, it's three years of memories trying to be compiled into a few pages, so there isn't as much time to use decompression to my advantage and let one scene or one memory take up a whole page. I feel like it would be out of place to do one page that focuses on a single scene throughout various panels, compared to the rest of the pages depicting a different scene in each panel. But this research definitely felt beneficial to understanding how an artist can play with your own perception of time by pacing and spacing panels in a specific way.
Reflection:
By looking into pacing, I was able to establish a foundation level understanding of just how big an impact the sizing and spacing of comic panels can influence the speed at which they're read, and the emotional weight of a scene, additional elements like text and visual information adding to this. Thanks to this research, I know just how much the implied desired pace of a comic matters, and how it can further convey a story effectively. I now believe that this research was vital, because without it I would not have any understanding of how pacing works in a comic format. Now I know how to implement these features, I can start on possible drafts of the structure for my comic, keeping the flow of my poem also in mind.
HOW TO TELL A STORY/MAKING A COMIC
I think the most enticing part of a comic is the storyline, it's what draws people in and makes them invested. A good art style and formatting of your comic panels can't save a badly structured story. The good thing about my story is that, for right now, it's quite vague and has the possibility to change forms easily - at least in a visual sense. For my story, the focus is on showing the growth between my first year of college in 2019, to the end of this college year now in 2022. To show this I'll be using reference from my real life; things like pictures, videos, diary entries and chat messages will inform the scenes I depict. Each panel will be a memory of mine from throughout these years, reimagined in a digital painting/watercolour art style - in a way I'll draw these memories of mine out in less of the way of how they looked and more how they felt. The story won't be told by character dialogue or some sort of narrator either, swapped out for a poem I write that will also be dedicated to these college years coming to a close for most of my friend group. This poem will be the driving force of the story, so it's flow and pacing will be important.
Above are two videos I used as my first baseline for comic making. The left video, in my opinion, taught me a lot about what mistakes I could potentially avoid in my comic. That isn't to say that the video's creator is bad at making comics, but they say themselves that they tend to make comics up on the spot and with not much thought - as they were comics made just to promote something else. This taught me that, while you don't need to put a lot of thought into a comic for it to necessarily be received well, giving the creative decisions behind a comic's making more purpose makes it all the more meaningful. The left video is an example of a lot of the things I actually want to avoid, whereas the right video gave me a lot more insight into the type of comic I intend on making.
The first thing I learnt was the difference between the comic and webtoon style format. Comics are actually thought of to be the more advanced format, so this has made me start thinking maybe I should implement some elements of the more webtoon style of formatting as this is my first comic. Visually, I think the webtoon layout is a lot simpler but easy to follow - which I guess follows the idea that it's easier for the artist themselves to format too. In comics, you have to be able to cram a lot into a few pages, and having the addition of words and many scenes happening can make it messy so this is something I have to watch out for.
Next I learnt about was thumbnails, which I knew about beforehand thanks to previous projects and small animations I've done. I've learnt that making thumbnails is one of the easiest ways to almost "test" the format of your comic by laying out all of your characters, dialogue and panels and structuring them in the best way you see fit before making a real 'put together' draft of the final product. Thumbnails are the best way to get a loose idea of the composition and flow of pacing/character movement in a comic or animation, so this is something I'll definitely be utilising.
I also learnt about having establishing shots to give context to when and where the characters are, as I establish a more solid storyline of my comic my ideas for these establishing shots will also become more clear. Additionally, the creator of the right video emphasises how important it is to keep character designs simple as you will likely have to draw those characters many times over and keeping them consistent is so key.
Reflection:
As someone who's never made a comic before, this type of research might be the most important to making sure my comic actually turns out readable and digestible to a viewer. Before this I had never realised the distinction between a comic and webtoon and it's implored me to further seek out the differences they have in formatting and thinking over which one would fit the storyline I intend to draw out better, and if there is some sort of 'in between' form that combines the two of them. This research will be continued further on my Practical Skills page as I make thumbnails and further experiment with formats, so I will be continuing to implement what I've learnt from these videos.
COLOUR NARRATIVES/SCRIPTING
In my last FMP, I researched extensively into colour theory and psychology to identify just how impactful the use of colour is in telling a story. Due to my last FMP being rushed towards the end however, I wasn't able to fully utilise all that I learnt about the use of colour so I hope to make up for it in my comic this time, where colour takes the forefront. This video is one I've used as a key piece of research for learning about colour in narratives in the past. It taught me how vital colour is, and how we can even tell a story with just a colour palettes progression throughout a sequence (movie, game, comic etc.) and this is called a colour script. Colour scripts are mainly used by animators to get a baseline idea for how the colours change throughout an animation to evoke the desired feelings. However I believe this same method could be implemented in my comic, combined with the thumbnails I do for each panel.
The progression of a colour palette throughout several scenes can go completely undetected until you compare the beginning to the end, and I hope to make the progression of my comic's colouring similarly seamless. My art as it is tends to be very warm and utilise a lot of oranges and yellows, so the sunset symbolism will be perfect especially for the ending of my comic, but it's how to get to that bold, bright ending that I need to figure out.
In my research, I found the feelings that each colour are usually associated with, and by using this information I can essentially base my scenes around the colours that the scene (or memory, in this case) is associated with so that the viewer is set up to feel those emotions from the get go.
Black: elegance, sophistication, power, death, fear, mystery, sadness
White: purity, innocence, cold, simplicity, isolated
Red: excitement, passion, love, aggression, power, luck
Blue: calming, sadness, sincerity, inspiring
Green: wealth, envy, health, nature, calming
Yellow: attention-grabbing, energetic, warm, happy, warning
Purple: royalty, wisdom, unique, bravery
Brown: reliable, loneliness, warmth, security, nature
Orange: warm, spiritual, happy, autumnal
Pink: love, softness, compassion, refreshing, euphoric
Finally, I then looked into the specific colour psychology of sunsets and the "golden hour" as the sunset symbolism and colour palette is a key element to my comic. The golden hour is such a phenomenon among filmmakers and photographers especially. But the amount of people who take pictures of sunsets, despite not being photographers themselves, when they happen are enough to convey that they have an affect on people, but why is that?
From what I learnt, the colours of orange-gold found within sunsets usually "Inspire happiness, energy and warmth" whereas other colours that appear in sunsets, like pink or red are associated with euphoria, power or intensity. Additionally, the orange hues associated with sunsets can cause the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone which could potentially make it a calming colour, more than even blue. Speaking of blue though, orange and blue are complementary colours, which makes their pairing in a sunset even more appealing to the eye.
Reflection:
Colours are such a vital part of the comic I want to make, so I believe doing this research was very beneficial to my project. Because of this research I now intend on making a colour script to follow for my project so that the progression of the sunset style colour palette is consistent and recognisable across the panels/pages. Additionally to this, this research has made me want to push myself further in terms of what types of colour combinations I'll use for my characters especially, to both reflect who they are while also having them fit within the sunset theme, but without them all looking the same.
IMPORTANT SCENES TO INCLUDE (MOMENTS FROM MY LIFE)
The First Day of College (2019)
Obviously, we have to start with where it all began - which was in September 2019 where we started college and had our first icebreaker activities which unbeknownst to us at the time would change our lives completely. Out of pure chance, in those first couple days we already established a friend group. First, it was me, Harrison and Jade, who spent the whole day together and ended our induction day by exchanging numbers and birthdays. Then the very next day, thanks to another set of icebreakers, I met Jack and Selin and in a moment of impulse, made a group chat that I believe now played a big part in our friendship being sustained over the whole college year. And finally we met Andy a bit later in the year, once we met him, our first year friend group felt complete.
Seeing the Sonic Movie (2020)
Something as small as seeing a movie may seem unimportant in the moment, but in hindsight it feels like such a formative moment of our friend group being established. When we went to see Sonic in cinema together it was the first time we had been outside of college together as a group, and in a sense it felt like a testament to the fact that we had chosen to be friends. Going out together felt like realising we weren't just friends out of obligation or for the sake of having someone at college to be around in comparison to being alone. We had all chosen each other because we genuinely liked being around each other, and this day would be the beginning to many more days like this and much deeper friendships.
Lockdown (2020)
The first lockdown, only a couple weeks after us going to see a movie together, was the biggest test of our small friend group's commitment to staying in contact that could've happened. At this time, we had known each other for about half a year and it's hard to say how close we all were at the time. But what I can say is that despite only being online, lockdown was the main thing that made us as close as we all are now. After most online lessons, we ourselves would set up Zoom calls where we'd talk for hours, and it's in these calls where a lot of our comfortableness with each other was cultivated, all silences became comfortable silence and the more calls we did, the more we missed being in person with each other.
Summer (2020)
While the amount of times we saw each other in person were minimised due to the amount of lockdowns that were coming in and out of effect, the days we were together were some of the best I had ever had at the time. Most occasions were just spent being in the local park, eating chip shop chips and listening to our group Spotify playlist as we talked, but they were still so enjoyable just because we were all together. For the first time I had people I could spend the summer with and it made me feel like I was "apart of something" for once - this friend group was very different from the temperamental friendships of secondary school and this was the first summer holidays to prove that to me.
First Day of 2nd Year (2020)
The first day of second year was very different to the first day of first year, predominantly because I had come to this year already knowing I had people I could trust and rely on. The thing is, my friends and I in the first year were on Level 2, and so we progressed to Level 3 Year 1, whereas other people in first year had progressed to Level 3 Year 2. This meant we had the opportunity to meet brand new people, not people from the year before. We got to meet people who it was the first day of first year for. Of these, the one who would become an integral part of the friend group and of my life was Dax. On the first day, the only interaction we had was me complimenting his shirt, but within the next couple weeks, the friend group formed in first year would make a Discord server, which we then invited Dax to. Again, this may seem like a small thing in hindsight, but these memories of these first interactions are so important - especially considering how I'll be recreating those memories and incorporating them into art.
Going Bowling Together (2020)
Similarly to us seeing the Sonic movie together, going bowling together as a group in late October was another one of those times that may have felt 'normal' and not very important to the development of our friendships, but it was the first time we were together as a group (now with the addition of Dax.) And looking back, it was once again a pivotal moment in us being closer - being more physically affectionate, sending messages once we had gotten home about how good a time we had. These things would quickly become a staple of our friend group, but it's at this point that these things were "firsts" and they were a shot in the dark of whether they'd be reciprocated or not.
Lockdown and Post-Lockdown (2021)
Throughout the early months of the new year, we were faced with more lockdowns that restricted us all from seeing each other, but it's in this time that we once again became closer than ever. It's in these days that we would finish our Zoom calls of the day and then immediately join a call on Discord together to talk as we did college work or just listen to music. Some days we would talk for as long as 5 hours, which at that time was unheard of for me who had thought of myself for years to be someone that was easily socially drained. It turns out I just hadn't found the right people yet. Nowadays, 5 hour calls have just become more common. In this time is where we became aware of the other class and the shared interest we had with them. We would see them in Zoom call presentations and though we didn't know it at the time, that class were also trying to communicate with us like we were with them. At the end of lockdown, we were so much closer than we ever had been and it completely shifted how our college experience was.
Meeting the Other Class (2021)
It was a couple of weeks or so after lockdown ended where we became fully aware of the mutual want for both of our classes to meet. It had began with our tutor at the time telling us about how the other class told her about our shared interest at the time, and how they wanted to meet us. It's thanks to this, and a random surge of confidence that convinced me to send a Discord invite link to our tutor to pass onto the other class so that they could join us and finally interact for the first time. When they did join though it was still a surprise, in the middle of doing online maths work when a friend group that mirrored our own joined the chat. We were awkward at first and unsure of how to navigate the online friendship we had with them, knowing we'd inevitably meet them in person soon. But very quickly they became a huge part of my life and our two small friend groups combined to make the family we consider it now. In the beginning, we had so many Discord calls where so many of our first inside jokes originated. Now in 2022, it has almost been a year since we first met them, which makes it an apt time for this FMP to be happening.
My 18th Birthday (2021)
This is probably one of the most important parts for me to include in my comic, it now feels like such a turning point in my development when I think back to turning 18 surrounded by the people I love most. At this point in the year Juno was the final addition to our friend group and we may have only known them for a month at this time but they had already become as important to me as everyone else in the group had. Being with these people on my birthday when I had for years before thought of my birthday as just another day, it felt very impactful. It all felt like it meant something and it was the type of day that made me reflect on how far we had come since that first day of first year. When it became my birthday at midnight, the group and I were in a Discord call, they wanted to be there for that moment and that was special to me. This day is full of some of my favourite memories that repeat in my head so often, to be able to reinterpret them into art and visualise how those memories feel would be a great achievement.
Summer (2021)
The summer of last year will probably make up the biggest amount of the content in my comic, as it was such a period of time that shaped who I was despite a lot of the issues I was struggling with at the time. Because despite everything I was feeling, I had people I could trust and depend on and who made me feel safe more than anyone else. This summer was a lot of "firsts" for me and my friends. For most of us, this was our first time having a big friend group that was genuinely close and who actually wanted to spend time together out of choice and go out and do things! We went out for people's birthdays and ate together, took photobooth pictures, had countless late night Discord calls, I had my first sleepover with my best friends, went to London and Camden for days out and spent more time out of my house than ever before. At the time, summer was a time where I was struggling a lot and yet there's still so many positive memories I associate with that time and I'm able to look back on those moments with so much more clarity.
Halloween (2021)
Speaking technically, it was the 30th of October this happened, but it's the closest to a Halloween where it hasn't just felt like a "normal day" that I've ever had. For most of my teen years up until college I was usually alone and isolated, I never had people to spend days like Halloween with and it actually be enjoyable. 2021 was the first year I had that, it may not have even been a party, but it was the first time I had a big group of friends at my house and realised that this was the new normal for all of us, we had people to spend days like Halloween with and that meant something. To spend a whole day together and for my friends to only leave when it was dark outside and know that we can spend hours just talking and listening to music that be considered a good day was a good feeling.
New Year's Eve (2021)
In a slightly similar vein to Halloween, New Year's Eve of 2021 was probably one of the most fundamental parts of me realising how different my life had become because of college and the friends I had made because of it. It was a day where almost everyone I had grown to care about was in the same room as me and we spent the whole day like that. It was the end of a year and yet some of us hadn't even known of each other's existence for a year, and yet from 11am to 1am we were all together, a room of people who were happy to do nothing but be in each other's company as the year turned into the next. It was like Halloween, but so much better. Our group had shifted, and as a result of it we had only gotten closer in the fallout. We listened to music and watched a movie together, we ordered pizza and I did my friends' makeup and we all took polaroid pictures and my two best friends stayed the night with me. It was a day that resulted in 2k words in my digital diary, which was no surprise considering how much it meant to everyone who was there.
Bears in Trees Concert (2022)
I'd gone to concerts before, one before even of this same band, but this one surpassed all of the ones I had ever been before just because of the fact I was there with two of the people I love most. It didn't even end up mattering that neither of them had listened to the band that much, they were just happy for us to be there together, and they even ended up singing some of the lyrics anyway! The show I had gone to of this band before was smaller, yet it was there biggest show to date at the time. This time, it was the biggest show they have now ever done and it felt so pivotal for me to be there again, several months and a lot of personal discovery and transformation later and with people I cared about more than anything. Bears in Trees are such an important band when talking about what my friends mean to me, to the point that I was initially going to make an animation using one of their songs for this FMP.
The reason for this is that Bears in Trees' music is so often about their friends, about platonic love and soulmates and recovering from hardships and not making those hardships into aspects of who you have to be in order to be important. Their music is a huge aspect of who I was throughout the latter half of 2021 and who I am now. Songs like Reverberate which is, to quote one of the band members, "about the friends who pull you through those dark times and help you to get better, the people who love you unconditionally, who bring you into the light again. This is for them," are ones that resonate so much for me and the feelings that their music makes me feel are the type of feelings I want to evoke in my comic. This concert meant so much to me in terms of showing how much further I'd come since the last time I saw them live, so despite it being a very recent event it's one I want to include.
Days Out in March (2022)
At the time of writing this, it's the first day of Spring, a season so representative of rebirth and new beginnings and it's a time that fits so perfectly within the themes of my project. However, this March I'm dealing with a lot of loss and grief as I mourn my cat Cookie - this is such a recent event that I'm still processing that it's hard to say whether I'll include anything from it in the comic. But I think it's safe to say that the part my friends have played in my grieving process is monumental to the fact that I haven't entirely lost myself in that sadness. And I think it would be a really nice addition to my comic to honour my cat and his passing, as well as honouring how my friends have helped me out of it. This has been in the form of the day I found out he was going to pass away at college and my friend asking for me if I could leave early, and going and sitting in the park for hours as friends messaged me to keep me company virtually.
This has also been in the form of the spontaneous days out we've had both before and after my cat passed. On a Tuesday some of us just decided to be in the park for 3 hours and it wasn't big but it meant a lot to just be able to meet up that impulsively and be so comfortable with it. On the other side of my cat passing, we met up on Saturday and spent the day out in the sun reminiscing over how it's almost been a year since our two groups first met, taking pictures and eating together. It was that day that made me feel like no matter how heavy my grief may feel right now, my friends will make me feel light again. We went out a couple more times, Selin and I impulsively getting Pizza Hut after college on a Friday and walking home in the sunset, then going to the fair the next day and going on rides for the first time.
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Easter Half Term (2022)
Lastly, the most recent events I intend on including in my comic are this most recent half term, in the couple of days of nice weather I had some of the most freeing days out with my friends I've ever had. We went to the park and felt childish and silly again and ate Pizza Hut together as the sun set, and we additionally also went to see Sonic 2 ,two years from when we went to see the first one together long before we had become as close as we are now. These days, though small in the grand scheme of our lives, hold a lot of importance to me and serve as this absolute proof of how those who make you feel loved shape your perspective on life. No normal day feels normal.
Reflection:
By constructing my own timeline of events for my comic, I've made the process of choosing what memories I choose to draw, reinterpret and reinvent much easier. This self-done research has given me a direct path to deciding what would be important and impactful fo me to include, versus what would be 'filler'. This has also given me the opportunity to explain in detail what these parts of my life and these memories mean to me and the value they hold, as these explanations later will dictate how the panels of those moments will be made. When I already know the emotion I want to be conveyed, it makes executing that later in production that much easier. One of the big problems here is that it's hard to decide what days of my life I want to include without overworking myself, not having enough time or the days simply not having enough context clues that give reason for why they're so special. This has taught me to pick my scene ideas very wisely, aiming to give each of my friends as much screen time as is possible for the amount of time they've been in my life, and portray them in the positive light I see them in.