Illustration & Visual Narrative // Task 03
Rebecca Thoo Hui Ying / 0350359
Bachelor of Designs (Hons) in Creative Media
Illustration & Visual Narrative Task 3: Graphic Novel
Illustration & Visual Narrative Task 3: Graphic Novel
LECTURES
Week 07: 08.10.2021
3-ACTS Structure
Central Theme
✧ Central theme is important as it tells what the story is really about,
its an underlying meaning.
✧ Within central theme there are:
✧ Major Theme: the idea that is intertwined and is constantly repeated throughout the whole narrative
✧ Minor Theme: The idea that is more subtle and does not necessarily repeat itself
Conflict
✧ It helps a story to create tensions & builds suspense that makes the story interesting
✧ It is a compelling factor for the audience to engage with
Characters
✧ Central Characters: The plot revolves around them
✧ Protagonist: The MC of the story with a goal to accomplish or overcome the obstacle
✧ Antagonist: The villan
Three-Acts Structure
✧Setup: world-building, it often ends with the conflict being revealed
✧Rising Tension: obstacles thrown at the protagonist & they must overcome it
✧ Conflict: The highest tension, a major decisive turning point for the protagonist
✧ Resolution: The conclusion to the conflict
INSTRUCTIONS
EXERCISE
Task 03: Graphic Novel
Research on Existing Comic/Manga:
Fig 1.1 White Blood/ Unholy Blood Manga
White Blood is a manga centered around Central Character, the
protagonist= Hayan Park. When vampires destroy her chance to have the
normal life she craved, she is forced to draw on her darkest secret to rid
the world of merciless hunters that took over the world a decade ago. With
the support of the local police force's Ace, Hayan steps in to protect her
loved ones from the horrors unleashed accept her past, and stands up to
get her revenge.
✧ Minor Theme: take down the villain so there won't be a threat to humanity
✧ Conflict: the villain was her friend
Fig 1.2 Research on angles used in comic
Week 07: (08.10.2021)
Next week will be the independent learning week, we were given homework to
work on our stories.
- You will need to prepare a short story for you to base your
character on.
- Employ the three-act structure, but limit the word count to maximum 300
words only.
Ideation: (09.10.2021)
I came across this Crime Youtube Video Explanation
(Missing News Anchor's Body Shows up at The Human Bodies Exhibition) Proceed with caution, there might be images that trigger you in the
video. At the time of I was watching this news & researching the whole case
out of my own curiosity, but now it seems to prove itself to be a good idea
as the base of what my horror webtoon is about. Taking the essence of this
incident, I've changed the timeline and angle of the real-life incident. I
like the idea that it is from an earlier time (in the 1970s) and that I can
incorporate the Chinese elements into this comic.
English
Siren: (in ancient Greek literature) one of the creatures who were half woman
and half bird, whose beautiful singing encouraged sailors to sail into
dangerous waters where they died.
Mandarin
塞壬:（古希腊神话中的海妖）
Originally I wanted to create a siren character for Task 01's vormator
challenge, but it didn't worked out. But I'm glad to be able to mash these initial ideas into one, and present
to you the title of my would-be horror webtoon:
The Chinese Siren.
Fig 1.3 The Chinese Siren Presentation
* I crafted this idea of using an existing crime into my comic (the end results did not really resemble the original source).
References: (11.10.2021)
Fig 2.1 References & art directions
Fig 2.2 Possible pose references
Main Character Art: (11.10.2021)
Digitalised: (13.11.2021)
1 ✧Establishing shot, The Night Club > pan-up transition to nextPAGE 2
Fig 2.3 Main Character: Ru Yue (如月)
I went ahead and created a conceptual character drawing for Ru Yue
in Photoshop. The red wordings behind her is her name in Mandarin
(如月), I made it so that the blood is also dripping down from her
name, adding to hopefully a creepier feeling to the audience. I
try to portray her crazy, psycho side in her smile, the red in her
eyes (signifies devil), the blood dripped knife & the
bloodstains.
(little did i know, I will use her in my actual comic...
lol)
Sketches: (26.10.2021)
Sketch Timeline: 26.10.2021 until 30.11.2021
Fig 3.1 The Chinese Siren Banner (?)
Fig 3.2 Sketch of The Chinese Siren
Digitalised Timeline: 13.11.2021 until 30.11.2021)
Because this comic is set in Olden day Shanghai, I wanted to play with a very specific colour scheme that is very retro. The colours were inspired by Oakai's colour scheme.
Fig 4.1 Colour reference
Font used: Anime Ace 2.0 BB
Brushstrokes: 
Fig 4.2 Progression in Illustrator
I've arranged the sketches as per how I will like it to be in the final webtoon. I am used to drawing digitally in Photoshop, but not so in Illustrator. The brush tool was a bit frustrating and annoying to be changing and amending each line i drew. Unlike the bucket tool in Photoshop, in Illustrator I also need to individually outline the shapes to get them to the colour I want. I used the Direct Selection Tool a lot to adjust the line arts.
Fig 4.3 Envelop Distortions of wording
Fig 4.4 Envelope Distortions of blood
I've also used the envelope distortion tool a lot to make the words and blood flow better and more realistic.
Fig 4.5 Digitalised artboards within Ai
I've used a total of 39 panels which were placed on 22 pages.
Fig 4.6 Layers within Ai
Fig 4.7 Artboard
Fig 4.8 Art files
So... it was a hassle to separate all the artboards into different art files for the AfterEffect part. In Fig 5.2, I separated each 22 pages into 11 art files (with 2 art pages)
*webtoon really destroyed the quality of my art...
All comic files in Google Drive HERE.
Fig 5.2 Webtoon Title
(it's kinda surreal to have my own art on webtoon...)
Motion Comic Progression: (01.12.2021)
Digitalised Timeline: 01.12.2021 until 05.12.2021
Comic Transition Planning:
PAGE 11 ✧Establishing shot, The Night Club > pan-up transition to next
2 ✧Club ppl setting> aspect to aspect
3 ✧RuYue & red line appears > rolling transition
- words dissolve in & out of frame
1 ✧Entire frame > dissolves in
2 ✧Victim #1 stand up> fast transition to show the abruptness
- The lines behind Victim#1 will move (use scaling in ae to create the effect)
PAGE 31 ✧Entire frame > dissolves in
2 ✧cards floating > use position in ae to create the effect > rolling transition out
3 ✧Eyes close > Eyes open
PAGE 4
Main music: 等着你回来(Waiting for you) - 白光.
1 ✧ title appearing slowly > artist name
<apologies as i lose the patience to list down wat shazamz i plan to animate>
Fig 6.1 Rotation "Wiggle" Effect Short cut
I've used After Effects for the Typography Final Project but this is the first time I'm attempting something like this. I used a lot of the "wiggle" rotation throughout my motion comic. It really helps to make things a bit easier for me. I used it for all of the red siren lines, some of the frames, some of the word effects, and (a lot more other layers that I can't seem to recall). It is easy to use as I do not need to keyframe each and every layers and F9 them, with just entering the numbers the shortcut worked its own magic, which i am super grateful to have discovered it.
Fig 6.2 Proportional grids
I've grown accustomed to Ai's align tool that it seemed a bit of a hassle to align each layer using the grids and opening my eyes BIG BIG to see if it falls exactly where I want them to be.Fig 6.3 Grid tool to make keyframes smoother
This really help me a lot too, this grid function button is what i turn to every time I created a keyframe and the movements need adjustments. Fig 6.4 Colour Hue Change
If you've read my webtoon, you will know that this scene is not exactly this RED. I changed it to this full Red scene to show more impact to the audience that, he is dead. It helps to enhance the I guess "horror" feel of him being killed while he is hallucinating bout his future which, sorry bro you ain't got no future. To be honest, I stumbled on this effects tool accidentally. Originally I wanted to change the whole colour scheme in Photoshop, but I'm glad I stumbled on this effects tool.Fig 6.5 & 6.6 After Effects Work station
I ended up with a total of 188 layers for this 2.3mins motion comic done within 5 days. My workstation also looks very colourful, and this part in Fig 6.6 looks like the characters I've inserted, i had a good laugh at them myself hehe. Fig 6.7 After Effects Work station
It was quite easy for me to search for the bgm that I want to use, however, there were a few that were challenging to me to find. I've used a total of 11 audio effects for this Motion Comic. Fig 6.8 & 6.9 Premier Pro Work station
I've imported the Ae video into Premier Pro to add the sound effects like previously mentioned about my workstation in Ae, in Pr it is no difference. (ps, i love my colour separation, this colour thing gets me motivated :)Final Motion Comic : (05.12.2021)
Fig 7.1 Final Motion Comic
I knew from the start of this project I want to use this haunting music, and I hope it delivers chills to you while you watch my work~
All music & audio effects used are listed in the video description.
Thank You for Enjoying my Webtoon, which took MANY MANY
WEEKS!
ʕ； •`ᴥ•´ʔ
FEEDBACK
Lecturer's feedbacks
I remembered the lecturers being very excited and intrigued about my storyline.
Week 13: _ (--.11.2021)
In this consultation class, I presented what I've worked on so far to the lecturers to comment on. I showed progression on my comic in Ai. The comments I received was that my comic looks like a legit webtoon, Ms Jen even said its even better than Ernest's comic AHHAHAH.
Week 14: _ (03.12.2021)
I showed Ms Jennifer some of my progression on the Motion Comic on Friday and this was her feedback!
REFLECTIONS
I was really looking forward to this final comic assignment, however, I did not expect to get a theme like Horror, which is a genre I actually stay far far far away from. I did some research on my own, reading a few horror comics that I can stomach to get more into the mood. I crafted this idea of using an existing crime into my comic (the end results did not really resemble the original source). Did I foresee it will take this long? Yes. Through this project, there were times when I had the image vividly pictured in my mind, but I could not pen it down, which leads to a few days of procrastination because I could not get the look and angle right. I pulled myself together and finished the comic, line art, colour, and all, and i was really proud of the outcome! Through if I have more time, I will change the end illustrations a bit, as it was not the standard that I like... Not gonna lie, the animation part intimidated me a lot. I've never done any big-scale animations other than the small sticker I did in Typography class. It took me a few hours to surf the internet to learn the effects I want to implement on the motion comic. There were a few other more extensive effects that I saw will really work with my motion comic, but I did not attempt it as I'm a beginner and it has already taken me a day to learn the software and time is running low... The final outcome was one that I can say definitely can be improved more but I am satisfied with it overall!
I was really looking forward to this final comic assignment, however, I did not expect to get a theme like Horror, which is a genre I actually stay far far far away from. I did some research on my own, reading a few horror comics that I can stomach to get more into the mood. I crafted this idea of using an existing crime into my comic (the end results did not really resemble the original source). Did I foresee it will take this long? Yes. Through this project, there were times when I had the image vividly pictured in my mind, but I could not pen it down, which leads to a few days of procrastination because I could not get the look and angle right. I pulled myself together and finished the comic, line art, colour, and all, and i was really proud of the outcome! Through if I have more time, I will change the end illustrations a bit, as it was not the standard that I like... Not gonna lie, the animation part intimidated me a lot. I've never done any big-scale animations other than the small sticker I did in Typography class. It took me a few hours to surf the internet to learn the effects I want to implement on the motion comic. There were a few other more extensive effects that I saw will really work with my motion comic, but I did not attempt it as I'm a beginner and it has already taken me a day to learn the software and time is running low... The final outcome was one that I can say definitely can be improved more but I am satisfied with it overall!
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