Research
First, I stated exploring different narratives. I thought back to the stories I was told as a child, my every day activities and stories from my imagination. An essential part of this project was to compress the story in 4 frames to make it understandable and to make it connect in a cyclical manner. I looked up how others illustrate stories and what makes them interesting. I found that a cartoon style way of storytelling comes out to be interesting yet informative.
In my process, I crafted an infinite flipper using printer paper. The first one I made came out faulty and didn’t fold the way I wanted. This showed me the importance of craft and accurate measurements. I found that each frame opened up to the next and thats when I decided i wanted to transition from one frame to the next in a collective and seamless way.
Exercises
One of the worst feelings in the world is when you realize you weren’t paranoid after all.
Iterations
In these first iterations, I thought of stories I could compress. in the first frame, a couple is living a happy life, only to be ripped apart. The girl feels like she has lost her own identity in the process. This is a representation of a person who’s happiness is dependent on others.
In the nest frame, I illustrate the lifecycle of a chicken in a humorous way. What came first? the chicken or the egg? in this story, there was a lack of transition, the frames were all pretty disconnected and therefore didn’t satisfy the requirements of the project.
In these next iteration I wanted to show a box, within a box, within a box. The “inception” aspect was meant to confuse the viewer and challenge them to figure out which box is the protagonist of the story.
For the Action scene, these are action moves created in a comic style way. to expand on it, I would have used lines and weight to make the movements more dramatic and visually appealing. but, this also lacked the transition I was going for with this project.
This by far was my favorite idea. In this scene, The character is teleporting through portals. The use of lines helps create movement within the piece as well as create harmony with the physical movement of the piece. This was the bone bare stage of the process.
Concept Statement
In this story, an insomniac character finds himself longing for an adventure in the dead of night. In the first scene, he is in the bedroom, where he sees city lights through his window. In the next, he is teleported to the streets of the deserted city. In the third frame, he is in the woods, wondering past a gloomy lake. Finally, in the fourth, he is in a setting far away from his bedroom, only to find himself back there in the cyclical loop. The background is morphed to harmonize with the cartoonish theme. I used tolerance adjustments to create more contrast within the scenes. The character is racing through each setting, I used the blur tool to achieve this.
Production
Original images –
I found these images that coincide with my narrative. So I began to edit them and morph them to harmonize with my main character. I adjusted tolerance, added shadows, used lines to create a sketchy overlay. I created layers to make the background blurry- this is to show speed and movement in the frames.I also used circles to create the teleportation passage. I used the smudge tool to create a blurry effect.
Citations
https://wallpaperaccess.com/anime-lake
Visionary from wallpapers
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/823595850583038984/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/585608757786867938/