Illustration & Visual Narrative
Week 9 - Week 15
Jodiann Yeoh Chooi Kit 0352238
Illustration & Visual Narrative || Project 3
Theme : Horror
Act 1 - Setup
Sweeny is a cat who regularly attends his therapy sessions at his local psychiatric hospital during the day. Sweeny is a lonely cat, filled with underlying issues which slowly unravels throughout the story.
Act 2 - Conflict
His problematic past and questionable relationships with those who were supposed to support him in his childhood ultimately haunts him and is what leads to his behaviour. It is apparent that it has created a monster within him, waiting to emerge. His way of seeking closure with the past is eerily disturbing and with malicious intent.
Act 3 - Resolution
He goes on a drug-fuelled rampage, which resulted in severe consequences to those who were present in that situation which reflects his lack of empathy, something that was not ingrained within him in his childhood by the people who were supposed to nurture him.
Style of comic
- Anthropomorphism - giving human traits/ attributes to animals(and in this case a cat)
- Predominantly black and white, with the occasional pops of colour
- Will give off an effortless and immature impression, through the use of irregular & imperfect strokes which resembles a hand drawn sketch.
- Psychological horror with some aspects of dark humour.
Discontinued initial sketches and ideas(Try-outs)
Fig 1. Some sketches/ brain storming
The sketches above shows my brain storming phase where I sketched without any planning. This is to get myself comfortable and test what I'd want to incorporate in my story and how it'll shift from one frame to the other. As you can see from the sketches, it depicts human characters rather than an animal acting like a human(which we will see later on). The reason why I discontinued the idea of human characters was because I thought of how much I would have to digitise in illustrator then animate with the short time given. So I would think that it would be wise to stick to something simpler and predominantly of greyscale colours with the occasional colour appearances. I also thought that the inclusion of "anthropomorphism" would be an interesting take on a comic and would enable me to make it more appealing, it would also broaden my ideas on the message I'm trying to deliver.
Specifications
- Total of 43 frames
- 1280 X 800 px
- Motion comic is 2 minutes and 20 seconds
Sketches on Illustrator
Fig 2. Amended sketches as I developed my idea/ direction
I created artboards of 1280 px X 800 px as specified in requirements. I then used the shape tool to create each panel/ frame. The brush tool was used to sketch out the contents of the comic.
After sketching out the entire comic which consists of 43 frames, I attempted to group the strokes systematically in order to import it as layers to After Effects for the creation of motion comic. However, it was messy and was a tedious process as shown in Fig 3. below. In attempt to resolve this, I used the pen tool to trace out the digital sketches. I used one layer for each frame and added sublayers for it to be grouped but still be known as separate layers. This is shown in Fig below. This is a method which I replicated from Ms. Jennifers demonstration where the sublayers are selected then "separate layers into sequence" which then makes the sublayers as individual layers. I then proceeded to import the file, which resulted in missing sublayers. Perhaps it couldn't recognise it as separate layers. So yet again, it was a failure.
Fig 3. Attempt 1 of separating layers(FAIL)
Fig 3.1 Attempt 2 of separating layers(FAIL)
After the first two layers, I decided to try out using separate layers for each element that I'd like to animate as shown in the image below. I attempted to import again to After Effects, and finally it worked, however it was definitely hard to identify which layer went with which.
Fig 3.2 Attempt 3 of separating layers(SUCCESS)
Digitisation of sketches(Graphic Novel)
Fig 4. Final Digitised Graphic Novel
Title : Misfortunate Sweeny
Episode Title : Barbecue
Frames : 42
Creating motion comic in After Effects
Fig 5. Animating in After Effects
Link to graphic novel in webtoon - Barbecue
Nov 16, 2021
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Link to graphic novel in google drive -
Fig 6. Motion Comic Final
Fig 6.1 Youtube video of Motion Comic Final
Link to motion comic in YouTube - https://youtu.be/VzjX1Z-w2Zg
Link to motion comic in google drive - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VkR8Q3krjUCgwU4Ef6Ecu6fKdmbKHIb4/view?usp=sharing
Messages behind the story
- It touches on how devastating mental health can be, how the way we are nurtured is crucial in child development and can significantly impair ones self during adulthood.
- There are hints of how Sweeny actually ate his father. The person who influenced who he was and is practically a mirror of what the type of person Sweeny has become. Sort of a humorous metaphor of "you are what you eat."
- Mental disorder/ compulsive disorder that Sweeny has is called "Pyromania", whereby he has an obsession for setting things alight for no monetary gain, but instead for self pleasure.
- Another disorder Sweeny has is drug addiction, this is a message on how drug addiction can heavily impair ones ability to make appropriate decisions which leads to a negative life.
- You may wonder, why was Sweeny's father burning what seems to be a human?". Its supposed to be a form of advocacy against animal abuse, whereby rather than an animal being abused, it shows how it would be if positions were changed.
Reflection
I have had quite a mixed feeling regarding the graphic novel and motion comic section as I felt that I ran into a lot of trouble. As for the storyline, I spent a few months planning the story prior to the start of the task, I found it hard to stick to a solid storyline without having other ideas jumping in which didn't go well with the initial plan. I also found myself not knowing where to start due to the idea of having so much work and the worry of messing up the first stages then ultimately making the rest fail as well. Even when I planned thoroughly, I ran into troubles, creating a domino effect on the later stages, which made me redo a lot of steps.
Using illustrator only for the creation of my design, was inconvenient and restrictive. I wanted to use the brush tool as I wanted to produce a very imperfect look to it, like how sketches naturally look. However, that posed as a problem in the animating stage and would ultimately get too messy. I had to resort to re-doing it using the pen tool. I then ran into issues with my adobe apps becoming corrupted which was stressful, but thankfully I had the support of Ms. Jennifer who guided me out of that issue. I then ran into issues about the usage of sublayers which could not be recognised as independent layers in After effects, making me find alternative ways to separate the layers.
However, I felt that I've become more comfortable with the tools in After Effects and gained more knowledge about the fundamentals of animation. I definitely feel that my pre-planning skills have refined and that I've learnt how to take criticism in a more positive manner.
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