Illustration and Visual Narrative: Comic Cover and Animated Page
Nadia Chong Wen | 0355736 | Bachelor's of Design (Honours) in Creative
Media
Illustration & Visual Narrative
Comic Cover & Animated
Page
Instructions
Final Project: Comic Cover & Animated Page
For Assignment 2, we needed to make one page comic for Edgar Allan Poe's short story. He was one of the best short story writer in the world and his stories had a great depth and intense plot twist, which was a right fit for visual translation.
Manga References
Figure 1.0 | Case Study of Vanitas (Left) / Pandora Hearts (Right) by Jun Mochizuki
I decided to look into one of my favorite manga authors and study how they do panelling. For one, they use the usual manga panelling that has a natural flow to it. They don't often fill the background of the panels unless they are doing a wide shot to describe the scene and focus on the characters themselves and the atmosphere.
While they don't give me a sense of how to color with colors that are not black and white, it does give me an impression on how to structure a scene.
Sketches
Figure 1.1 | Sketches of Cover and Page Intro
Short Story: Masque of the Red Death
Short Scene: The Red Room Scene
Storylines:
[...] He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer.
There was a sharp cry -- and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero.
[...] And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
I picked Masque of the Red Death as my comic story due to the scene mentioned above, the final confrontation. I liked the scene since it represents that death takes all and no one can escape it. So I decided to put the vision of the comic page onto the sketches above. It was difficult since I still wasn't familiar with how to place panels but I did what I could from a right to left like how manga is read.
Style References
Figure 1.2 | Art in Limbus Company by Vellmori
Figure 1.3 | Myriad Celestia of Stonehearts by Hoyoverse for Honkai Star Rail
Figure 1.4 | Night in The Woods by Infinite Fall
I wanted to go for a more cartoonish yet anime-ish lineless artstyle with
the colors of Figure 1.2 so I took in inspiration from my favorite works in
recent times and these three came to mind when I was thinking of what style
to go with. I wanted to make the comic in a similar way to Figure 1.3-1.4
with the strikingness of Figure 1.2.
Comic Cover
Figure 1.5 | Process of Making the Comic Cover
For the cover, I decided to stick with the two important things of the Masque of the Red Death. The Clock symbolizing the time of life and the Red Death itself. I drew the Red Death first before making the gradient background and clock. I then added text with a font I downloaded online called the Centurion Font and added it at the side to complete the composition of it.
Animated Page
Figure 1.6 | Background Process
I started by doing the background of comic page and making sure the composition flows well from right to left and is able to be comprehended. I reused the clock from the cover page in order to save time and I decided to change some of the composition than what was planned in the sketch since I felt there could be a better way to describe this scene, so I added the clock at the bottom to symbolize the clock hitting 12, which means the time has come AKA death.
I used the envelope distort feature in order to distort the windows to make it face certain angles so it fits alongside the clock in the middle right panel.
After this, I moved on to making the main elements of the comic page, which are the characters: Prince Prospero and the Red Death.
Figure 1.7 | Drawing Basic Shapes for the Characters
It's not a conventional method since most of the work is usually done on the layer of the comic itself but I felt that it would be easier to make sure that the sketches would be accurate and what I wanted in the comic. I changed the appearance of the prince since I think it would be faster and more efficient rather than to draw wavy hair.
The Red Death was supposed to have a plague mask but I decided to scrap it in favor of a another simpler mask. After this, I placed them in the page as well as added some additional elements in order to have more of a background.
Figure 1.8 | Adding in Characters and Elements
After this, I decided to draw the rest of the comic within the comic page itself. I duplicated and rasterized the characters' in order to adjust the mode of that layer and make it fit more with the feeling of the entire page.
After this, I put the work into Procreate in order to animate it. I added additional elements in the comic page in order for it to feel more real and made sure to use a brush that fits the work well.
Figure 2.0 | Animation Process
I animated everything frame by frame for the 5 frames that were playing and after playing it again and again to see if there were any imperfections and correcting it, I was done.
Final Submission
Figure 2.1 | Final Comic Cover
Figure 2.2 | Final Comic Page (Animated)
Google Drive Folder for images and animation.
Reflection
Experience
This was an intense final submission for me to do due to the fact that I had barely any time to do it due to personal matters affecting my life for the few weeks before only having one week to finish the assignment. Even though it was nerve-wrecking, I am happy with how the artworks came about. I was disappointed to find that I couldn't use any other program other than Illustrator for animating but I did what I could. It was very stressful but I believe that I did well enough.
Observations
I noticed that I often found myself trying to broaden my horizons with going out of my comfort zone for this project. I don't often try to do comic pages since I consider them tough and ones I make to not flow well, but I found that as long as the movement and pacing of the page makes sense, it can work.
Findings
I managed to apply what I have learned within this module to this final project using what I have learned within the labs of what was given to us.
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