#discovery task

So, we talked about Comics Activism a little bit this week, and that’s what my piece is trying to speak out to. The confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh hits hard, and the fear and pain I’ve seen from women around me these past few weeks is enough to break a heart. My sequential aspect of this piece is the maintaining of a central figure, the girl to woman character, as she navigates these stories, these movements, and the comments from people in her life. 

I utilized a lot of interesting techniques within this. The images of the woman were drawn separately and transferred on to my final page with consideration of the arrangement of all the pieces. The piece in the final right hand corner actually has burned edges, because fire is what is needed right now. This piece is angry, no doubt, but there is hope at the end. A thank-you to Dr. Ford, a reminder to vote, and the quote in the final corner is from Emma Gonzalez, one of the Parkland High School survivors. 

Discovery Task #3: Wordless Comic

For my comic this week, I initially wanted to try doing an aspect-to-aspect comic; once I started drawing it, however, I realized this is a bit more subject-to-subject. This comic might require a little bit of backstory to make more sense: I tried using the panels to capture the essence of my original characters & their homelands from a video game idea I developed last semester. If you’re interested in reading more about them, you can look here. (You don’t need to read the whole game bible to understand the comic, I promise.)

This comic is a bit different than a traditional comic, I suppose, because it’s organized by column instead of being read traditionally left-to-right. I tried to guide the reader through it by making the gutter between columns a bit larger than the space between the panels in the columns. Each column has two panels: one for the character, and one that serves as an establishing shot for their hometown. 

I do wish I could draw more compelling environments, because then I feel like I could really properly capture the essence/magic of Endra (the whole world in which each region exists). On the far left is the snowy village/castle town of Vetur, and I don’t know if I totally captured the snow/icy feel that it has in my head. The middle area is Arboria, which I think I captured well enough, and the far right is Eldur Ignus Volcano, which is hard because it’s... the inside of a volcano. The hierarchy of the race that lives in the volcano separates the volcano itself into five layers/tiers, which is hard to capture when you’re not a practiced artist.

"I wouldn't say I'm superstitious. But I am a little stitious."

There’s a cemetery on the way to my boyfriend’s house, and I am just superstitious enough to hold my breath when I drive past a graveyard. So, when you were listing possible options for this assignment and mentioned graveyards I decided why the hell not? 

I’m actually very happy with how this turned out. I went to the cemetery and took a ton of photos. It was almost sundown, and it was peaceful, and I wanted to capture that in my comic. I used colors a lot to show my changing relationship with the place. The first two panels are very drab, the grass in the opening panel is almost yellow and the sky is gray. In contrast, the final panel has flowers on tombstones and the sunset colors are warm. I wanted to capture the kind of specific love that a graveyard can possess. The one tombstone that is featured was one of the first I came upon and there is nothing about it that is not heartbreaking. I would want a reader to process the panel, and understand exactly what is happening. I have several more photos of individual headstones, and I could definitely see myself expanding on this project. 

I decided to use aspect to aspect transitions because I want my audience to feel like they are walking through this place themselves. The scale of things actually felt fairly successful, as I was working from photo reference. Below is the reference for the fourth panel. 

My friend Grant recently moved into a new house and I finally got to see it when I attended a Halloween party at his house. I stayed the night and got to get a better look at the place in the morning. The large, rather empty living room, the big kitchen, the fire pit in the fenced in back yard, and the tree that’s right outside the front door.

For the most part, i like how this turned out. If I could change anything it’d be the perspective of the living room—I’m not too good at drawing settings at eye level. If I were to add color, I’d only put it around the bolded edges to give the images some accent.

For this task I made a small, short comic that maps out my mind on a daily basis. It fits perfectly as I’ve been having a super busy month, my mind hasn’t stopped racing since October started! I’ve even had days where I forgot to eat, haha! I’m sure plenary of college students can relate.

Since this is our last Discovery Task, I wanted to explore my love of comics. As I’ve said in class, I’ve always loved comics and thinking about it, that starts with my Dad. Growing up we had collected volumes of Calvin and Hobbes, Far Side, and Opus. My Dad would read me Calvin and Hobbes every night, along with fairy tales and Dopey Loses the Diamonds. I wanted to map how I’m influenced by what I was read still today. My current love of Archie, and my Dad’s financial support of my Double Digest habits as a kid. Everything is cyclical, and a lot of who I am today is because of my Dad. Also, I’m going to show him this comic and he will probably cry. #goals 

For this discovery challenge I used one of those annoying pre qualified credit card offers everyone gets in the mail. Personally, I can’t stand them. They never come with just one. It’s always 5 different “offers” in my mailbox at the same time.