Proposal & Review Proforma:

Plans:

Section 1 :

The concept for my final major was to link graphic narrative with creating my own comic book characters. Due to the current situation with Coronavirus, basing the narrative on a superhero versus the super villain (being Covid-19) would be entertaining to visualise as a humorous comic relief piece. The main influences for my project come from my understanding of the comic book industry gained from collecting my own primary research. Having a contextualised understanding on how comic structures function in practice might make my creative process easier. 

Visiting New York City was an extremely significant experience giving me an understanding of the context out of which comics originated. New York is considered the capital of superhero comic books as it fits so well into pop culture and storytelling. I felt like I was in a comic myself as I could clearly visualise Spider-Man swinging around Manhattan. Visiting The Belgium Comic Strip Centre also had a significant influence on my understanding on the importance of storytelling through visual images, using simplistic but effective character illustrations. 

Marvel Comic books, both new and old, were also very influential for me as they display a contrast in styles with old printed comic copies, compared to the new digital prints. Despite this, I have found an inspiration from both forms as they link effectively with the 2018 animated film, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider verse.” In my opinion, this bridges the gap between the old retro style comics, with the printed dots, as well as combining new technical advancements to digitalise comic book characters, with the current digitally made and printed comic books. Taking a fine art approach from this links strongly with Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art work using the similar primary colour dotting method. 

Zach Hsieh is a comic book artist that directly inspires me by the stylised, detailed characters he creates by dramatising and adding depth to form a gritty sense of realism. This is achieved by forming a strong contrast between the highlights and shading, as well as using cross hatching in his pieces. 

Gathering all my inspirations and research, I compiled visuals together onto a Pinterest board. This process I find to be effective for a project when an idea is in its infancy stage. In this project specifically, I was able to refine what elements of both retro and current features of comic book techniques I am drawn to. With my final piece, I wanted to produce something that I would want myself. This is important for me as it gives me extra motivation to work and create with an additional sense of purpose.

Section 2 :

At this current stage in my process, I have just named my final major project ‘A Working Title,’ as I didn’t want to limit my ideas. Keeping an open mind to creative process and having a bit of flexibly, especially with the events of Coronavirus, allows my ideas to develop. My main intention stays the same by creating a light hearted and playful comic book; digitally producing a superhero versus the coronavirus by using the global pandemic as a narrative. Working in a digital format also has the advantage of producing multiple forms of the final piece, being an downloadable online digital copy and a physical printed product. 

The proposed outcome links to my own practise, through storytelling and demonstrating narrative refined through illustration and character designs. By conducting my own analysis into pre-existing characters within the comic book industry, I have a stronger understanding on how to create a realistic and relatable personality for each characters. Throughout my research and experimentation, I have learned and understood the value of strong imagery and visuals to create a narrative without the use of additional text or dialogue. Without this character trait analysis, the believability for my hero (‘Captain Corona) narrative would lack in depth, leading to the reader not being able to relate. For the visual aesthetic of my superhero, I have taken references from Superman, with the use of a primary colour scheme. To counter act these bold colours, my Covid-19 villain design will have referenced aspects from Clayface from Batman, which contrast in colour and form, contributing to providing a stronger sense of conflict between my two main characters. 

Section 3 :

Working from home I have had to improve my time management skills. Since college closure, lessons are no longer on and I miss out on the opportunity to have face-to-face conversations about my work. To improve and keep track of evidencing the hours I put in from working at home, I have a weekly time sheet where I input the hours I have worked in the day. I also have an extra notebook where I write down more detailed goals and criteria to meet each week.

As for how I’ve planned panels; I have drawn out a rough paper draft of my Captain Corona comic, I will scan the sketch to use as a base layer in my digital drawing software (FireAlpaca). This will be useful and time effective as the visuals would have already been prepared to effectively express the narrative. The proportions and perspective will be more accurate by having an underlapped draft of the comic panel. Scanning in copies of finalised work is a technique I will also use of I am finding it too difficult by overwhelming myself in a lot of digital work. Utilising scanning methods will also speed up the process when I start to produce my comic.  

Section 4 :

Critically analysing the preparation progress prior to my final major, I have found that my planning has been consistent and thorough. I didn’t want to go into making the project narrative blind as the story will feel flat. Without planning there will be no depth and dimension to explore within the story. I started off by researching into narrative arcs and different types of plot lines. I was able to create a song foundation by just having an overview of the events that would occur in the comic. This was very successful as this process provided as a core structure for the rest of my project. I then developed the idea of pairing panel types together, making sure I had enough variety in panel sizes and differing shot types. Another process I found to be very beneficial was by mapping out a finalised concept art piece of Captain Corona. Using my Roy Lichtenstein research, colour experimentations and with the retro aesthetic of old comics, I wanted to blend all of these inspirations and processes together. I did this by using mainly primary colours as the colour scheme for my designed hero.

The only negative aspect I have found of working in a digital format, is that you don’t have a physical comic version you can touch and interact with in person. I noticed this flaw early on in my planning process. To resolve this was to piece together a paper draft version of my comic, where I could have a more accurate envisioned idea of how pages either compliment or contrast against each other on opposite pages. This definitely was a successful and necessary process as I now have a better grasp on how the order of pages will plan out to look like.

Section 5 :

Planning was the key to my success in my final major. I would plan out each page with all of the comic panels, prior to digitalising each page. This process helped me keep a constant vision of the narrative, as well as the technical details like size and the overall scale. Time planning my work processes did take up the first few weeks of my time scale. However, I made sure I used it effectively. Due to my prepping before, I  created a scaffolding frame in a way, which structured my comic in a simplified way, easily being able to order of my work and fill out.

I had never created a comic before this project, which is significant as I didn’t have any past experience with working within a specific time scale to complete a whole book. Once of the downsides of my processes was that I wanted to play close attention and detail to each and every page. This took up a lot of time, and as the project developed, I found ways to effectively cut corners, but not impacting or improvising on the artistic quality of my comic pages. By utilising the tools and techniques available on the FireAlpaca software, I was able to elevate the authenticity of my comic. This was a balanced blend of traditional and modern comic styles and techniques from my refined influences.

The most ineffective processes I found was when I would use an image for my advert intersections. When working over the enlarged images, the file sizes were too small and it caused some of the overall advertisement pages to be a bit pixelated. I couldn’t find a large enough file to work with. I wanted to continue using the advertised images I found on Google Images as to realistically draw out each product, as well as producing the advert page itself, would have been too time consuming. I was adamant that I would spend as much time as I could into the more important features of my comic, being the narrative pages. 

With the impact of Coronavirus, my final outcome format has changed. From the initial plan for it to be a printed and finished copy, to now where it has developed into a digital comic. I would have preferred for the entire comic to have been completed, however I would have lost additional working time by factor in printing times. The narrative aspect of my ‘Captain Corona’ comic is still quite effective, despite not being fully completed. 

My final major project has taught me to not be such a perfectionist and to embrace my creative imperfections. I would allow myself to do this more often, to improve. Simplifying aspects that don’t need to be detailed, will utilise my time and effort into something more beneficial. 

Bibliography & References:

https://captaincoronacomic.blogspot.com/2020/06/bibliography-references.html

 Analysing and critiquing my final major project, on another blog post, I add further detail about my evaluation. I elaborate on how I would go about making further improvements onto my comic.

https://captaincoronacomic.blogspot.com/2020/05/evaluation.html