Final Major Project: Evaluation

Upon completing the comic at long last, I began to think back on what I could have done to improve on everything that I had done over the past 2 months of the final major project.

Research

Primary research

If we were to get an idea on a comic, research was needed to get a good idea. I felt like my primary research was sufficient enough as I looked at comics, magazine layouts, and books to get a good idea of how the layout should be like. Alongside this I also got a load of pictures of statues from the V&A museum, as the inspired artist we were basing this comic on did the same. This was helpful in getting the right poses needed as they should play a part in our comic.

This part of our research was crucial. Seeing as our comic was based on the manga, Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure, I poured a good amount of research into the series and artist. The artist, Araki Hirohiko, would have books of models and statues to reference the posing of his characters. This was a key idea to include in the comic as it makes the characters stand out more. Alongside this, I also looked at how another manga portrayed story and layout as the two series’ were quite different. This part of the research was strong as they relate to our topic and they gave us good references.

One more useful piece of research was the animated version of the manga. This was particularly helpful for me because I was doing my part of the comic digitally on photoshop. A key thing I noticed in the animated version was that the linework on the characters was inconsistent which I thought was a nice touch as it makes it look bolder. As a result, I implemented this concept into the final product.

Independent research

Upon starting the comic, I did work independently without the assist from anything else for a good while until it came to drawing and adding effects. This was mainly due to the fact that I was comfortable with independent work until I actually needed it. Taking pictures of the sculptures were very useful, but even after that, I used a programme named Source Filmmaker, to pose some already made characters, which was a great way to study the human body. I later used these poses I had made using these already existing characters and used them as a reference for drawing the characters for the comic. However, I did not trace over them 100% nor did I copy their designs.

Finding my own research was not very difficult as I already had places to look for, one of them being a DeviantArt artist, username, Makani who helped make the official Team Fortress 2 webcomics. This artist, in particular, was one I needed to look into more as their style is quite exaggerated and it really stands out, most noticeably with the facial features. This was a similar style I was hoping to achieve. Despite this, I feel like I could have done more research on the human figure as in some areas of the comic, some of the limbs on the characters are a little disproportionate.

Influences

I was influenced by both Araki and Makani’s work. Within each season of his comic, Araki would change the style of the characters which I thought was helpful for my partner and I as our styles weren’t identical. Mine and Araki’s style of working were quite different however as he works with pencil and ink whereas I work with a digital tablet. I draw digitally because I find it makes drawing art much easier for me, especially because my pacing is slow. Makani was very influential as I attempted to replicate the exaggerated style that they had used. I had also looked into their use of composition and layout which I found useful because of how clean the layout was. They wouldn’t just scatter the panels like some manga artists do, they would neatly compact them in the page layout most of the time, which is what I aimed to do in the comic. That and they are also a digital artist.

Planning and time management

As tight as the time was for me, we did manage to submit the comic on time, with minutes to spare. I should have had it done a lot sooner but I never really had a schedule on when to work on the comic. I had only planned on working on it whenever I could and even then it took a good amount of time. At some points, I would easily get distracted which, surprisingly enough, took away a lot of time.

Time management

In terms of time management, I was VERY slow when it came to creating the pages for the comic and I assume this is because of both my lack of confidence when working outside of home, and due to the fact that I am a perfectionist, I would spend too much time on the smallest details, some of which being unnecessary. I probably could have sped up the process if I had planned the main character beforehand because I was drawing her without a clear design in mind.

Schedule

My schedule was not as clear as I hoped it would be. It mainly consisted of getting the sketches done at home and doing the linework outside of home. Despite this, I still managed to follow it well, however, I should work on the speed of my drawing as that really slowed me down, focusing too much on small details.

Developing and Modifying Work

In all honesty, we didn’t go through an enormous amount of changes throughout creating the comic, but I felt like the ones that we did decide on where necessary.

Changes

One of the changes I thought was important would be the style change. For a good while, we struggled to decide on a definitive style. After some practice, I came to a conclusion. For my section, I did a combination of the manga’s style and my own style. I ended up lowering the detail on the original style as I thought would be too much work and it would slow me down to a point where I probably wouldn’t have finished. Here is a comparison.

Upon changing the style, I also decided to add different forms of detail in the form of little lines which reference the manga doing the same. It was a simple and effective way of adding detail, which made the character look less plain.

Another change we went through was the introduction to a character named Leon Rogers who was going to be a friend of our main character, Jozeya. Later however we decided to remove him as he played no significant role in our comic, apart from moral support. I feel like this was a necessary change otherwise we would have had too many characters for such a small comic, let alone having a miscellaneous one.

Once more, the script was also vastly changed to better take up more of the pages. The script we had beforehand included some very robotic and almost dull dialogue as there wasn’t any interesting speech included. That and there wasn’t much dialogue to begin with. This reboot to our script was just what we needed as it now included dialogue that was much longer and more interesting. So much longer to a point where I started running out of space for some of the text on the pages. We even included a reference to the original manga.

I’d say our ideas were varied enough to include them in a list. But at the same time, there could have been room for more ideas. But for such a small comic I don’t think a huge amount of ideas are necessary to make this thing spectacular.

Experimentation

Adding shading to the comic was an idea I had throughout the production of it. As a result, I didn’t get to experiment with how lighting works so I had to assume and make it up on the go. Though at some point I did experiment with using a black layer on photoshop with a lower opacity and that seemed to work instead of using different tones of grey. Though I think using the different tones of grey would have been quicker. I also tried to experiment with thicker shadows in some areas which were more suspenseful to emphasise on the tone of that section, and I think it turned out pretty well. However most of the time, I didn’t pay attention to light very well as the shadows are drawn in a way which makes it look like the light source is coming from in front of the character.

The front cover was different because I had to actually work in colour, unlike the other pages. Because of this, I had to try out different colour schemes and see which one was a good fit. The theme of the original JoJo manga is purple, so I thought it would be a good idea to bring back that colour scheme. I got the theme of the colour for the main character with a little help from Adobe Colour Wheel. If the Jojo manga was good at one thing, it was making bizarre things look natural. So I experimented with different colour schemes for the main character.

For a long time I had envisioned the character to be blonde, but officially putting the colour into action made me realise it doesn’t actually suit the character in terms of appearance. I also didn’t like the combination of yellow and brown as I thought it looked too ugly. Experimenting with colours doesn’t just mean making a good colour combination.

Colour

Taking this into consideration I also thought about colours and their representations, which is why I felt like purple was a good theme as it represents nobility, power, dignity, devotion. All the things a protagonist needs. The added grey was to make the colour look purer as it was a lighter shade of grey.

Effects

Effects were a thing I was thinking about too. Having read a few books and comics myself, improvisation was the way I went about with these effects and I attempted them from the top of my head. I would have liked to try out these effects before instead of during production but I was worried id have no time. These included effects like lines and bold text to put more emphasis on the situation.

Ideas

With all of these ideas, I think I spent a good amount of time thinking about them. It’s just a matter of if they were a good idea that I needed to consider, like the script which had to be changed during production. In total, around a month was spent thinking and developing ideas, but there was just as much time spent on the ideas during production too. I still would have liked to think about them more so I could better polish up the final outcome, and I feel like some areas are a little unfinished, for example, concept art, which I didn’t do enough of.

Materials, techniques and processes

Materials

Although I had tested the style once in pencil before starting the comic, all of my half of the comic was done digitally with photoshop, which meant that the use of materials wasn’t varied and instead I stuck with only one, the Wacom Tablet. With photoshop, I used around two different brushes but it was almost done with a general brush. The other brush was for the splatter effect on the third page. Being experienced with photoshop, this proved less difficult for me to use and had a good impact on the outcome of the comic as the brush tool can help me produce high-quality linework.

Techniques

When it came to creating the layout of the pages, a tool that really helped me with that was the Ruler tool. Because I didn’t know what specific measurements to take, the ruler tool helped me to get the accurate measurements which made it less difficult. I feel like this affected the final outcome by quite a bit like the thing that holds the comic together is not only the linework but the layout too because of its compact and tidy look, making it comfortable for the readers.

Processes

Creating each page was a simple process of creating the layout, sketching, and going over with the brush tool. The only hard part about it was making it look good for the readers. I did use a bit of help from Source Filmmaker to help me pose the characters before actually drawing them. Despite the length, it would have been more difficult if I didn’t go along with my current process and I feel like this was crucial to getting the right outcome for the comic. Because of this process, the comic looks a lot better than it would have.

The Final Outcome

In the end, the comic was presented as a pdf file featuring all of the pages. I figured this would be an easier way of presenting the comic as it would be higher quality and it only requires a few clicks to view. Although this is the case, we are hoping to have it printed as an A5 book for it to be presented better. The idea of making a comic was there since the start of the Final Major Project and I thought it would be a good way to test and improve my art skills. At the time I was really inspired too, because of the statues at the V&A museum. Not only that but because of the people drawing there too.

Brief Response

I feel like it responded to the brief decently well. I am really pleased with the final outcome of the comic, I do feel it is in high quality and it has the right amount of page numbers. However, the sole purpose of going to the museum was to get inspiration for an idea on the final major project, which was a key part in our brief. What inspired me were the sculptures and the Chinese cultured items, as we originally planned for our comic to fully take place in Hong Kong. The sculptures were what inspired us to go with the idea of a comic based on JoJo as the original artist used sculptures as heavy reference.

Despite this, I could have looked at more in the museums because I feel like I didn’t look at enough to get a better idea of what to do sooner. I did return to the museums due to me only visiting one the first time, but my thought does not change.

Final thoughts

At the start, I was worried about the quality of the comic, but in the end, I think the quality was a lot better than expected. The linework was something I put a big focus on as it would be the definitive feature to catch the readers eye. Also, even though I didn’t have a good idea of how lighting worked, I still think I managed to make the shading look nice. With these two combined, I think it really ups the quality of the comic, along with the added effects which make the comic stand out more.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

One of the biggest strength would have to be the linework on the characters and its style of inconsistency which makes it look interesting and not as messy as you think. I feel this style choice was quite beneficial because of that reason and it would have been better than one singular brush size which, although acceptable, looks more boring in my opinion.

Layout played a big part too. I had hoped to achieve a neat layout that conveyed emotion depending on the shape and size of it and I feel like I have achieved that in some aspects. It is neatly presented too and I feel represents Mankai’s layout style pretty well too.

Another strength I feel is the shading for the comic. Despite the lack of knowledge of how lighting works, I still think I made it look decently nice, emphasising on the thickness of the shadows depending on the emotion. If it weren’t for the lighting and different shades of grey, the comic would have looked more boring.

Weaknesses

I would have liked to produce more concept art beforehand as that probably would have sped up the production of the comic by a bit in terms of knowing what everything looks like. I feel like setting up for the comic was something I lacked and that greatly slowed me down.

Another thing I would have liked to improve would be the time management as I feel like I wasn’t the best with it, specifically, keeping a handy schedule. This would have greatly improved the production of the comic and it would help keep things more organised.

Lastly, some of the facial expressions in the comic are a little flaw of mine. I feel like some of them are a little lacklustre and could have been further emphasised on to give off a more accurate emotion as some of them seem emotionless, which doesn’t represent the inspired artist very well.

Improvements

Throughout the entirety of the FMP, I feel like my work has become better in terms of my abilities and techniques within photoshop and this has really helped me become more confident in my artistic abilities. I just would like to improve on the speed of how I draw as that is one of the biggest flaws I have at the moment.

Conclusions

If I were to do this project again, I would put more focus on planning for the whole comic. In the project, I feel like we put more focus on some things more than others which isn’t really the best method. Alongside, this, producing more concept art would be another thing I would do as in this project I didn’t do enough of it and as a result, it slowed me down by quite a bit. Lastly, I would improve my time management by actually creating a working schedule to follow which would speed up the production.

What I learnt

Upon completing the comic, I learnt that the process of actually creating it is a lot harder than it seems. However, this has also taught me that I need to be more organised when it comes to time management. A lot of effort can be put into the final product, but this also taught me that the pre-production stage is just as important as actually creating the comic as it helps set the foundations of the final product with a plan.

Overall the final result of the comic came out way better than expected. At the start I pictured it being very simple, but during production, the quality upped itself by quite a large amount. There were quite a few errors once we had finished but I managed to get them fixed in time. I really enjoyed the process of making this, as stressful as it was, and it has taught me a lot in terms of the creation. I feel this will benefit me in the future as it really tested me to go further with my drawings.

Leaflet Evaluation

Starting this leaflet out, I made 3 different sketches before going straight into it. I wanted the leaflet to really fit the restaurant theme seeing as the theme of the leaflet was food based. The designs are kind of hard to see but out of all of them, my personal preference was this design.

Design 1

The reason being was that I felt this design fit the restaurant theme the most out of the other two. Not to mention I think this design is the neatest of the bunch. However, I would have liked to possibly include the restaurant environment from the third design below as I think it is more fitting and I reckon people would be able to understand the theme of the leaflet.

Design 2

I didn’t really like this design very much. This was an attempt at trying to make my leaflet fit a similar style to my map as I felt previously that I was lacking consistency. Either way, this layout and style is a little too messy for me anyway, though I do like the idea of the little slogan.

Design 3

If the one I chose didn’t work out then id have this one be my first choice. The restaurant design on the front cover is something I really do like but for some reason, I didn’t implement in the final product. The layout of the list of shops is also a thing I like as it is looking dancy and organised with its style. I still chose the first design seeing as it fit the style I was looking for more.

Refined Design

Once I did the sketches, I then outlined the first design with a black fine liner. This was to get a better definition of my leaflet look. This also made it easier for me to edit in adobe illustrator. I also decided to fold it on a separate piece of paper to test and see if it actually fits. The outline so far looks okay in my opinion, though I felt like the front cover was lacking a little in terms of design and so id probably change that later on down the line.

Leaflet on illustrator

(Contains missing fonts)

Here is the leaflet designed on illustrator. In all honesty, I feel like it could have been better as I feel like it’s not done to a professional standard. I also don’t know how to feel with the notes being more bluer than I would have imagined. I do like the blue gradient for the background, however. I think it looks nice. I also like the little banners at the top and bottom of the front page. The reasoning for making this leaflet look blue is because my map was also blue and so I kind of wanted to match them so they fit a similar theme.

Map at the back

Printed leaflet

And finally here is the leaflet printed. With the fonts working and the leaflet being printed, it didn’t look as bad as I thought. Overall I am satisfied with the results. Everything fits on and the design looks better printed out than on illustrator. Though next time I’ll have to keep in mind the printing as the map at the back has been partly cut off due to a printing error.

Film Noir Evaluation

Our objective for this topic was to make a Film Noir based on a story we had to follow. We were split up into groups of 4 and were assigned different roles among the 4 people in the 4 group. The Film was about a man who recently committed a murder as he was ordered to do so. 4 Different scenes were given to us and we were assigned to do one of the 4 scenes. We got scene 1, where a person enters an office, pours a glass of wine, only to get a phone call where the same person proceeds to ask “is it done?”

The filming

The filming process went well. I had to take on the role of being the cameraman and so I was in charge of getting the camera shots right. A difficult task was actually getting some of the camera shots due to the position they were in, for example, the close up of the phone had to be filmed behind the table. Despite this, I feel like the shot was pretty decent as they helped convey the scenario and scenery.

For the camera shots, I feel like they could have been improved upon seeing as some of the shots has a lack of good field of view. Alongside this, I could have done a better job at aligning the camera correctly and possibly keeping it still in some shots. One side note I’d make is that I felt like most of the shots that we got were too long, which would be good to make the beginning slow as it is at the start, but was a little too slow in my opinion.

Editing

As for the editing, I figured it could have been done better. First of all, mainly due to the fact that most of the shots that we had were very long and instead of cutting most of them up I left the majority. Though it was rushed due to time and so changes will be applied later to make it better.

On top of that, the sound design was okay as well, Though the choice of music at the beginning compared to the end is a little off as I don’t think they go well together. One could argue and say that its to represent the change in scenery but personally, something else could have been better to fit.

What I liked

My favourite parts would have to be the sound for the man waking up in the room. We wanted to emphasise the feeling of isolation in that scene and so sounds similar to ones you’d hear in horror felt like a good choice. The beating heartbeat is to represent the fact that he woke up, nervous and not knowing where he is, then it increases as he tries to open the door, showing his true fear as he realises he’s trapped. The ambient sound that builds up is also to emphasise this further.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the film noir could have been done better, but it wasn’t the worst in the world. Most of the shots run on for too long and it probably would have been better to cut them down more and even rearrange them to better narrate the storyline. As a result, it probably wouldn’t bore people as much. Though I do like some of the shots, especially the ones that take place outside, and some of the sounds and music used too which helps define the scenario and scene, Though not all of it.

Interactive map evaluation

Above is the completed interactive map which we were assigned to complete. This map went through many stages of development and contains locations of food places in Kingston.

I did the original map layout in my sketchbook using a HB pencil, followed up by a Fineliner pen. Its a lot smaller and because of that fact I wanted to change that, and so I included more, alongside choosing a new location in Kingston as the one I chose didn’t have many food places in the area.

Once I drew the outline, I went onto adobe illustrator and decided that there weren’t enough roads, so I chose a different location and added more roads. I then outlined these roads using the pen tool and added an outline by duplicating the roads, layering them under the white roads, making them bigger and colouring them black, to create the outline. This was to add some contrast and make the road stand out as i planned to have the background blue.

Once that was done, I added a background to the map. I wanted the map to look engaging and interesting. I decided to use triangles because the pattern looked nice. The leopard skin shapes were a last minute decision as I felt like I needed to add more to the background.

After that, I added the text of the roads for obvious reasons. I would have prefered to possibly put the text on the roads as opposed to on top of them. I also added a border which you will soon see.

Next, I added the icons and the text boxes. I used a cloud box design for the icons as it has meaning, its to imitate how you are thinking about where to go to eat. As for the logos themselves, they are to represent the types of food places there are, as seen on the key on the left which was another thing I added by then. I decided to use a notebook for the infoboxes similar to those a waiter would have when noting your order, which was what I was going for.

Next up, the coding. This particularly a difficult step as I have no previous coding experience. I used the codes in the Animate software to make the buttons function. This included the close button, the infoboxes and the icons. As seen on the gif above, I also coded the button to expand and change colour upon clicking and hovering the cursor over the icon. I didn’t really need anything too special so I kept it simple.

Finally, I added animation and sound. The animation wasn’t entirely special but I felt the need to include something. Therefore, I figured a moving background would do the trick as it makes the map look lively. The fact that the map has to parts of the background that moves emphasises it, though I worry its too much. As for the sound, I used a waterdrop sound effect. I decided on this because of how simple and effective it was. Plus the background was blue so it was fitting.

Overall, I am satisfied with the result of the map. I feel like it is clear and understandable but also I think there are many areas I could improve upon e.g the layout, fonts, icon designs, etc. Despite these flaws I may see, it went better than expected. The animation looks linear but I didn’t know how to change the smoothness of the motion so the current motion will have to do.

Sound Evaluation

Animation

Sound 1 – Pop

This first sound occurs when Muybridge appears out of thin air. I only used the popping noise and not the slurp at the beginning. I could have done the sound myself but before I realized I could, I grabbed a sound online and stuck it onto the animation. I would have preferred to use a smokey explosion for when he appears but I couldn’t replicate it or find one. This is a foley sound.

Sound 2 – Click

The second sound occurs when Muybridge clicks his fingers and I did myself just by simply clicking my fingers. I like the way it turned out as it sounds realistic enough for me to include it. I had to keep the sound decently quiet so that it would hurt anyone’s ears. This was a quick sound so nothing major had to be changed. This is another foley sound.

Sound 3 – Projector

This sound is originally a preset sound from a 3D animation software called Source Filmmaker, and so I used it in my animation. This plays when the movie reel appears on the screen. I felt that this was fitting because, well, a projector is fitting, and having no noise there would kind of be awkward. This is also a foley sound.

Sound 4 – The music

Funnily enough, I made the song. Well, remade it. The original song is from the game Civilization 6, I just redid a section of the song in Fruity Loops Studio with a piano. Because of how adventurous this song is I decided to try and dial it down a little as the animation takes place in a museum, so it would fit a slightly calmer environment. I would have hoped to make the song a little more interesting though as it does sound slightly boring. The part I used for the music starts at 1:46 and ends at 2:15 with some minor adjustments.