Semester Break 30/06/16 Thursday

I have finished all the layouts (finally). Now I need to complete the script so I know what to write for the dialogue. There really isn't much to say after that. Just slowly continuing my work.

I can't remember if I have posted these before. If I have I apologize. But these are interior maps and concepts of Nelly's house (not to scale). I based them on my own house.

Here are my poor attempts at colouring the rooms of the house. I tried to provide some nice lighting but it doesn't really work. I have much to improve on. These look like 5 minute sketches, but I actually spent way too long on them. 

Semester Break 29/06/16 Wednesday

I did some final environment drawings today. I am not feeling very motivated to do my project lately; as seen in the very rushed paintings. I probably need to do some warm up drawings beforehand.

Here are the reiterated designs for Nelly. She looks more realistic now, and definitely more Asian-looking. Nelly takes after her dad; both of them have darker skin and slimmer figures compared to mum and Natalie.

Natalie is really looking similar to me in real life. As the older sister, Natalie has lighter skin and a larger figure; she looks more like her mum. 

Semester Break 28/06/16 Tuesday

It's a bit hard to think that half a year has gone by already and I still haven't got to the actual production part of the project. I think I am getting there.

I spent the day doing the final character designs for mum, dad, Natalie and most importantly, Nelly. I also need to do some environment paintings in colour for the comic. I will be doing that tomorrow.

Anyway, here some of the drawings I did today, I am not happy with my colouring style. Somehow I just cannot get my colour combinations looking nice, and it frustrates me a lot. I see many people who don't draw very well but their colours are always so pretty. I think I am on the other side of the spectrum. I hope I can improve on this somehow.

As seen here, I am testing out the different variations of the characters' appearances.

Final designs of mum and dad. And yes, they are based on my real parents.

Semester Break 27/06/16 Monday

The semester has ended and I am going to continue my project (slowly). I am still working on the layouts, but hopefully after I'm done I can jump into the actual comic-making. There are also some additional concept sketches and drawings/paintings I want to do, but I might need to leave that until last.

This is what the branches of narratives look like. It is not very complicated, and I designed it this way so the coding will not be too difficult. I have added two more story lines, but the endings remain the same as the old treatment. 

These are concept sketches for the monster's belly. I wanted it to be a creepy and dark. 

Week 15 21-24/06/15 Wednesday-Friday

Sorry I'm always skipping days like this; I was quite busy helping with some family business.

Anyway, just some updates on what I did for my project.

Some rough sketches of Nelly's parents. Again, they are not the focus of the comic, so I am just going to choose a pair out of these concepts. They are somewhat based on my parents in real life, especially the last ones in each row.

As for the story, I have done some rough layouts and put in them the branching narrative structure diagram. I think I'm the only one who can understand what is happening in each page and panel; but at this stage I only need an indication. I am currently working on the new layouts that fit the reiterated treatment.

Week 15 20/06/16 Tuesday

I was helping with my family today with building a fence, so I didn't have a lot of time to do my project. I will post more iterations of Nelly:

My favorite ones are the fourth one in the top row and the third one in the second row. They both have a certain rebellious attitude in their look.

I also did some sketches of Natalie, Nelly's older sister. She is basically an older version of Nelly with a bit more calmness. I won't spend too much time on this character, since she's not the focus of the project.

Week 15 29/06/16 Monday

I do believe this is the last week of Semester 1. I have not achieved the goals I set for myself, so this is going to feed into my break time. I am still working on the story and layouts, and I am almost done with pre-visualization.

Here is a bit of the treatment:

è Right answers: Nelly talks to mum about the dark figure. Mum tells Nelly that is not real, and she should not be afraid. She then sends Nelly off to play in the farm. Nelly receives a pair of gloves from mum. Mum then sends Nelly to help Natalie, Nelly’s older sister, who is cutting the roses and bunching them together in neat bundles. Nelly chats to Natalie about the dark figure. Natalie comforts her saying that the imagination can frighten people, but they learn to let it go and worry about real problems as they grow older. Nelly receives a pair of secateurs from Natalie. She goes and plays by herself. When Nelly is occupied by an activity, she does not sense the dark presence. But whenever she settles down to rest, she feels it behind her again. This time when she turns around, she sees something slither into hiding from the corner of her eye. Nelly begins to feel it creep up closer and closer to her whenever she turns her back towards it. She stands up and begins walking backwards, until she trips and tumbles into the large bush of roses. In it, Nelly discovers an entirely different world to her reality. The unknown figure continues to follow her. She tries to run away and hide. She comes to a steep cliff face that has rose vines crawling all over. Nelly puts on the gloves she got from mum and climbs up. At the top she sees an old greenhouse, with rose plants and weeds growing wild inside. Nelly hides in there. The creature comes searching, and discovers Nelly hiding under a bush. It pursues her to the exit. Nelly runs out of the greenhouse and quickly closes the door. The creature tries to push through. Several Nelly from the previous panels jump out and help herself to force the door close. Nelly then uses the secateurs to lock the greenhouse door. At home, Nelly does other activities such as drawing and reading. She has dinner with her family and she tells them about her adventure in the rose bush. Mum and dad laugh at her bizarre imagination. Natalie smiles and asks if the secateurs were useful. Nelly answers yes, and Natalie nods knowingly. Nelly does not see the white eyes in her dream that night.

      

      This is the first ending for the branching narrative. I am quite happy this one; it is simple and I may need to lower the age demographic this story is targeted at (7 and under). I am still working on the second ending, which I am trying to make it slightly more complicated, and maybe for older readers.

      I also did more drawings of White Eyes:

I have narrowed down the choices for White Eyes' appearance. His face is more resemblance to a human face; but something is obviously off about it.

 I also made some sketches of Nelly again; this time considering the critiques I received from the seminar presentation. Here, I am trying to make sure she looks Asian at first glance. I have shrunk the size of her eyes, and removed the highlight of the light reflection on her eyeballs. I also made adjustments to her body proportions so it is closer to real life. 

Week 14 15-17/06/16 Wednesday-Friday

Sorry I didn't update anything the past few days. I was still working on the layouts of my comic and I have changed the 2nd branch ending of my story to make it a bit creepier and also to give it more variety; or it would be too similar to the first ending. I have also added a couple of puzzles in the comic for readers to work through. They are nothing complicated, but just a way to further the interactivity.

Here are more sketches of White Eyes:

Week 14 14/06/16 Tuesday

This is my 130th post! No one cares so I'm not going to post anything special. Just a bit more on what I have been doing. I have roughly finished my pre-visualization stage, and I am sketching the basic layouts of my comic now. I have yet to scan these in, as I still have quite a lot to go through and I'm planning to post them here when I'm done.

Here are more drawings of White Eyes.

Experimenting with the teeth, eyes and head of White Eyes. Some inspiration taken from No Face from the Hayao Miyazaki film "Spirited Away"; as well as "Jeff the Killer" from Creepypasta. 

Week 14 13/06/16 Monday

It's almost the end of the first semester, and I feel like I have not achieved a lot. A lot of time was put into my contextual review, methodology, and teasing out what my project really is; but I have not produced a lot of work. The story has been completed, but I always feel like there are ways to improve it. I am not 100% happy with what I have now, but then again, nothing is perfect. I am rather confident about the story now, even though it is really quite simplistic. I plan to complete all my pre-production work this semester, using the semester break as well; I hope to launch fully into production in the second semester and begin making my comic.

My next step is to work out all the layouts of the panels of the comic. This step is quite time consuming, as I will be constantly moving panels and pages around to figure out the best way to tell the story. I have also made more sketches. These ones are some designs for the "big bad"; which I have named White Eyes for its characteristic glaring eyes (the ones my sister was so afraid of).

I tried to draw something creepy with the white eyes my sister described to me. The body of White Eyes is a bit like flowing fabric; always moving and changing.

Week 13 09-10/06/16 Thursday-Friday

I have decided to reiterate my character design. Also my phone broke.

The idea now is that since it is a pair of white eyes that terrify my sister, I will make the protagonist's eyes completely black, to create contrast between the two.

I have made some critiques about the current design, taking into account the suggestions from the lecturers who were at my seminar presentation on Tuesday.

I have managed to finally finish my treatment. It ended up much more simplified than I intended it to be, because I feel like if I don't go into production soon, I will not have enough time to complete this project. I am still looking to creating a motionbook with Madefire and a comic with the Electricomics Generator. I also have some ideas regarding world-building for my project; the contrast between the real world and the imaginary one is not going to be like Alice in Wonderland or Wizard of Oz, where the whimsical world is wild and colourful. But in my comic, the real world is the one with colour, however, it is also static and more symmetrical and orderly; while the imaginary world is black and white, animated (with limitations) and quite frightening. This is to portray the fact that the imagination is not only capable of creating beautiful things, but also scary ones as well. As the protagonist Nelly conquers her fears, the darkness of her imagination becomes a bit subdued, but it does not disappear entirely. This is to say that she will always be afraid of something, and that she has conquered one of them. It is to be proud of, but the other fears cannot be ignored either. 

I should also add that the portal between these two worlds is the rose bush. I think this can be a metaphor about how farm work has pulled Nelly's parents away from her, but it is not the enemy itself; just an agent that helped cause the creation of the white-eyed creature.

Week 13 07-08/06/16 Tuesday-Wednesday

(Monday was Queen's Birthday so I didn't make any documentations)

On Tuesday I presented my seminar. It was at the end of the day, so I breezed through most of my theory and context, and mainly showed some of my sketches I did for environment and character designs. When I reflect upon my presentation now, I wished I talked more about my stylistic influences, and why I chose to use them, as well as the specific themes I chose to explore in my story. However those were all left out for the sake of time efficiency, and I ended up just briefly giving and overview of what I am doing, and what I intend to do. A couple of lecturers from another stream questioned my character design, stating that it was way too over-done (the wide-eyed, Disney style). I remember trying to explain my choice, that these types of designs are what children tend to identify with, and substitute themselves in the character's place to experience the world. The other lecturer commented that it something of cheaply-earned empathy (I cannot remember his exact words). I felt put on the spot at that point, and I was beginning to doubt my decisions. I ended up saying that it is what the narrative that portrays the character as unique, not necessarily the design, and I did base the design on my sister. I thought they gave a really condescending "ok", and I hurried to sit back down. The whole thing made me feel really embarrassed. Not that those lecturers were wrong, at this point I do agree with them, my design IS very common-place, and it does not challenge any sort of boundaries; I might go back and reiterate the design, but it's not entirely my focus. I have a feeling that the lecturers were targeting me for some reason, as I did not see them critique anyone else so harshly. It may be because I did not elaborate on much of my project's background, or present much of the narrative context of fear, etc; or it just might be they do not care much about comics. At the end of the seminars, as I was about to leave, one of the lecturers said to me that she didn't mean her comments as critiques, but an opportunity to get better. I wanted to believe that, but when she did talk my design I felt her tone was rather unkind, and I felt that everything I had done so far is all for naught, and I wasn't good enough; my project less significant than everyone else's. It also might be that I am a person who takes critiques really seriously, and I am over-thinking this whole situation; but I do feel like it is necessary for me to improve a bit on my current design.

On the other hand, I had another idea for my story; or rather a theme that supports it. I remember talking to my sister about how her imaginations scare her, but they cannot hurt her. So in my story, the creature that follows Nelly around is a figment of her imagination that escaped into her reality from her imaginary world. The world through the rose bush is her imagination, and the two endings are her decisions about how she deals with this runaway imaginary figure. In one ending, she learns to live with it, knowing that it cannot hurt her. In another ending, Nelly locks the figure back in the imaginary world, so she won't have to see it ever again. The real and the imaginary world can be thought of as two halves of a full circle of Ying and Yang (Chinese philosophy); I will create the contrast of these two worlds with the real world being coloured and bright, while the imaginary one is in black and white. I want it to be this way to reflect the fact that our imaginations are not always bright or colourful or happy; our imaginations can frighten us, and this is what I choose to convey. The balance is lost once the dark creature leaks into the real world, and Nelly is tormented by its presence. How she deals with it will result in whether the or not the creature becomes a repressed figment of her imagination, or something she learns to live with.

 

Week 12 03/06/16 Friday

Again not a lot of updates on my project; I was practicing my presentation today and cleaning up some things. So here is an overview of my work in progress of the character design.

From concept to final

Week 12 02/06/16 Thursday

I still rather stuck on writing my treatment. But I was able to get some feedback from my sister. I read it to her, and her's the record of her responses (I've refrained from revealing my sister's name for privacy issues, instead I've used [J] to represent her):

(After reading my treatment to [J])

[J]: Oh! It’s cool. So is it like a game?

Me: It’s a comic. But you can make your own decisions.

[J]: I wish there you had a side. And Josh.

Me: Do you want me to be in it?

[J]: Yeah, because you help me in real life, too. And Josh. (We laugh together)

Me: But do you like it so far? It’s not finished.

[J]: Yes! Is it a horror comic?

Me: Sort of. I don’t think it’s very scary though.

[J]: Yeah, but it’s creepy.

Me: Is it creepy for you?

[J]: Yeah. When you read about something following someone, it’s creepy… and you feel scared for that person (being followed).

Me: Ok. I see.

[J]: I’m so excited! Can’t wait to see you finish it!

I'm glad my sister liked my story so far. I might take her suggestion into consideration to add myself in the story as well (but maybe just as a side character).

Here is another diagram I constructed to illustrate my process of writing a story:

Week 12 01/06/16 Wednesday

I handed in my Research Methodology paper today. It felt like a weight being lifted, only to realize that there is still a lot to carry. Next Tuesday is the Seminar Presentation, and I was putting together a Power Point document today for that. It is basically a work in progress report and the findings from my research so far. I have not done any tests yet, nor have I animated anything. But I do have a lot of concept sketches that I plan to show the audience. The progress is quite slow this year; I believe by the around the same time in my third year I was already animating. Yet this year I have not finalized my treatment yet. I hope once the comic making commences the process will speed up a bit. I also need to decide which tools to use to actually put my interactive together as an APP.

I do not have anything new to show, so here is a diagram I made to talk about during the presentation. I might add more detail in later, describing how exactly I converted the conversations into a treatment.