Narrative Arts Abroad

Self Assessment: ART 499

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For this class, I don’t think I was as professional as I could have been. Our team had a lot of trouble working together, and sometimes that brought out the worst in me, especially when I was under a tight deadline and I felt like I was doing way more than I should have been. For attentiveness, I was very attentive during class as there was vital information being imparted to us about the trip and also various other things about the comic and festival. For punctuality, I was not late once. I did miss a few classes due to being ill. I believe I missed one due to a stomach flu.

For persistence, I’ve was very persistent with this project. It was going to get done come hell or high water. I attended all working sessions with my group, and even some extra that ate into my day during times other than our planned sessions. For preparedness, I was not as prepared as I’d like to have been. I didn’t always have a lot of time this semester as my other courses kinda threw me for a loop. I wasn’t always on time posting, especially towards the end when I didn’t take my computer overseas.

For Curiosity and Politeness, I was curious, but not always the most polite. Again, I had a really hard time working with my group members. We’d all butt heads and overall it brought out the worst in me. I want to mention also, that I was bullied by one of the other students IN SCOTLAND. We were separated by section before, so I hadn’t met them yet, but this person clearly did not like me when we did meet, and they showed it. I tried to be polite, but I ended up avoiding them entirely over the trip. This was not the most polite action, but I didn’t want to be around them when they clearly did not want my presence around to begin with.

For responsibility, I tried to be as responsible for my actions as possible. For helpfulness, I did try to be helpful, especially in my group. It was really hard since we all were butting heads, but I tried to mitigate compromises and quell the storms when I could. Sometimes I caused the storms, and that was not in the best light of me. For professionalism, I was not the most professional. I had trouble in my group, and it was overall not a fun experience for me. I will still continue to work on the narrative with anyone who wishes to after the course ends, though.

2.3 Exercise Scavenger Hunt.

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I’m going to be 100% honest. I didn’t do a single thing from the scavenger hunt. I don’t even have my images posted to social media so I don’t have a hashtag to provide either.

The only thing I can think that I did was going to the art museum with Kaela and Professor Cromar, and I didn’t post the images to social media. So I guess I will kinda post what I would have done, and that’s it.

#amgobhainnstàilinn (<-the steel workers)

Team Members: Taran, Kaela, Theo, Arielle

scotsnatmuseum

Kaela and I went to the Scottish National Gallery with Cromar and we saw a great many paintings by many amazing artists. I remember mainly seeing a perspective work, and Cromar prompting me to figure out the perspective. I did manage to do so, and it was a great learning experience.

Works Cited:

Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsNaGeamannan Dùn Èideann”. newMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149510586/narrativeArtsNaGeamannanDunEideann Accessed December 12th, 2022.

4.2 Presentation: Level Up

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For my level up activity, I’d like to do the UniVerse publishing. I’d really like to level up the narrative so that it fits Dundee’s level of quality, and be able to publish on a professional level. I know this will be challenging, as I am working on several IPs at once, (Nox Notare, Injury of Reputation, and The Steampunk Menagerie of Tales of Folk and Fae)  and will be taking on a big project in collaboration with my mother (who is a social worker) to illustrate her children’s books about mental illness. I do know that Taran has expressed interest in also continuing to work on the narrative, but I am unsure about one of our writers and another has requested to be removed from the IP.

In order to do the UniVerse Publishing, Taran and I as artists will improve the quality of the art. We will increase the quality of the backgrounds, remove inconsistencies with the characters, and recreate the orientation of the speech bubbles and panels. In order to change the quality of the narrative, some of the needless description will be removed, and we will let the images show the narrative flow. If needed, we will change some panels and if some pages need entire re-draws they will be completed. Overall, it’s mostly about leveling up the art and narrative work and getting it to Dundee’s quality levels.

Works Cited:

Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsLevelUp”. newMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149510634/narrativeArtsLevelUp Accessed Dec, 4th, 2022.

 

3.2.3 Story Elements Final

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For my final story element, it was really about finishing the final pages and everything like the typography and coloring. I did the final inks, but Taran did the grayscale and Kaela and Theo did the typography. It was really a group effort to get this comic done by the Friday deadline, and I swear I didn’t sleep til it was done. I started off with the inks and it was a bit of a bear since the roughs Taran had done were not polished at all, so I had to do a lot of shenanigans to give more polish and some poses I even had to throw out completely. After that, we stressed to Taran to ask us anything and anything that’s unclear. He did very well on the grayscale coloring, which made me quite happy.

The typography was a little… squishy. I think I may reiterate to Kaela when we begin working on the continuation, that we don’t have to have a wall of text to describe every little thing. Let the images do the description for themselves. I believe in our narrative, there was a little too much “tell” and not enough “show” and I think that was both on the artistic side AND the writing side.

Here is the final comic.

Being Human - Am Gobhainn-Stailinn_v2_Page_1

Being Human - Am Gobhainn-Stailinn_v2_Page_2

Being Human - Am Gobhainn-Stailinn_v2_Page_3

Being Human - Am Gobhainn-Stailinn_v2_Page_4

Being Human - Am Gobhainn-Stailinn_v2_Page_5

Works Cited:

Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsStoryElementsFinal”. newMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149527992/narrativeArtsStoryElementsFinal Accessed December 1st, 2022.

4.1 Presentation: Being Human

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During the preparation for Being Human, I think my team worked pretty cohesively as a unit. I think we were able to agree on things that needed to be sorted out, such as who read what, and when. Our presentation was a dramatized reading of the comic and it turned out pretty well. I really enjoyed helping to set up the power point presentation, and the fact we brought a literal model of a heart and a prosthetic hand into the mix. I feel like that was really unique, and it blended my experiences working in the maker space with my webtoon and comic work.

As for the actual presentations. I felt we did well, but I overall wasn’t happy with our product. I really wish we had more time to work on it, and Kaela and I will be continuing the narrative most likely. I hope to fix the flaws with the first five pages, and continue the story of Dr. Joseph, Lawrence, and Margarie. Though the work we did was flawed, it was received positively. I think that was the best part of the whole presentation. Even though we did not get picked for the anthology, I was glad we still tried anyways

Works Cited:

Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsBeingHuman”. newMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149510631/narrativeArtsBeingHuman Accessed December 1st, 2022.

1.3 Research: Aberdeenshire and Highland Tours (Didn’t go to the Highlands ;-;)

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My post will be a slight bit shorter. I didn’t go to the highlands as I was feeling unwell. I will try to draw out the Aberdeenshire tour as long as I can, though.

For me, I thought that the Aberdeenshire tour was fabulous despite the fact I was a little grumpy after my shoes got soaked through and I fell in a small stream. I really enjoyed seeing the historical gravesites, the Abbey and the stone circle. I really felt a connection with the stone circle and I really did like being there although it was very very wet.

I think the rain overshadowed a lot of my thoughts about the tour. I was ill prepared for the cold wet grasslands. It was gorgeous though. I did love the small streams, and how thick the grass was and the different areas that we went to.

Dunnotter castle was my favorite on the stop, although I ended up having a bit of a panic attack once we got to go BACK up those stairs. I am really frightened of heights, so uh… climbs like that both A make me dizzy and B, scare me. Overall, though I felt it to be a breathtaking experience, and it was cool we got to explore a very ancient castle that had been standing for a very long period of time. Despite the fact that I got soaked, I had a blast. I think what surprised me was that a lot of the sites we visited on the tour were made out of sandstone. It was partially why everything was so slippery, but I found that to be a very cool tidbit of information. Another thing that I felt was cool was that a castle was almost like a whole community in itself. It was that big.

the Abbey was another of my favorite sites. Now that one I did get some photographs of. Unfortunately, they’re all files that cannot be displayed on webpages (thank you IPHONE), So I will convert them later and add them in. I really loved the architecture of this abbey. I felt it was very advanced for it’s time, and it was cool how you could see how the abbey would of looked if it were still standing as a complete building. I also loved the greenery and gardens around it. I wish we could have stayed a little longer, and that we could have actually gone inside.

The stone circle was very interesting to me. I didn’t know much about them going in besides the fact they were used for rituals and astrological readings. I felt it was cool that our guide said she was personally connected to the stone circle and she believed she was meant to be its guardian. I don’t know much about Scottish spirituality and believes, so that’s why I found that part of the tour very unique. I know my friend who I talk to frequently warned me of Whisps that take you on journeys. I wonder if it was something similar to that.

The last site I will explore is the graveyard. I really liked that site. reading all the tombstones and all of the history behind them was very intriguing to me. I was also surprised my professor had a connection to the site. I thought that was super cool.

Works Cited:

Cromar, William, “narrativeArtsTours” newMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149510490/narrativeArtsTours Accessed December 1st, 2022.

2.2 Exercise: Dundee Workshops:

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I had SO much fun at the workshops. I think I’ll talk about them one by one, and then go over my thoughts in between. Overall, I thought the activities were well thought out and super interesting. I think Norrie’s workshops were my favorites. Mainly the ones with working on a cover. I only had time to work on it for an hour, and Taran was pulled aside to work on another group’s project since their artist was not there.

Ok. Workshop 1 I guess. So that was the one where we worked on a cover for our piece. Norrie ran this one. We all came up with a two sentence blurb about our comic, and we were expected to use the information in a piece for the comic’s cover. For me, I was a little confused how to get everything used in our blurb into the cover, so I just decided to go for a simple character image of the three main leads. It didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped, but I had some help with Norrie and it turned out decent I think. I finished it on the second or third day, I cannot remember.

Onto Workshop 2. I think this one was more of a performative piece? We all got together, and basically traced ourselves onto a huge sheet of paper, one themed about Future, and one themed about the past. I was the only artist on the future side, so I was a little confused at how to handle all the writers, who were approaching the piece a little more analytically than I would have liked. It ended up working out, though, but we were a lil’ jealous of the other teams. I mean, who wouldn’t be? Alpha was on that team. I swear he turns all art he touches to gold.

The third workshop had us rushing around like chickens with our heads cut off. we had to work on the actual presentations for our team’s projects. This was really hard for me because I did leave my laptop at home. I couldn’t take it along as it wouldn’t fit in my bag. My backpack would have had to have been checked. I’m glad I could at least take my iPad. I relied mostly on my teammates for help with this step, and we all figured out how we were going to handle the presentation as a group.

I finished up a quick cover during this working session, and I passed it off to Kaela and Theo to put into the powerpoint. It ended up going really rather well with it, and I really felt that our presentation was strong. It was a good day overall, despite Kaela and I sleeping in because I forgot to set my alarms. The good thing was we weren’t too late. I’m just glad we didn’t sleep through the whole thing, because we were rather tired.

So for the things I did not know, I didn’t know really what we were doing at all, or when these things would be implemented. For the choices I made, I did make a decision to stay a little longer and draw out the cover to the comic. As for how it affected my career choices? I feel like because I had taken some time to make something a bit more polished, I may have gotten a bit more positive feedback and people asking to network with me at the after-party thingy. Alpha and I got pulled aside by some of the grad students and we got some tips and also interesting tidbits from them.
I overall learned a ton from this trip about my own art and how I shape up against others. Now I know that I always need to strive to do better even if it’s just the next page of my webcomic.

Works Cited:

Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsDundeeWorkshops”. newMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149510580/narrativeArtsDundeeWorkshops Accessed December 1st, 2022.

1.2 Dundee Tours and Expos;

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It was really fun to go around the University of Dundee. To be completely frank, I wanted to stay. I loved the DCCS, and I also loved the environment the University of Dundee had set up for the illustration majors as well. I thought both programs would be a good fit for me. I also thought the student work was excellent. I really aspired to be like those artists. I learned a lot on these little presentations.

The two programs that interested me the most were the Comics Program on the Design side, and the Illustration program. I felt both made it really flexible for students to work in their own space and how they wished.

As for the facilities for the other programs which we visited with the student ambassadors, I felt they were AMAZING. Bonnie would have been majorly jealous of that printmaking room. And I also loved that the school gave their students their own studios past the second year level. I also am glad they have a great foundational program. I feel like I’d have probably learned more in that foundational area than I did while learning at my previous community college. I felt like the teachers all really took individual time with each student to push them towards their best processes and took care to hone their skills.

I unfortunately didn’t take too many pictures, but I had fun none the less. I don’t know if it counts here, but the comics creation workshop with Norrie was super fun. Catatone the planet of Alien Cats was left there sadly. I’m glad Norrie and Chris got a laugh outta that.

What I didn’t know prior to the event was the amount of financial aid international students receive and also that our FAFSAs can transfer to overseas education. If I didn’t need consistent access to medication management and blood-work, I would apply. I did talk to Mary Modeen about it, and she confirmed that there is not a lot of mental health services easy to access overseas. Due to that, I will be looking at more local universities or maybe even self learning online.

As for the career path I want to take, I think I want to work in remote-run illustration jobs while I work on my personal projects. I got a lot of advice from Norrie Millar as I chatted with him and networked around. I really want to both A improve as an artist, and B, be able to get my work officially published. I realized also, I can’t shoehorn into one option for publishing, so I will be looking into other comics publishing houses to pitch to as I wrap up my final semester and work on the things for the senior show. I’m definitely no longer focused on semester goals. I’m focused on the long term, and what I need to do to get there. Also I definitely would like to continue the narrative with the Milne comic, and I think it’ll be able to work with some major clean up that I couldn’t do while under such drastic time constraints.

Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsDundeeExpos”. newMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149510487/narrativeArtsDundeeExpos Accessed December 1st, 2022.

3.2.2 Deliverables Story Elements Iteration

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This week was not a good one. I spent most of my week with an unnecessarily heavy workload, and I am burnt out, exhausted, and at my wits end.

Beyond that. Some good work has happened this week. Just not enough that will most likely be satisfactory for the collaboration and deadline.

I have not had a chance to ink but I will be staying up tomorrow to get all five pages inked, detailed, and sent off for grayscale work.

Here are pages 1-5 with my part of the detail work done so that they are not just… panels with stick figures.

page_01_a4_arielle_rd

page_02_A4_arielle_rd

page_03_a4_arielle_rd2

page_04_a4_arielle_rd

page_05_a4_arielle_rd

I have to do some cleaning during the inking stage, but the writers were incredibly happy and excited with this output.

Any space that is blank is work that my collaboration mate was supposed to have a part in. Overall, I’m happy with this, and this can guide the more detailed inks I plan to do over the next two days. I plan on adding stipple, hatching, cross hatching, and line weight to create a more detailed look to the panels. I also plan on adding detail and correcting minor inconsistencies I noticed after I wasn’t so sleepy to the characters. I… also need to get rid of the pink pages. That was not intended, Clip Studio for some reason has my canvas color set to pink automatically.

Works Cited:

Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsStoryElementsIteration.” newMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149510625/narrativeArtsStoryElementsIteration Accessed November 4th, 2022.

 

3.1.2 Deliverables: Story Elements Draft

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I worked with the writers to produce this incomplete draft of the panels of the Milne project. It needs revisions, but I didn’t have the time to make them.

There are 8 pages to this comic. Each page contains 6 -7 images, and most do not contain speech bubbles as of yet.

There were some things that I was unsure about when I was drafting the comic’s art, I was unsure of where to put the title, among other things. I believe I may redraft and add a title onto page one along with our names.

Pg1
Page 1

This page shows the crash of Jerry, our politician and the surgery to give him a prosthetic leg. It also shows the doctor’s injury and infection.

Pg2
Pg 2

This is page 2. It shows Jerry reflecting on his new leg in disgust and leaving for a political rally.

Pg3
Page 3

This page shows the doctor getting fired and leaving the hospital after losing his job.

Pg4
Page 4

This page shows Jerry rallying the people against the “mecchies” and the doctor doing an illegal procedure.

Pg5
Page 5

The mechani-person comes to the doctor and warns him of the mob that is after him.

Pg6
Page 6

This page shows the crowd arguing with the doctor, and the doctor revealing that Jerry has been deceiving them and is also a mechie.

Pg7
Page 7

The doctor and the mechie (in secret) go to confront Jerry. The mob goes to find out if Jerry is a Mechie too.

Pg8
Page 8 and the conclusion.

Jerry tries to frame the doctor as if he is attacking him, but then attempts to push the doctor off his balcony. The mechani-person grabs the doctor and pushes Jerry lightly into the crowd, the leg of his pants hiding his prosthetics rips revealing the metal of his fake leg, and the crowd surrounds him.