3.1.2 Canon Elements; Final

I was technically supposed to have three canon elements finished, but due to the circumstances I found myself in last week, I was only able to finish two. One was finished prior and the other was finished after. I was tasked with working on the Mad Doctor, the Politician (Jerry), and the Mad Doctors Laboratory. I only was able to get the flat colors finished, and I’m not proud of that fact, but I hope to do the shading in the coming week. The mad doctor’s laboratory will also be finished next week.

For the mad doctor, his prosthetic arm was the trickiest part. I think I got it ok, but I definitely think it could be better. I do remember the suggestion of seeing more of the inner workings, but I didn’t have the time to conceptualize that change, and I really had to move on with the other canon elements I had to do.

maddoctor_draftb_akearns2
The Mad Doctor Ver A and Ver New

The politician was easier. He is a very straightforward design. Basically a 1920’s politician. One of the writers had asked me to look that up and emulate the look, so I did so to the best of my abilities. I wasn’t sure about colors, but the writers have been giving us stylistic liberty with that. I may change his outfit to a more earth colored or sepia range of hues.

56C05F66-FFE6-4291-8924-B8DCBE7AB304
The Politician

 

3.1.1: Canon Elements Draft

I did a concept sketch of the Mad Doctor for my canon-element. I wasn’t able to get to the lab, or the politician, which are also under my care. For our project, Taran and I decided to use influence but also iterate on the Certain Magical Index and Fire Emblem Heroes Book 5 style. I do not think we will be going with this EXACT look, as it still has to be work-shopped and I’d like to make some suggestions to him but I think so far, this is what I personally interpreted our shared intent. Unfortunately, I am not as familiar with the series, besides maybe Fire Emblem. I know the games and the artist he mentioned specifically for Book 5.

For the Mad Doctor, I synthesized what the writers wanted, and the direction Taran and I agreed on, along with some feedback from last class. For the changes, I added gears for adjusting and a switch that acts as a lock for magnifying goggles. I also placed the goggles so they faced forward on his top-hat. Another thing I did was I made his “glove” a half-arm replacement. I figured that may help convey the idea that it’s a prosthetic.

maddoctor_drafta_akearns_check
Old.
maddoctor_draftb_akearns2
New.

Works Cited:
Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsCanonDraft”. newMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149527974/narrativeArtsCanonDraft Accessed October 16th, 2022.

Narrative Arts: Story Jam

For the Story Jam, I was not present during the time that the writers were actually working  on it. During the first session on Wednesday, I was out sick and couldn’t come in, and on the next Tuesday, I didn’t catch what had happened and was stupid enough to not ask around in the art side of the class.

This is what the writers came up with for a storyboard without the help of the artists. I’m pretty sure we should have contributed, but I definitely dropped the ball on that one.

Screen Shot 2022-10-10 at 9.11.18 PM

Overall, I think the narrative arc is solid for now. On the collaboration side, I often feel uncomfortable voicing opinions about the writing. I felt as the artist side, it’s not really my place. It’s kinda my place to just create what the writers want visually. But as a writer myself, I have conflicting opinions on certain things, like the mad doctor’s motivations, that I feel uncomfortable to voice. I do like how the story is going, though I’m a little unsure where the breakthrough is. I feel like these are things that need to be worked on, but I think I’ll see how the writing evolves over time as we still have time to work any kinks out.

Artistically, Taran and I didn’t have much involvement here. Both sides were under the assumption that this was the writer’s side and the artists were uninvolved, so the writers had asked us to work on the concept art for now. I have finished the Mad Doctor (with temporary colors), and Taran has finished the city-scape of Pre-industrialized Steampunk Philadelphia circa 1920’s. I will insert the mad doctor a bit after this. Collaborating with Taran has been a bit of a challenge, but it has been getting easier. Right now we are working to find a combined style that works for both of us and that we can both replicate. But for the early concept art, we are just drawing in our own style.

Here is the Mad Doctor (he doesn’t have a name):

maddoctor_drafta_akearns_check

As for the narrative arc and the storyboards here, I think it is pretty good. I wish I had given some input artistically wise so I could have helped with camera angles and stuff. I think with some spruced up drawings, and some shot direction and lighting design, I think this would elevate to a higher level. I’m not sure what the writers used source wise to do their Story Jam as I wasn’t in the class that day, but I will ask my teammates and update the document with sources.

Works Cited:

TBD (Will update once  I can get to my team)

2.1.2 Abington Workshops: Creepin’ on Strangers!

The Philanthropic Chiropractor:

Observation:

The way we synthesized this character was that each of us watched a single person, and by a vote, we picked the one that seemed the most intriguing. For this, we picked a person who was watched by one of our writers, Theo while he worked at a farmers market.

Wiry, longer blonde hair, and unnaturally naturally tan, he glides towards the owner, winning the owner’s good graces with a hot, milky coffee. His pearly white smile beams as he makes his way to the produce tables. He wants to touch everything that interests him. Squeezing and smelling. Everything needs to be at the perfect ripeness. As he speaks to the employees, he drawls everything slowly along, charming each of them. When something excites him, his voice raises an octave and he’ll often gasp.  

He’s dressed as a mix between summer and winter, with his down jacket, swim trunks, and yellow sandals, showing off his leathery legs and feet. His wristwatch is aristocratic with its gold and diamonds.  

Here and there he nabs a couple peaches, a couple apples, asking which one is the most desirable from the employees. He likes to discuss the weather and his mountain house and it being without AC.  

  

In the heat of the afternoon, he returns with a few sodas to cool off the employees. You would think he is a surfer but he spends his time telling stories about his chiropractic office, sauntering about, enjoying the warmth now in a t-shirt. 

Art:

Taran and myself each did individual images of him.

Here is Mine:

Character Sketch- Arielle
Not the best, but I digress. My teammates were rather happy with it, though.

Here is Taran’s:

Copyright Taran Abel.

Story:

This man likely played a lot of volleyball in his teens, as he grew up in a shore town in New Jersey. He lived in the sun and refused the sunscreen his mother forced upon him. He is a little rebellious with that, his long hair, and his refusal to wear pants. But he was never a dullard, just bored. He felt like he was never learning in school. This ended up with him pulling little pranks on his peers. 

His sense of humor, a little dry, would tend to revolve around the weather and when the next bit of sunshine would arise. He fancies himself a storyteller. He will draw you into conversations just to tell you it is cold outside, laughing at you for listening to him through the whole thing.  

As he has aged, he became somewhat of an Anglophile after a trip to Scotland and fancies a nice tea in the evening. The man loves the simple things. 

Collaboration Experience:

For the collaboration between the writers and artists I think on the writers side they relatively were on par with each other and in very good terms with their ability to work as a team. As for Taran and I, we had trouble coming to a cohesive style of work, and in the end, we ended up with two portraits because of our differing directions. That is definitely a problem spot that I hope the two of us can work on more in the future. I want us to collaborate as a team and compromise and communication is important for that.

For collaboration between the writers and artists together, that was easy. Once Theo had written down his character, we were able to immediately picture him, and we all had fun throwing out ideas on what his background could be, how much sun did he actually get and from what, and why he has such a distaste for regular trousers. It was a very fun creative jam session.

Works Cited:

We didn’t really use an outside source…

1.1.2 Research: Bradbury’s Rocket

PART A: Research Sources:

In reading the wiki, I found the shadow archetypes very interesting. The diagram that showed them was very informative, and also having the semiotic square that correlated to it was helpful in showing how we could use these archetypes in synthesizing a unique character. I also really liked the TV Tropes website. I found it very cool and the writing was hilarious on each trope. They were all easily recognizable and I could identify media that I had seen them depicted in. Even though the fact they were written very glibly and were more on the comedic side.

PART B: Concept Design:

For my concept, I chose Bradbury’s Rocket, specifically from the tale called “The Earthmen”, by Ray Bradbury. I felt that this depiction of the rocket was specifically more striking. Mainly, because the story was longer, and had a bit more depth. I had more material to go on with the concept design.
I decided to go with a rocket that I often picture right away from older movies and films. Specifically cartoons like “The Jetsons”. I don’t know if that show ever had a specific “rocket” depicted within it’s universe, but it’s definitely inspired by what those at the time thought futuristic travel would be like.

bradburys_rocket_concept
Here is the rocket concept.

The men who came to Mars and the “psychologist” who treated them all died, one by suicide, the 4 astronauts by murder. Hence the really rough blood spatters on the side of the barrel. The “martians” didn’t know what the rocket was, or what it was for, so it was trashed, and then sold.
If I had more time, I’d have messed with the sizing more of the other elements so the rocket was larger than the dumpster, sign and box. I think the scale is a little unsuccessful here. I did go over in the time limit as I forgot to set a timer, but I think for the time I had I did well. I just wish I had remembered proper sizing.

Works Cited.

Bradbury, Ray. “The Earth Men”. capgeox.org. https://www.capgeox.org/uploads/1/3/1/9/131934518/the_martian_chronicles_-_ray_bradbury.pdf Accessed Sept. 25th 2022.

Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsExploringPrecedent.” NewMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149510484/narrativeArtsExploringPrecedent Accessed Sept. 25th, 2022.

“Tropes.” TVTropes.org. n.d. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tropes Accessed Sept 25th, 2022.

Postcard to…

For me, I found this assignment rather fascinating, but I will admit I didn’t understand what we had to do as there seemed to be two assignments in the wiki. I assume one might be for the English portion of the group and one might be for the art students.

What I concluded to be the primary purpose of this exercise is to get the artists and writers thinking of concepts with connections to character and location. Specifically generation of ideas based on imagery of location in writing and photography without being able to reference back to what the original location is meant to be. This means creation of a new narrative that can be unique to each artist or writer’s interpretation.

My take on the exercise was informed by the story by Ursula K Leguin. I was so inspired by this story. I found it completely fascinating the dissonance between the people of Omegas and the child they sacrificed for the good of the land. They all knew that it was morally “wrong”, but they, over many years and reasoning to come to terms with such a horrid reality, eventually deemed it as a morally “right” thing to do. One life for the good of 200 I guess you could say. I found the fact that some people choose to walk away from Omegas, and the people in town DON’T KNOW where they go interesting as well. It’s like Omegas is a dystopian bubble disguised as Utopia, and the people whom refuse to accept the reality that is given to them are the ones that learn what the breadth of the world actually is. The others remain in a world that is so utopian that it’s detached from reality and morals itself.

omelas_post_final2

This is the front of the post card. I didn’t want to give any obvious hints to which story I did so I left out text, but I added in a bit of elements from the story and how I imagined the city of Omelas from my mental images as I read.

omelas_post_back2

Here is where I added SOME hints to what story I did. I focused mostly on those LEAVING Omelas rather than STAYING. So I wrote in the perspective of a woman named Elaine writing to her friend Jane that she was leaving, and to please not look for her as she was not coming back. I specifically left Elaine’s last name out. I had a feeling from context that people leaving would not want to be discovered.

There wasn’t any link rot. One thing to note is actually when I first looked at the page, the image for the writer’s prompt did not show up. I was confused as I was looking at a black square with nothing in it. It was very odd. I eventually realized that it was not part of my assignment and moved on, but I wanted to mention that in case any of the writers had any issues seeing the image itself.

Works Cited:

Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsAbingtonWorkshops”. NewMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149510577/narrativeArtsAbingtonWorkshops Accessed 14th September, 2022.

Leguin K. Ursula. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” HUC Learning Web. https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/emily.klotz/engl1302-6/readings/the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas-ursula-le-guin/view Accessed 14th September, 2022.

 

1.1.1 Research

For “Transmedia Storytelling 101” by Henry Jenkins,  I found the whole concept intriguing. The fact that the stories need to add to the world, and are not focused on characters or plots, but furthering the concepts within a larger complex world is fascinating. I also think the fact that they have to have synergy with the other additions to the world and also sometimes can be used to reach out to other demographics is pretty cool.

For the Scotland Links, I found the fact that Scotland has so many things that are a boon to society as a whole amazing. The baby box and the period equality were especially important to me. To be honest, I think every country should have that, and I think it’s important too with the baby box, because too many people have a baby and sometimes don’t anticipate the costs of raising a child. I think the fact that also, it’s so LGBTQ+ forward is another boon to it’s societal impact. I think Scotland’s policies are something that we could learn from as a society as a whole.

For “The Story of Sequential Art” by Oshin Vipra Sagar, I was amazed to hear that there was a group of manga-ka (females too) before CLAMP known as the Magnificent-24 that created the shojo manga genre. I adore shojo, and recently I’ve seen the resurgence of older shojo films and manga such as Magical Angel Creamy Mamie and Kodocha. It’s fun to see things come back that were from such a long time ago.

For the work, “Getting Started with Transmedia Storytelling” by Robert Pratten, I found the whole entirety of chapter two really interesting. I really like the idea of multiple different options for the way to story to end, audience interaction and influence and also the idea that the story can change on a dime. I loved that the story didn’t need to have one singular ending, and it could change based on the moment of the “world” it was portraying. I really like the concept of branching narrative, dynamic narrative, and also participatory storytelling. I hope we can use it in our project to make something unique.

Works Cited:

Jenkins, Henry. “Transmedia Storytelling 101.” Henry Jenkins. http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/03/transmedia_storytelling_101.html Accessed Sept 9th, 2022.

Pratten, Robert. “Getting Started With Transmedia Storytelling.” Talking Objects WordPress. https://talkingobjects.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/book-2-robert-pratten.pdf Accessed Sept 11th, 2022.

Sagar, Oshin V., The Story of Sequential Art. n.A. Issuu. 2018.

“The History of Scotland”. Scotland.org. N.d. https://www.scotland.org/about-scotland/history-interactive/all-periods?all&now-1900 Accessed Sept 8th, 2022.

Narrative Arts: Pillars of Collaboration

For me, specifically about this topic, I’d like to focus on three of the Pillars of Collaboration we had formulated over the meeting on Wednesday. My focus will be on Style, Tone/Mood, and Master Tropes. For myself, as both an artist and writer, I believed all three of those were too important for me to drop one. Style is important in both writing and art. It’s often determined by the tone or mood of the story so I will talk about them in tandem. In art, things such as color temperature and palette can shift determined by the tone/mood of the narrative or subject matter. You wouldn’t want a dystopian world set to bright primary colors, right? Color contributes to style. Another aspect of style in art is line weight, and types of mark-making. Some comics do well with cleaner lines, like manga and anime, and some comics do well with a more chaotic or thicker line. A comparison being R. Crumbs’s bold cross hatched comics versus the subtle line-art in CLAMP’s popular shōjo style manga CardCaptor Sakura.

For the third pillar, Master Tropes, I feel this is important in writing for both character development, and art for character creation. In art, character concepts start with basic shapes determined by character traits. Such as if a character is good, often times, round shapes will be used to create the majority of their silhouette (this isn’t as big of a factor in manga/anime, but is sometimes used there too). And also, character concepts are determined by a system of well known tropes. Such as the wise sage, or the young apprentice. We all know the white bearded man with the pointed hat and kind but firm nature, and the young scrawny but brave apprentice, ready to tackle anything thrown at him. We know these tropes, and we gravitate towards them in media.

One task I believe I can be quite helpful with while collaborating is creating and compiling the concept art. I am really good with creating unique characters, and I try to challenge myself with animals and objects as well. I’ve been creating characters for a long time, and I’ve put a lot of hours into studying the various concepts and theory that goes into creating a successful character design. I feel that I can be useful with my experience in InDesign and Photoshop with compiling the individual designs if we would like them printed along with character biographies at any point.

I also will add, I am generally very good about keeping a project on track. If we cannot find a member within the group that would like to step up to be project manager, I can throw my hat in the ring for that.

Cromar, William. “narrativeArtsPillarsofCollaboation” newMedia Wiki. 2022. http://newmediawiki.pbworks.com/w/page/149510472/narrativeArtsPillarsOfCollaboration Accessed Sep, 4, 2022.

Week 1: Course Contract

For me, I am not normally a collaborative worker. This semester, with my theater class, this course, and group projects, I will be forced to be more collaborative. I hope that this will increase my ability to work with others in a creative collaborative effort. This will test my ability as a creative artist, collaborator, and my time management skills. Comics are usually a very collaborative effort, but I am a web-comic artist and I do work on my own for that. From my previous work on collaborative art projects, I am known for my ability to keep the group on task and make sure that things are running smoothly.

I think this project in general will stretch my creative abilities by delving into working creatively as a group, and dealing with differing opinions and design aesthetics. As I said, I normally work alone, so working in a group setting is a bit foreign to me as a creative. I want to learn to do so, though. I realize, even with my web-comic, I may eventually have a team that will help with the creation process. As an artist in the industry of comics, there’s really no way out of collaboration. I hope that I can change my more individualistic process so that I can collaborate effectively during any project in the future. One thing I do understand, is that working in a group and bouncing ideas off of each other is one of the most valuable experiences as an artist. So I hope that this course will be a great experience for me in that regard.

For this course, Narrative Arts in Scotland, I can reasonably contribute:

Art:

  • Character Concepts
  • Comic Panels
  • Concept art in general
  • Illustrations
  • Storyboards
  • file conversion and color editing.

Project Management:

  • creation of time blocking
  • creation of effective project management timelines.

Cloud Content:

  • Blogging
  • Live-streaming
  • maintaining the One-Drive Cloud.

Other:

  • I am a big cartoon fan.
  • I am a huge anime fan
  • I’m good at using research from various content to make something unique.
  • I know a decent bit about pandemics and history from the 1920’s, 1890’s, and 1300’s due to a previous project.

I don’t know how helpful everything listed will be, and cannot be expected to do everything. Mainly, I’d like to be part of the artwork production. I’d rather not work on any website creation since my skills level is mediocre there.

Narrative Arts: Week 1

When I signed up to this course, I wanted to get two things out of it. One thing was a bit of a taste of what the professional environment is like for comics and sequential arts. The other was I wanted to explore and create connections with people in the industry and really see if it was a good fit for me. What I didn’t expect was when I actually was signed up and gearing up for the class over the summer, I was more excited about working with a collaborative of writers and collaborating as a team of artists on something that will be shown to an audience. I also want to explore the University of Dundee as a possible option for my Masters Program.

The kind of work I’d like to make in this class for me is more graphics focused rather than coding or 3D rendering. I love making comics, specifically those in traditional page format rather than scrolling. I am a good writer, but I am a bad script-writer. So I am looking forward to working with the writing team, my fellow classmates in the art section, and our partners in Scotland on this project.