Freestyle Academy proudly presents

Potatoes: A Junior Visual Narrative Comic by Hannah Craford (2016)

The flash fiction I wrote is based on a teenage boy whose parents are trying to make him be something he doesn't want to be. The envelopes represent the future his parents want for him, the potatoes represent the future of blandness he doesn't want. He sees his parents as beasts who are hungry for the bland future he will have.

After writing the story we drew a graphic novel to go with it. The graphic novel was a short 4 page group of drawings which gave an illustration to the words, but didn't have any words in it. There is a certain challenge that goes along with turning words into images. Each panel has to have a purpose and keep the story moving forward. We then took our graphic novels and took out the rising action sequence. We then enlarged these eight panels and sketched them again. This time in more detail and with a different more interesting layout. I actual changed a few pictures in order to make the scene have more impact. You need to be able to the most out of every panel, especially when you only have 8 in order to depict your story. We then took the hand drawn sketches burnished them into a nicer stronger board. The panels were then colored in, adding another element to the novels. We used an app called Genius Scan and scanned them in and put them in a new Illustrator artboard. From there we used Illustrator in order to make the final product. There were many different effects and tools that I used in Illustrator in order to create my final product. The pen tool and the gradient are both very important tools that enabled me to really create an interesting piece. My hand drawings are not as realistic or even attractive as my final Illustrator drawings ended up being. I am pleased with the way the piece got better with each new step.
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