The purpose of this Narrative project was to communicate character and story arc through descriptive storytelling, comic designs, and animations. In English class were we required to write a Flash Fiction, then show it visually through a graphic novel. In Design we created a comic that was based off of our graphic novel’s rising action. Lastly, in Digital Media we created an animatic which then was converted to animation which is our final product. Going behind this page you will find the story page which includes my Flash Fiction written and recorded. Also an image of my graphic novel. On the Animatic page you will see my rough animation done in Animator. On the Animation page you will see my final video of my animation that was based off of my graphic novel. Finally on my project page it shows all of the projects that I have completed so far this year. What I have learned through the narrative project is the new applications Animator and Illustration. Through these applications we learned how to create layers, animate characters, make things look 3D, etc. I also learned how to transfer words into a visual image. In this case going from a Flash Fiction story to an animation using no words just images. I also learned different points of perspective including bird’s eye view and worm’s eye view. Overall I enjoyed this Narrative project because we were able to explore an imaginative and creative side of yourselves.

This is a image of the production of my Animation in Animate.

This is a image of my backdrops and characters for my Animation in Illustrator.

This is a image of the production of my website in Dreamweaver.

In writing my Flash Fiction my inspiration was my mom’s irish wedding ring that I wear everyday. It’s a symbol of my cultural background and ethnicity. I wouldn’t to write a story that was intriguing to the readers by saying the ring could defy the laws and cycle of aging. The character Gretta was inspired by my Grandma who was always positive and saw a way around bad situations turning them into good situations. My Grandma always enjoyed the time she had, like when Gretta realizes she needs to accept yourself the way she is and enjoy life as it comes.

The process I went through to write my flash fiction was a lot of brainstorming.I had to figure out and describe what I want my character to visually look like. I needed to create a connection with the ring to the character. I also needed to plan out what my conflict and solution would be and to make it interesting enough to keep the reader tuned in. I needed to decide a main theme. Once I got all of these steps done, I had to put all of these steps together to create a rough draft of the bones of my story. Then through many revisions to the story concept itself the final draft emerged.

This is a image of the audio that I created in Pro Tools for my Flash Fiction.

In design we were required to create a comic that was based off of our graphic novel’s rising action. In Illustration (which we used to create our comic) we used the pen tool to trace over our electronically scanned storyboard that we burnished into a cardboard artboard. We used fills, outlines, symbol’s, rectangle tool, etc to complete our comics. When storyboarding our comics we had to plan out our scenes by adding more detail to tell our story but by using a small amount of panels to make it concise and to the point. This took awhile to figure it out cause we wanted to make sure the story was still being shown clearly.

Throughout creating my comic I ran into many problems. One example of this was having my work get deleted because of the server problems we have been experiencing. So I had to go back and redo everything that was once completed but then erased. Another example was having trouble trying to figure out my rising action in my comic and conveying it in a conscious manner so the viewers will be able to understand what is happening in my comic. One thing that I would change about my comic is the lack of detail. I wish that my drawings overall were just more appealing to the eye. How I would accomplish this is edit my drawings adding more detail to the face and clothes. I would want to make it look more complex by adding more color and make the style of drawing more realistic. Throughout creating this comic I was able to learn how to use the application Illustrator. I learned about rising actions, different styles of comics, color themes that work well together, and the art of storytelling through through images. I am most proud of the story concept itself. Even though trying to show my story in a comic without words is hard, I believe that storyboard is strong and powerful. The comics message is saying that you should accept yourself for who you are not who you want to be. Cause if you strive to be someone that already exists you would just be a copy of them, you won’t be as unique.

I will apply the ideas that I learned from this project in future projects by thinking like an artist and what makes a good piece of art according to an artist. Mainly that effort and passion is what makes every piece of art unique and special to someone. This project makes me appreciate other people’s art because the amount of work it takes to produce an art piece and the thought that goes behind each piece of art. Every piece of artwork created symbolizes something special to each artist.

Throughout the process of making a comic illustration I ran into some conflicts like losing a day’s worth of work. So I had to go back a retrace out the panels that got deleted. I also had trouble at the beginning trying to figure out the best way to show my comic without using any words. It was hard to capture the story in just a few panels. But overall I enjoyed this project because I was able to tell use my imagination to produce such a complex piece of art. This comic definitely took a while to produce because we had to plan, then draw, then trace, then fill with color. This project really let us as students explore how creative we can really be and see what types of stories/art pieces we can produce. I was finally able to see clearly my capabilities going forward in future projects.

What I learned through making an Animatic is Adobe Animation and Adobe Illustrator applications. I learned all the tools in illustrator to create backgrounds and characters which I will then animate using Animation. I also learned that its takes multiple steps in Illustrator to create each image on a different layer so I can manipulate the movements of certain images in Animate. Creating my Flash Fiction, Graphic Novel, and Animatic all have one function and that’s to get to the final product of a Animation of a story that I wrote. My Flash Fiction makes a clear story outline of the series of events that happen and the characters involved. The Graphic Novel gives the visual representation that an Animation is all based on, how to tell a story visually. It also starts to give us an idea of what the characters physical features look like. The Animatic is then the platform that leads to the final product of an Animation. The Animatic is the rough cut of how the animation will play out including the transition between scenes, along with where the audio should be placed in the stream of the scenes.

This is a image of the Animatic that I made in Animation.

The Animation assignment that we were assigned in digital media was asking us to take our graphic novel that we made in English create our Animatic used for a rough cut of our final product the Animation. The whole inspiration behind the Animation was my Flash Fiction story that was written about my irish ring that I got from my mom which she got from her mom, my grandma. After the Flash Fiction story was written we then had to transfer words into visual images to tell our story. In panels we drew our story in order of what happens in the story. We drew our characters and backgrounds in each scene. From the Graphic Novel we made a rough cut/draft of what our animation will look like using the application Animate. Then in Illustrator we made our background scenes and characters. We then imported that file into Animation where we started animating our animation.

The process of making my animation took a lot more work and time than i thought. i learned a lot of new skills in animate tht i will use the the future. Although i wish i did animate my animation a lot more, by having the hands and arms move but due to time i wasn't able to. Overall i am happy with the way my animation came out and i can defiently take this as a learning experience. My future animation will only get better and better each year. Im excited to see what these new skills i learned will take me in my freestyle career.

This is a image of the Animatiion that I made in Animation.