#workshop task

[kinzelcomics]

Workshop Task 3: Gestures and Facial Expressions

This is pretty straightforward! I used guides to help get the poses right for my gestures, and I made up the expressions on the fly. I used my other two protagonists as practice, and it was useful, but I’m really just itching to get started on the rest of my comic. I spend too much time on exercises like this, since I’m trying to simultaneously learn and practice as an artist but also working simply to fulfill the task.

[kinzelcomics]

Workshop Task #1: Character Sketches

This week’s workshop task asked for us to take a whole sheet of paper, and fill it up with poses that help define our protagonists for our upcoming final project. What’s funny is that, normally, I’d love to have attempted a full range of motion: my character swinging his spear, or actually taking the moment to reach out and perform magic. It would look almost like a second of animation, broken down into so many frames. However, my sketchbook isn’t that large, and I realized I was more comfortable drawing much larger than I anticipated. As a result, I only drew my character 6 times instead of the 10 or more times I wanted to. Trying to build up solid muscle memory of how to draw a character is tough! I feel like I need to do this again, maybe even with my other characters.

So, here, we have one of 3 main protagonists: Prince Neros! I created him last semester for my Writing for Video Games class. He’s an ice-powered prince who has been cursed by the gods of his homeland, and he needs to get together with his childhood friend from the woods to figure out why this curse has fallen upon them, and what they can do to stop it. It turns out that he and his friend are two of the three heroes of the prophecy, and they must collect the third hero before they can conquer evil. They recruit that third character, and ultimately discover the source of the evil and, through the power of friendship and teamwork, save their world.

If it sounds a little bare-bones, that’s because this really isn’t even the half of it. If you’d like to know more, my whole game bible is available to read here.

The excerpt of the story that I’d like to most explore is when two of the main characters, Prince Neros and Princess Anthea, first meet the Water Oracle, Pegaios. Pegaios tells them what he knows of the prophecy, and directs the heroes where to go next. I’ve already mapped out this story in a screenplay-esque style in my Mission Level Script for the game class, and I think it would be a good excerpt because my audience here (the professor and my fellow students) have never seen or heard all about the game. This way, it provides exposition and context where there would usually be none.

(As a side note, I like the top middle drawing the best. It might be the most dynamic-looking thing I’ve ever drawn! Which is exciting.)

[comicsarehard-blog]

Workshop Task: Character sketches

Only four sketches because my brain-to-hand is failing me, haha. I’m going to try again in the morning. My main narrator/character for 2 out of my 3 ideas is ‘me.’ I haven’t decided if I’d like to include a face or just have my glasses on my face with a simple mouth.

[comicsarehard-blog]

Workshop Task Notes

[comicsarehard-blog]

Workshop Task

Rough sketches of plan before peer input

[kinzelcomics]

Workshop Task #2: Thumbnails

Feels like progress! I made these on Thursday, but forgot to upload them until now. Creating semi-detailed thumbnails really helped kick the start-up scare out of my system! I always have a lot of trouble getting projects off the ground, since I stress a lot over beginnings and good transitions. While making the panel layout, I considered a lot of what Ryan Winet’s told our class during his visit. He mentioned having an understandable “grammar” for your comic to make it easier for your audience to follow along with. I wanted to try and experiment with setting up a grammar that could be useful, but also manageable since this comic is likely going to end up being 5-6 pages. I mapped out what dialogue I want for the first page, but the second one is just vague positioning. At the bottom left corner, I have my ideas for what the next pages could contain, leading up to the end of this little preview story. Excerpts are a challenge, because they need to be able to logically stand alone, but also provide enough interest to get people to want to keep reading.