Illustration and Visual Narrative: Task 3 - Webtoon & Motion Comic

27.05.2022 - 10.07.2022 ( week 9 - week 15)
Len Hoi Yee / 0353430
Illustration and Visual Narrative / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Project 3: Webtoon
Final project: Motion Comic 

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Title: Brotherhood 
Theme: Action, Royalty

Synopsis: The brotherhood between three close friends is broken by one's greed.

ACT 1 - Setup

The Blue king, Tyler was notified of the death of the Yellow king, Brooke by his right-hand man, Hanson. The Blue King was sad about the death of his close friend/brother (non-biological) and he recalled the conversation he had with King Brooke about the weird sentence he heard from the Red King, Ashton. King Tyler wants to avenge King Brooke.

ACT 2 - Conflict 

The fight between the blue King and the Red King. King Tyler confronted King Ashton, and he shamelessly admitted that he killed him. King Tyler realised that King Ashton is no longer the old Ashton they used to know. Their brotherhood is broken by Ashton's greed. Ashton wants to rule the city all by himself for all the attractive temptations. They fought and King Tyler was weak and covered with knife cuts all over his body and told King Ashton that he has to stop. King Ashton gave King Tyler a chance to leave because he saved his life before and he spares his life now. 

ACT 3 - Resolution 

King Tyler wants to stop King Ashton from turning into a demon, and to avenge King Brooke, he killed King Ashton. King Tyler pierce the sword through King Ashton's heart. King Ashton died.

Week 9 ( 27.05.2022 ~03.06.2022)

Project 3: Webtoon

Visual Research 

a Webtoon or graphic comic consists of a lot of elements in it, such as character, storyline, composition of the panels, pages and many more. There are a lot of elements for us to study, analyse, understand and plan before creating a comic or a webtoon, it also depends on the theme of the story, whether it requires action scenes, romance scenes, fantasy and more..... Therefore, creating a story itself only requires a lot of time to plan, to study, to do research, and then execute. So, here are some references and research I have found that helped me throughout this journey. 

Fig 1.1 Animated series as reference 

Above are the animated series that I have taken reference from. These two are different genres as it is quite obvious from their poster. K: Missing Kings is towards the science fantasy and action theme but Snow White with Red Hair is a romantic comedy series. Both are one of my favourite animated series, so I guess I can use them as reference in this project. 

Fig 1.2 Fight scenes from K: Missing Kings

Fig 1.3 Scenes from Snow White with the Red Hair. 

I was planning a story about the brotherhood between 3 kings in a city. It's actually the combination of these two series. These two series have given me the inspiration to create a fight scene between 2 closed friends. 

Fig 1.4 Composition of panels in manga

I have looked up on how to place the panels in a page to make the page layout look interesting at the same time not messy, also, the placement and types of speech bubbles are things that I have to study too. 

Fig 1.4 Sword fight angle drawing 

To create a realistic fight scene, the angle from a different perspective is crucial, so here are some references I found. 

Week 10 ( 03.06.2022 ~10.06.2022)

After consulting Ms. Anis about my story, I planned out the overall image of the whole story in my mind and drafted a script for the story.

Character Design

Fig 2.1 Character outfit reference, Week 11 (06.06.2022)

This is the reference I used for my character's outfit.

Fig 2.2 Character Design , Week 11 (06.06.2022)

The base structure of the character is Tyler, and I used the art brush tool to draw him using a drawing tablet. The other 2 characters just differ in the colours of their outfit, hair, and the gem on their sword. From the looks of their faces, Brooke is more towards the kind personality in their gang, for Tyler and Ashton are more towards the big brother in the gang but Ashton is more towards the "i want it my way" kind of personality, judging from the look of his face, that smirk gives him an evil vibe, which also suits the red colour. 

For their outfit, I gave them a prince-looking outfit ( 'finery costume' is what they call it apparently) to suit the story which is a royalty-themed story. 

Sketches

Fig 2.3 Sketching , Week 11 (06.06.2022)

My way of coming up with the scenes is pretty funny. Since I already have the script, I just imagine myself in the situation and draw out what I will do or react. Hence, my sketches are pretty rough since I plan to draw them using Pentool in Adobe Illustrator. So after sketching I scanned them especially the parts that involved a lot of movement, and then trace them out using Pentool. 

Fig 2.3 Sketches , Week 11 (11.06.2022)

Digitalisation

After having a rough sketch of my entire story, I started digitalising my work in Adobe Illustrator. Some panels I refer to my sketch book and some I scanned the panels and traced it out. 

ACT 1 digitalisation progress 

Fig 2.4 Page 1 digitalisation progress , Week 11 (11.06.2022)

From here, you can see that I was planning to cover the whole page with this two panels but I figured that is a bit too messy and I decided to give the panel a yellowish-white bg and then a different colour for the page (final outcome). 

Fig 2.5 Creating art brush , Week 10 (11.06.2022)

Fig 2.6 Examples of using art brush  , Week 11 (11.06.2022)

For some panels , I used an art brush to draw it out for example the outline of the clothes, nose, mouth, tears and more. 

Fig 2.7 work progress  , Week 12 (14.06.2022)

For colouring, I did it together with digitalising because I think it's convenient since I can just select the colour and draw it together with Pentool. Although using Pentool is quite rigid for a human figure for example the facial expression, clothes, and position, that is why it took me a longer time to draw because I had to consider all those while drawing. 

Colouring

Fig 2.7 Colouring  , Week 12 (14.06.2022)

For colouring, I have chosen colourrs that best suit and represent the character.

ACT 2 digitalisation progress 

In act 2, it involves a lot of movement and angles while fighting, therefore it contains more individuals' position and texts, and lesser background is drawn. 

Link to the fight scene drawing reference: fight scene drawing reference

Fig 2.8  Page 16 drawing progress,Week 13 (20.06.2022)

Here is page 16 where both of them have started the sword fight while conversing. Considering the angles and position, I have no clue and I have never properly learnt how to draw so it was quite suffering for me. Hence, I looked up on the Internet to find refrences to help me out. If I am lucky I found the pictures that contains the angle that I want, then I can just refer to it while tracing or some I just trace the pictures and then adjust it. 

Fig 2.9 Page 17 - Page 21 drawing progress, Week 13 (24.06.2022)

Even though I trace the pictures that I have found online but I had to adjust the size and the details such as the size of the arm, hand, knees, and the details on the clothes.

ACT 3 digitalisation progress 

Fig 2.10 Page 21 - Page 24 drawing progress, Week 13 (24.06.2022)

For the scene where Ashton is down on his knees with the sword in his body, I tried using the brush tool to draw it out and then use Pen tool to trace the outline again to fill the colour. 

Text and Speech bubbles 

Fig 2.11 Speech bubbles reference, Week 13 (25.06.2022)

Fig 2.12 Speech bubbles examples, Week 13 (25.06.2022)

While adding text, there are things to be considered as well, such as thinking speech bubble has no arrow, weak or injured speech bubble looks more like a cloud shape, shouting has sharp edges to enhance the effect of shouting. 

Fig 2.13 Action text , Week 13 (25.06.2022)

Main font ( in speech bubbles) : CC Astro City ( size 22) 

Action text and sound text : Market Felt and Comic Sans 

For the speech and action text, I have downloaded fonts from online that I find best suits my comic. However, the problem comes when I exported all my artboards in PDF form, it turns out that the font I used without license, therefore when I export it in PDF form, it changes to the normal font...:(. So I had to leave it in JPEG form. 

SFX

Fig 2.14 SFX effect reference and outcome , Week 13 (26.06.2022)

To enhance the effect of the action and expression, the use of SFX is able to bring out the effect to the audience to better understand the situation, after all it's a comic then can't speak for itself. Therefore, SFX effect plays an important role as well. I have referred to some mangas and webtoon to draw the effect out using Pen tool. 

Background 

Fig 2.15 Background colour , Week 14 (27.06.2022)

For the background colour I have choen gradient colour for the page colour. From the picture above, you can see that there are shades of blue, red, and purple. The ones in blue gradient are Tyler(blue) moments, where he is aggressive and angry at Ashton (red). The ones in red are Ashton's moment where he is the focus and he is at the winning side. For the purple shades is when both equally at the same pace. The shades of grey and black indicates the shocking and death moment, where the sudden knife pierce and lying dead moment. These are mainly used in the fighting scene, for the normal scene such as act 1 is different.

Fig 2.16 Old background colour , Week 14 (27.06.2022)

At first I just used lilac colour for the page and a cream white colour for the panels. However, the further I do, since I have gradient colour for the fight scenes I might as well do that for others too but a soft colour. 

Fig 2.17 Example of soft solour used , Week 14 (27.06.2022)

I was comparing which one to go with the blue or the purple but I find the blue one is more appealing and it's Tyler's moment so I went with the blue one. 

Fig 2.18 Background for flashback moment , Week 14 (27.06.2022)

In my story, there is flashback moment, so to differentiate the flashback moments, I have chosen light grey shades for the panel instead if dark shades or black so that the whole layout wouldn't look too dark. A soft pink and yellow gradient colour is used for the flashback scene. 

Week 14 ( 27.06.2022 ~ 04.07.2022)

Final Project - Motion Comic 

For this task, we are required to do animation for our comic in Task 3 to create a motion comic. I have decided to animate my comic in After Effects. I was so confused with the function and control keys in After Effects as I was not taught how to use it. With slight knowledge I gained from other modules, I tried. The most frustrating things is the app kept crashing and it took me so long to actually animate 1 page. It got me lose my patience..... 

Fig 3.1 Animating in After Effect , Week 14 (29.06.2022)

It took me some time to get used to the control keys and it kept crashing causing my work progress delayed. I have downloaded sound audio and background music for the animation to enhance the expression of the emotion. 

Final Outcome

Project 3: Webtoon

Final Project: Motion Comic

Youtube link: Motion Comic: Brotherhood

Webtoon link:Brotherhood

Feedback 

Week 9 (27.05.2022)

Ms Anis suggested that my story don't have to start with introduction of the entire story, just get straight to the point where King Tyler was notified of his friend's death instead of introducing the start of the story. To make the story interesting, Ms. Anis suggested that I can do how the King Tyler fought back when he was weak and hurt and killed King Ashton for Act 3. 

Week 12 (16.06.2022)

Ms. Anis assured me that I was on the right track since this is my first time creating a comic. 

Week 14 (29.06.2022)

Miss Anis gave me a link to solve my problem in After Effects.

The story

I was pretty satisfied with the story I came up with because I got the inspiration from my two favourite animated series. I named my webtoon 'Brotherhood' is based off the temptations in reality such as wealth and power is what people seek for nowadays. All these is able to take over a person's dignity and principle. Therefore, the story portrays what a true friend would do for their brothers, even if they aren't blood related. This personaity is played by Tyler, and the person who betrayed his friend for temptations is played by Ashton. Although it is sad to have Tyler lost 2 of his closest brothers but in order to avenge Brooke and to save Ashton from betraying his old personality, he had no choice but to kill him.

Reflection

Wow, I have created a webtoon. I can't believe that I made it. At first, I was very excited to create my own story, characters and stuff but ther further I go, the more lost I am. I have never taken any design course nor art lessons in my life, so to me, it's a challenge to complete a webtoon in a month on top of that, I had other module assignment to submit as well. It took me a long time to figure how to start, considering there are a lot of important stuff to take note such as the composition of the panels in one page, the colours, the angles from different perspective, the animation and many many more. It was truly a great challenge and experience for me to come across in my life. 

However, there is still much more for me to explore, learn, analyse in deisgn work. As a person who has never created a webtoon in my life, I needed a lot of research and references to help me in drawing the fight scenes, especially the angles from a different perspective but the moment I see the final outcome, I was pretty satisfied with my hardwork because it's a great start for my uni life in design.  

On a side note, it's actually a lot to ask from beginners to create a webtoon because of all the drawings and shading and angles.... to be considered, it's definitely tough for people who has no design background, like me :( HAHAHA. 

Well,in general, it is definitely a great learning journey throughout these 3 months because I have learnt and created a few design work that I never did in my life. I know that there's more room for me to improve  and it's time for me to back myself up with more practice before I get into my specialisation next year.