Page 7 recomposing

Page 7 was a bit awkwardly composed in places, when thumbnailing I kind of had reverted to storyboard mode, making all my panels landscape and a similar shape. It didn't work great with the pacing. The animation of the end part was a bit awkward too.

This is the old version:

I thumbnailed rough thoughts:

Added the new layout: (second half)

And then reanimated parts. I initially had the running, throwing, flower, faery disappearing all in different animation timelines, which was complicated and unnecessary. I put them all into the same one.

Here's a video of that all working: (after taking this I fixed the way that both running panels happen at once, there's now more of a delay before the second one starts so it looks more natural.

Annotations

A few examples of the printed and annotated thumbnails - I've done this with about three versions.

Adding detail to thumbnails

I've been going through and finding the least detailed images and updating them - getting [most things] to a similar level and then going through again and making them more detailed. I'm also adding some shading in places just so I know where the light will be.

As I compose scenes, I'm also doing more concept art - designing the settings around the thumbnails/'cinematography' instead of the other way around.

page 04 start

i redid the panels on the start of page four, I wanted to make it a bit longer to show some time passing and her actually wandering around confused a bit. I also separated the images so I could arrange them in the html.

this is what it was originally:

Full thumbnails + colour

All the current thumbnails laid out

Plus a colour test - just thinking about overall mood rather than specific panels

Break / full prototype

I didn't get as much done over the break as I wanted to. I did make a 'full' prototype of the comic - but it's more like a first pass than a fully working and polished one. it's still definitely a lot of the major structural work done, though. Almost all of the panels are individual panels now, and I added in most of the text bubbles and animated/scrollmagic elements. 

The text bubbles was something that took a lot of time, because  I had to individually set the left/top margins for each one to get it in place.

I made sure to test it on desktop and mobile (chrometools mobile view) so things work both ways, and quite a few of the scrollmagic elements do need to have separate javascript for different device dimensions. 

I didn't take screenshots, annotate what I've been doing etc because I just wanted to get it done and not waste that time, so what I've done is made a screenrecord here of me going through it and talking about what I've done/why/changes I've made/things I want to change in the future.

part 1

part 2

Thumbnails.

Tonight I redid all the thumbnails and got them online and working for supercrit tomorrow.

They are all here

I added the text in the html for the first three pages, but had less time to properly finish most of the rest of the pages.

PAGE 1:

-cut out start section, replaced with closeup instead.

made window panel larger.

made this longer, added the dialogue (because I can't get the code to work...)

PAGE 3:

spaced this whole page out more so it's a bit better on mobile

PAGE 4:

spaced this one out a bit more, though it still needs more.

(coloured frame goes here)

PAGE 5:

I coloured this, I wanted to make it clearer with the arrows / paths

THE QUESTS:

I just paced these out a little (though they need more) and removed the memory bits. They also all need the parts at the end added with each faery, which  noted in text at the bottom but didn't have time to thumbnail.

PAGE 7:

This one I just took out a few things, and then added the text at the bottom saying more or less what happens next. It will all need to be rearranged when I rewrite.

this part is still rough but: "how do I get home???" faery: oh just go through there *points to a forest tunnel (or something)*

VERSION A: .....I'm surprised your friend there didn't tell you! ....though of course she's just waiting to make sure she can get out, too 

VERSION B: ..oh just go through there, points
> the humans both go walk towards it
faery: ohhh hohoh wait a minute, you (referring to the friend) can't leave too!
MC> why not? technically she did the tasks too!
faery: hmmmm.....(thinking....) but no, three tasks gain one freedom....... 
keeping thinking on it, or maybe the humans say some more things to confuse it
>then the mc grabs the friend's hand and just, bolts for the escape, while the faery is distracted, hoping the magic will work

>a flash of light. she wakes up in the normal forest. 

And the last page I just slightly changed the first half, but will also definitely be changing when I rewrite

Thumbnails + rearranging

I set out all my thumbnails on the wall to compare and get an overview of them (they weren't all at the same size which wasn't ideal)

I went through them with some rough screen dimension frames, to see which parts need spreading out / have too much on the screen at one time, etc.

I then edited bits - cutting them out or lengthening them, etc. Mostly just to the first half, as I might be rewriting the rest a bit anyway.

A timelapse of me doing that:

Reader testing

I asked on the webcomic creators discord I'm part of if anyone would be willing to look over my thumbnails and give me some feedback - I got one person who was interested!

Here's a few of their comments :
Everyone I show always loves when the things change suddenly!

They also mentioned that choosing the quests removes some of the immersion.... which is not something that's come up yet, but I can see where they're coming from.....I think once I've got my new thumbnails going I'll do a version that's linear and one that's non-linear and see what people think.

Some of the story plot comments were actually more related to the things I might be cutting out after my conversation with Caroline, but it's still relevant to see what things stand out as issues to different people.

Flower Quest thumbnails

Thumbnails of the Flower Quest:

Demo

 I'm unsure about the memory bit below..