Kochab

A comic I read tonight - Kochab.  It's "a YA fantasy comic about two girls lost in a pile of ruins under the woods, inspired by various myths and fairytales. The story follows Sonya, a lost skier trying to survive a snowy wilderness and find her way back to her village, and Kyra - a fire spirit trying to fix the home that she’s let fall apart around her."

It has really lovely art - actually a kind of similar style to what I'm thinking of? messy and natural looking, lots of plants. It also uses gifs in places!

Flower meanings

On the left is a few possible character names. On the right flowers and their meanings - I went through lists and looked for things that could relate to my story. There weren't a ton to be honest, most of them are related to romance or grief - the sort of thing flowers are used for.

But there's also things that aren't on 'flower meanings' lists that still have connotations, for example pomegranate (in relation to hades & persephone, being trapped, temptation), as well as weeds.

Various style doodles, trying to keep things simple but interesting:

Drawing

MC and a friend - a random character, this is like a 'before' picture (before the story starts) when her hair is shorter, she's got friends/is happy. Perhaps her phone lockscreen?

Doodles of them as kids (top) and other things. Some plants.

Another drawing of her as a kid, plus a bit of a scene - I coloured roughly, though a similar style of what I'm thinking? I'm not sure. Plus colour overlays for different moods.

Thumbnailing: page 1

The start section is one of the parts of the story which I just have an outline, not a specific script of what happens - so I thumbnailed a few different versions. I found that when you actually have to draw it, you have to get very specific in what's happening so it gives me new ideas, and new questions to answer.

Even in just the three initial Thumbnails I tried they were quite varying - my first version was:

 MC comes home, slams front door, flops down on bed > phone starts going off with notifications (as soon as she gets home with wifi I guess, she shoves pillow over head, annoyed > gets up angrily to get away from it, but as her hand is on the doorknob > she hears kids laughing outside the window (running past) and past that, a view of the forest > which makes her stop and think 'i should go out and relax, get away from stuff > montage details of her walking > face in wind, looking relaxed "this is nice" > sitting watching view of town from up the hill a bit > slightly later in the day, she's fallen asleep (which would then lead to the next page, her waking up in the magic forest)

Which raised some questions after I looked back over it: would her seeing the kids (as a kind of call to adventure) be read as: her seeing kids, remembering when she was younger and didn't have responsibilities and had friends (as I intended), or would it read as "she wants kids"

As well as: it very much is a voluntary action, her going into the forest to relax intentionally - I'm not sure that's in her character? or as interesting storytelling? If she's so overwhelmed, overworked, annoyed at everything, she might not think so clearly at the beginning here - that's something that would be more appealing if she develops that thoughtfulness over time.

Also, having the phone notifications as the source/vehicle representing all her problems of the overwhelming life, implies that I'm talking about how phones do that. And technology is bad. Which is absolutely not my view. (or at least - it can worsen the problem, sure, but it's a lot more nuanced than that)
Also, if she takes her phone into the forest like I have in my draft of the second section, that doesn't really make sense, why would she take it with her if she's so annoyed by it.

The second version I drew: A short montage of her life, at a lecture in the morning, with a coffee, looking overslept and out of her depth > working in a coffeeshop > eating lunch alone > at a bus stop, having an angry conversation with a parent > Then a wide shot of her, at home, flopped onto her bed > computer in the corner, popping up email/etc notifications> she looks over, ugh > sits up, sees nice view of forest out window, says something about how everything is so much > suddenly the phone rings again, she looks at it annoyed > skip to her slamming the door, hanging up on the phone, and angrily walking across the road towards the forest > then her, stomping through the forest, sarcasticly talking to herself, going over the conversation etc [ the viewport switches to horizontally scrolling ] and then she stops, noticing the forest has changed....


Which has quite a different mood: She stomps out there angrily, it's very much in the 'pre-character development' kind of stage. It also is more specific about all the things in her life that are overwhelming - rather than just having the phone represent that. And more specific about her not having friends, or feeling like she doesn't have friends. I think going straight into the montage isn't so great for the first thing people see - but that's a detail to figure out later.

I'm not 100% sure on the phone call as the catalyst of her angrily stomping out.

The third column is a few different options for various sections.

From the second version:
 I had the idea of having the first part as a little zine (not necessarily this small), as something physical to promote it, with the link to the rest of the comic on the back

which would be like a normal little book, but then the last section folds out, similar to how the online version would suddenly go horizontal....

Reading comics

I'm going to try and read (or start reading) at least one new comic each week this semester.

This week:

Mare Internum by Der-shing Helmer.


This is a webcomic about two people on a mars colony who get trapped down in a cave system where there are some strange creatures.
The way the narrative evolves and keeps adding new things that change the reader's ideas about it is really nicely done. The art is also great!  Really nice use of colour, landscape and creature design.
I read the entire thins, and now it's on hiatus.

I also started reading  Speak of the Devil my Michael Lee Lunsford - which just started this week, so there's only 6 pages. I'm a big fan of his other webcomic which ran for 9 years and just finished a few months ago!

Week 1 Class, workshop,

My compass:

I wasn't sure exactly what to put in there so I just put the main points from my dossier + what I've done so far + some plans.

Toby Morris' talk  was good, and he had some good advice. I didn't get to talk to him about my project specifically though, which I would have liked to.

Then Caroline's workshop things: 

Weren't so relevant to exactly what I'm doing, as the actual narrative of my story isn't specifically the purpose of my project. It was good to have to draw things very quickly/with left hand, too. I should do that for my entire story, to get ideas out as fast and simple as possible.

I also bought a whiteboard to plan exactly what I'm doing each week & keep me on track

Update on the test comic - I added a kind of parallax section to the bottom, possibly emphasizing that part?
It doesn't work on mobile though, unfortunately. I'll have a look at fixes for that, though it's not so important right at this point.

Workbook - story notes

Editing the script again; figuring out some plot things

6 Main points of hero's journey

 Notes I took when talking to Tanya yesterday; where she gave me some advice about my plot and making the character development more solid.

Cut out a few of the outfits I didn't like the colours of at all, and cleaned up a few of the expressions - to print and bring to class on friday.  Choosing the specific outfit and colours isn't important right now, anyway.

Faery character design

Overall going for a creepy, otherworldy, and dangerous feel, also being quite....powerful and royal, and also frivolous? And of course, as if they're part of the forest.

Influences ( i have a large pinterest and moodboards of more):

Renaissance(?) clothing, the dresses, collars and headdresses and general silhouettes particularly. 

........various plants and fungi, as well as native wasps:

Also, inspired by my creative enterprises ecological weed awareness project from last year.. 

Banana passionfuit (left bottom of my concepts)

Old Man's Beard