Illustration of Scenes

Really great session at Ami's house. I was doing some of the teaching as Ami said she learned lots about Anime and Manga from me! Just for the record, Anime is film and animated series whereas Manga is the drawing in comics and graphic novels. She said to my mum when she came to collect me that I could easily create a novel in the future based around my characters but I'll just go with getting this comic completed first.

Anyway, back to what I did today. I started drawing the scenes out properly referring back to my sketched notes in my scrapbook. One of the scenes contains two background characters so I didn't want to take up too much time making them look perfect and giving them details so they came out rather derpy. 

I also drew three hands and part of an arm and four doors. 

My favourite part of drawing was the doors because they belonged to the girls so I got to decorate them according to their personalities.

It was hard to get the shape right so I used a ruler for some things but it was really fun. The hands were super difficult. I had to get some help from Ami and I had to mimick the hand movements myself or get Ami to do it so I could try and copy off of it.

At this stage, although the comic is hard work, I do think it's going well. I'm continuously learning new skills and practising existing skills. 

Planning out the Scenes

Another session with Ami today this time to plan out the scenes of the comic.

We needed a plan for this one.

First I divided pages in my scrap book into half giving me two pages of comic book per scrapbook page. Confused much? So am I!

Then I decided on the scenes and comic page layout shapes to make it look as interesting as possible. I started rough sketching out the scenes and objects and backgrounds etc in each of the page layouts I created.

Ami helped me with some of the rough sketches and the dividing of the pages and helped me come up with ideas. It's good to have a mentor to help out.

Other help came from Wiki How to Write a Comic Book

Script Writing

Today's session was all about trying to come up with a script.

I tried to make the scripting for the characters so it would match their personalities. I also tried to make it a bit funny without it being too complicated.

On reflection, the fact that I go to Drama school and already know quite a bit about scripts it made it easier to come up with the scripting for the comic. This was just another way to apply what I already know about scrips. Having a basic storyline also helped.

Under The Spotlight

It's been a few weeks since I worked on my Silver Arts Award mainly because my twin brother and I turned 13 and we had a Center Parcs holiday plus rehearsals for my upcoming performance at Sadlers Wells have been keeping me pre-occupied.

Anyway, Ami and I resumed our sessions but for something different but also as part of the challenge, we went to an Arts Exhibition called Under The Spotlight.

It was local to where we live and basically a collection of work from 40 artists who live in Portsmouth.

I enjoyed seeing all the different art works. Some of them really inspired me. There was one of a Pizza that really stood out.

Anyway, after the exhibition we returned to Ami's house and I wrote up some notes of the event in my scrapbook.

My scrapbook is basically my evidence of all the parts of my Silver Arts Award. It's not like this blog. The spelling has no spell check! I'm not great at spelling but that's because I'm probably dyslexic. I haven't been diagnosed but a screening at 7 years old suggested that I was. It's not only my spelling that is affected but I am easily distracted particularly if it's noisy. So working with Ami is easier than being in a classroom and Ami is able to help me with spelling and to get me back on track when my mind wanders.

The scrapbook is full of pictures taken at the exhibition. I also recorded an audio of me reviewing the art works and giving my opinion.

Under The Spotlight Pages in my scrapbook

Comic Front Cover

Time to piece all the bits and bobs together to make the Comic front cover.

First of all I took the Kawaii Doodles then I put the characters over the top and placed them around figuring out which way would look best.

Then I took the Font and decided where I wanted that to go.

After some edits and tweaks the front cover was made. Sounds simple but it wasn't. There was a lot of fiddling around to get it right.

Can't give you a picture, its still top secret.

I can tell you it was quite difficult trying to get it all together but I'm happy with the end result and think the time spent on it was worth it.

Comic Background Creation

A week later and another session with Ami. We're on a roll. For those of you who don't know, I am home educated and if it weren't for home education, I probably wouldn't be following this opportunity at all.

Middle of the day, working with a local Artist. I get to wear what I want and we listen to music whilst we're working - that wouldn't happen in school!!! For me, feeling relaxed and not under pressure is a better way of working.

Today was all about starting background creation. I decided that I would like to have a Japanese Kawaii doodle type background and for it to reflect each of the characters.

Each character has their own Kawaii doodle background and then the main comic background I wanted to merge all of the individual character backgrounds. Are you with me?

Basically, I spent my time doodling.

Here I am Doodling! 

Back on to photoshop to scan my doodles in, colour them and create a repeating background pattern.

I really enjoyed doodling and colouring in, that was an easy and relaxing part of the session. I like doodling in general so yeah that was fun. New skills came from using photoshop as I learned to blend and repeat for the pattern.

Everything went to plan. Really happy with my doodles and happy that I learned some new skills.

My Comic Has A Name

But, I'm not going to reveal it just yet!

Had my first session with Ami for 2015!

More planning today and I made a mind map to help me decide on a Comic Name and build out the story a bit more.

I've used mindmaps previously for lots of stuff and knew it was a good way to go about getting an idea for the comic.

I can't tell you want the story is about at the moment all a bit top secret!

I can tell you that I worked on Fonts and Colours. I used the website www.dafont.com to make a list of fonts that I liked. I tried various styles, sizes and colours and eventually settled on one that seemed to match the name I have chosen well. I was torn between quite a few and then just two but I hope I've made the right choice.