Graphic Narrative Evaluation

Does your final product reflect your original intentions?

I believe my final project reflects my initial ideas, this is because I used my original mind map to create my flat plans and in turn I used my flat plans to help me design my final project. Differences that have happened across the process is firstly I said in my mind map that I wanted majority of the text to be in speech bubbles but when I did the flat plans I changed to having an area below the image for the majority of the writing and only some speech bubbles,

and then when it came to making the final pages I incorporated the text into the image but not in the form of speech bubbles. Something else I changed during the process would be the angle of some of the elements, for instance to the garages, I wanted to be able to see down the front and side, in the final book I went with just the front shot.

How well have you constructed your images?

The Construction of my images went very well this is because I decided to create all the elements for my book before I even started on the pages, this included, characters, buildings, piles of straw/sticks, trees, clouds and the sun. this meant when It came to creating the pages I just had to insert each element needed for that page. To create an aesthetically pleasing book I decided to stick to classic colours for certain elements like the trees, the sun, the sky, and the grass. I didn’t use textures very much apart from the road on each page has a texture on it.

The Sun

Cloud

Tree

Textured road

The Sky

Grass

Elements I used classic colours with:

How well have you used text to anchor your images?

I originally wasn't going to have the text on the image, it was going to be its own separate element. I was going to do this after reading the Gruffalo which uses a similar style on some of the pages. But after I created all my images I discovered it looked better if I extended the road area to be able to accommodate the text. By doing this I was able to increase the size of my images to make them more eye catching and engaging.

Is your product suitable for your audience?

The audience I described in my proposal will still be suitable for the book I have created. My target audience is still 2-5 year olds, depending on the child that might go longer or start earlier just because they could mature at different ages. I believe my book would appeal to more the male market but when kids are young there is more of a chance for them to be interested in things that stereotypically designed for a particular gender. The audience would predominately be from the UK but if the book did get released world wide then it would appeal to all people because cars are very widley know across the world, especially after the popularity of the Pixar movie Cars it would give my book an added appeal.

What do you like/dislike about the techniques you have used?

Throughout the production of my book I used a number of different techniques. The most common technique I used was the comic book effect, I used this on majority of my elements. What I like about this technique the most is the ability to make an image look very unique with a few tools, to make this technique even better I rotoscoped over the top of the threshold layer to make it look more like the other layer. To do the comic book effect you need to start with 2 layers of the same image, hide the top layer ( ), use the cut-out filter ( ) on the bottom layer and adjust how you desire,

then I coloured parts specific colours so that they would all fall under the same colour with the paint bucket tool ( ), for example the green car I used 3 shades of green.

Once I created the threshold layer I rotoscoped around certain areas to give my elements certain definition, this was done by using the polygonal lasso tool ( ) and then right clicking and going to layer via copy. Once these were done I coloured all of these a slightly darker version of the main colour of the element. To make certain parts was a lot simpler, like the sky, this consisted of creating a rectangle using the rectangle tool ( ) and using a gradient overlay on it to get that darker blue to lighter blue look.

Light Green

Dark Green

Medium Green

What do you like/dislike about how your final product looks?

I really like the continuity across the whole project because there could have been a chance the first page looked very different to the last.

I also like how I have kept the whole project relatively simple looking so that it doesn’t get to overwhelming for the audience, especially the younger audience.

Page 1 Page 14

On the other hand I dislike how simple the look of it is, this is because I wasn't able to put in as much detail as I could of done but this could of ended up making the project look scruffy. Another element of the product I like is the colour of the characters, I picked these colours because the stand out in contrast to the rest of the scenery.

Why did you include the content you used?

For my project I spent a long time considering certain cars to ensure I got the correct shape for a little, sweet, harmless car, that is why I settled on the style of an original smart car. When it came to colouring the cars I wanted to pick colours that would stand out against the brown of the road. For the garages I had to pick a source image that had a large enough area around the door to be able to add in the detail like the sticks, straw and bricks.

I chose the particular tree I used because it is very similar to a classic tree look, and wasn't an odd shape which could have been confusing to the children.

As this product is aimed at very young children I choose the particular images so they would be easy for a child to recognize them with what they have been taught a tree or a car should look like.

Tree from book

Real Tree

What signs, symbols or codes have your used in your work?

For my product the colours I decided on don’t have to much meaning except that the tow truck is red which gives the impressing of evil, anger, rage, etc.

The colours of the cars were chosen because of there brightness which can invoke a happy response, the audience will in turn want to route for the little cars in the story.

What representations can be found in your work?

My work shows two social groups, the little cars that are just going by the business and then there is the tow truck who just wants to cause problems. By not having a variation in my cars it insinuates they are all related like the the three little pigs in the original story are all brothers.

What style have you employed in your products?

In my product I have used the cartoon effect style on 90% of the product the remaining 10% of the product was free hand drawn on Photoshop and given certain effects that enhance there intended use. Like a gradient overlay on the sky where the darker part is at the top, like it would be in real life. There wasn't any main influences, apart from I choose the style because when learning about Photoshop techniques I really likes this particular style, I didn't choose it because it was similar to a book I researched.The Style of using cars instead of living things like the pigs or a wolf was taken from the film cars. • Discuss influences/ existing products• What visual style does your work have and why did you

choose it?

Cars, Pixar film.

My Project

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the pre-production and planning?

Using the planning booklet was very useful this is because it gave me a chance to plot out my 2 weeks of production time, because of this I was able to work ahead of schedule which meant I was able to make improvements on the finished project. A weakness with the planning booklet is that having to consider elements of the project that didn't have any impact into my actual production of the product such as like cost and quantity.

Historical and cultural context

As far as I’m aware there are no past or present books that have a similar style to what I have created. The only book that comes close to it is a book about the 3 little pigs, because it’s the same story. The idea of using vehicles as the characters came from the Pixar film cars, the popularity with that and that I know my nephew is obsessed with vehicles made me decide to use them to put a twist on a classic story.

Peer Feedback

Throughout the creation of my book I have turned to my peers for feedback on characters, elements and the final pages. By doing this I was able to tweak my project as I go to reflect the feedback I have been receiving. One of the biggest changes I made to my work was the changing of the colour of the tow truck originally it was purple but I changed it to red because this reflect evil more.