Illustration and Visual Narrative: Project 3 & Final Project - Webtoon & Motion Comic

4.6.2021 - 12.7.2021 (Week 10 - Week 14)

Wendy Seto / 0348805
COM61304 Illustration and Visual Narrative / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Project 3 & Final Project : Webtoon & Motion Comic

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INSTRUCTIONS

PRACTICAL

1. Visual Research

I read a lot of mangas and comics since I was in primary school, I guess I was influenced by my older sister. I am pretty selective on buying one though, I always look at the art style of the manga first and then secondly, the story. Most of the time, I just read the other titles from the same artists whom art styles I like. Yep, it is a pretty big deal to me. I cannot seem to enjoy the story when I do not like the character design and all. Some of my favourite mangas are GALS!, Delicious!, Miiko and Mint Na Bokura. These were all created by different artists with different characteristics. I love all of them equally so there is no possible way to actually say which is better than which. Since I have mentioned about my favourite mangas, I wanted to do a visual research based on those.

#1 GALS! by Mihona Fuji

fig 1.1 reference #1

In my opinion, Mihona Fuji is not only a comic artist but she is lowkey a fashion designer in disguise. There will not be enough space for me to tell how amazing she designed her character clothing from top to bottom and from scene to scene. All the effort of details she poured into it is just crazy. I cannot lie that I kept on falling in love with her work everytime I re-read them.

#2 Delicious! by Yui Ayumi

fig 1.2 reference #2

If I say that Mihona Fuji is a fashion designer in disguise, Yui Ayumi is a pastry chef. This manga is about a girl named Nonohara Ringo who cannot cook at all but pretend to be professional at it so she can be the host partner of her celebrity crush in a cooking show. At the end of each volume, Yui Ayumi included some cooking recipes we can follow at home. I am obsessed with these recipes and I just know that she really love to illustrate food.

#3 Miiko by Ono Eriko

fig 1.3 reference #3

I am pretty sure every girls read this as a kid, and still wait for the new volume to come out until now! Miiko by Ono Eriko is one of the most famous manga in my country. It is a light-weighted manga about a 10 year-old cheerful, clumsy and innocent girl surrounded by her family and friends. I love all the "dumb" expressions the artist created hahahah, it inspired me a lot on delivering funny scenes.

#4 Mint Na Bokura by Wataru Yoshizumi

fig 1.4 reference #4

I have read this one multiple times, and still laugh a lot at some of the scenes. This manga has the best comedy in between, period. I really like how the artist carried her narrative throughout the entire series. Looking at the panels, I think Mint Na Bokura uses the simplest structure compared to others. 

I do prefer reading traditional mangas rather than digital, not a type of person that likes reading on a phone screen for a long period of time. But there is one Webtoon that I used to follow and pretty sure most of you already know this series, The Secret of Angel.

#5 The Secret of Angel by Yaoi

fig 1.5 reference #5

This is the first time I am reading a Korean comic. It is obvious that the illustrations are not as good as the Japanese ones I usually read. I used to follow the series because the plot is interesting, but I do not think that I made until the half of it. After all, it was probably the only Webtoon that I have ever read so I might just use this as my reference.

2. Idea Exploration

I wrote this script back in late 2019 and did not do anything with it. The storyline is pretty good so why don't I turn it into a Webtoon instead? 

fig 2.1 storyline

I am only showing the climax "scene 8" because this is where I want to focus on. The original script is pretty long so I will simplify it for this project. The story is about a high school guy who happened to see a bunch of bubble texts on people's heads where actually those bubble texts are just his own thoughts of what people think of him because he is so worried that his presentation will not go well as expected.

The "bubble texts" idea will be hard to apply if I am making it as a comic since there will be speech bubbles as well to present the dialogues between the characters. Well, I thought of a short film when writing this so I have to change that specific concept to make it work.

3. Idea Visualization

I really had no idea on how to make a Webtoon comic. I do not even know how do panels work even though I have read so many mangas in my whole life and that made me anxious. Have you ever feel afraid of being unable to make something that yourself are going to like? It is exactly how I felt.

Firstly, I need to decide on which software I am going to use to illustrate the whole comic. Here are some articles I look up to:

1. What software do webtoon artists use?

2. Clip Studio - Webtoon from ideas to completed story

Since I am only familiar with Procreate, I did a research on "is it possible to make a Webtoon with Procreate?" lmao. Then I found this tutorial video by Drawn by Yannan on how she used to make her Webtoon using Procreate before moving to Clip Studio. She said it was a "nightmare" to do it with this mobile application but it is not impossible. That made me more anxious but do I even have options? No. I still illustrate in Adobe Illustrator like a robot so I am not going to take that risk right now.

fig 3.1 the tutorial video by Drawn by Yannan

3.1 Character design and development

Let me tell you a bit about my characters. I decided to bring my original characters back instead of creating a new one. They were all created when I was maybe 12 year old? 

This is Momoka Honda, a pink haired girl who is always in pigtails. She is very clumsy and innocent. And based on what I illustrated back then, she is obsessed with the stars (well I think the creator does).

fig 3.1.1 Momoka, 2014

I tried to re-illustrate Momoka and simplified her uniform.

fig 3.1.2 Momoka, 2021

And this is Momoka's best friend, Mizuki Sato. She originally owns a aqua coloured hair but I use grey instead for this comic to avoid too many blues colliding. Also for their uniform, I did not realize that I switched the colours at first hahahah.

fig 3.1.3 Mizuki, 2014

3.2 Making a storyboard

I started creating the storyboard using Procreate Pocket on my phone but then I gave up. The screen is too small and my eyes could burn if I work further.

fig 3.2.1 storyboard 1st attempt 7/7/21

Later on, I decided to borrow my mom's iPad. I downloaded Procreate and re-sketch my storyboard. Damn, illustrating on an iPad really do be hitting  different, I also want to own one so bad >< 

fig 3.2.2 storyboard 2nd attempt 8/7/21

3.3 Line art

I actually did the line art and colouring together continously because I am impatient but this is the final "line art only" preview. As you can see I cut out some of the scenes because I just realized that I have too many panels which exceeded the maximum number of panel in the assignment requirements.

fig 3.3.1 line art 9/7/21

3.4 Colouring & adding shadows

Moving on, I created a new colour palette which I named as Softié later on hahahah. I am going to use these colours for the whole comic to create harmony. 

fig 3.4.1 colour palette 9/7/21

The whole colouring process took me so freaking long because I colour all of them manually without the fill in bucket tool to get this effortless brush texture look.

fig 3.4.2 applying colours and adding shadows 9/7/21

3.5 Re-arranging and & adding texts / speech bubbles

I export everything and re-arrange them in Adobe Illustrator with the required canvas size for each panel. Then, I add all the necessary texts and speech bubbles.

fig 3.5.1 adding texts & speech bubbles 11/7/21

fig 3.5.2 final comic panels preview in Illustrator 11/7/21

fig 3.5.3 final comic panels.pdf 11/7/21

Click here to read my published Webtoon

I decided to name the Webtoon series as "Life Coach Momoka". If I might continue the episodes, I will try my best to always deliver a useful message in each for the readers to perform better in life and become better individuals. In this first episode, it is about how bad overthinking could affect us. Did you realize that 90% of our problems came from our own thoughts? I want this series to be relatable, feel good and entertaining at the same time. Hopefully I did express it well enough!

3.6 Animating

Last but not least, turning my Webtoon into a motion comic. I used Keynote to compose and animate everything. There are 16 different clip in total. 

fig 3.6.1 animating in Keynote 11/7/21

I combined them together into one video and added some transitions in between using Final Cut Pro. I also added some background noises and sound effects just to make the animation more fun to watch.

fig 3.6.2 combining all the clips in Final Cut Pro 11/7/21

fig 3.6.1 final motion comic.mp4 12/7/21

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REFLECTION

This is probably the most challenging exercise from the entire semester. Not only it was one of the hardest, it also took me the longest to finish the entire project. Well, the lecturers have gave me so much time do it but I just cannot help but procrastinate. I attempted on creating my own manga when I was in primary school and had the audacity to sell them in a bazaar in my town which is so silly to think about. The good thing is no one ended up buying it lmao. Overall, I have learnt so many things from this project and I wanted to thank Miss Anis for giving me an extra time to finish it. I did not sleep for 48 hours and felt like my heart almost jumped off its place. Hopefully it was worth it though! The next time I procrastinate I will send myself a death threat for sure.

Illustration and Visual Narrative: Project 2 - Decisive Moment

7.5.2021 - 28.5.2021 (Week 6 - Week 9)
Wendy Seto / 0348805
COM61304 Illustration and Visual Narrative / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Project 2: Decisive Moment

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LECTURES

Week 6: This week, Ms. Anis introduced us to our second project. We were assigned to design a minimalist poster of a decisive moment from any kind of narrative like movie, manga, game etc.

Week 7: Public Holiday.

Week 8: Mid-Semester Independent Learning Week.

Week 9: Today, we did not really have a lecture. Mr. Kannan was only giving his feedback on some of the submitted students work for project 2 so we can still improvise before the submission deadline. However, I have not finished mine yet so I did not ask for any feedback. Hopefully my work is okay though.

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INSTRUCTIONS

PRACTICAL

1. Visual Research: 

fig 1.1 visual research from google and pinterest

I think I am obsessed with these minimalist poster designs now, they are very pleasing to the eye somehow. From my visual research, I found that the key to succeed on creating a minimalist design is to actually make it as simple as possible.

2. Idea Exploration:

#1 Trina "The One Woman Show" scene from Victorious, Episode 5: "Jade dumps Beck"

fig 2.1 idea #1

This was the scene I had first in mind when thinking of an iconic scene from my favourite show. However, Miss. Anis told me that iconic and decisive moment are a completely different thing. When I show her the clip she said she was lost and had no idea what was going on. It breaks my heart to hear that since Victorious is like one of the best series that has ever existed. But maybe she has to watch the entire series to understand why I love this show so much. Dear Miss. Anis,  if you are reading this please at least try to watch an episode, I promise you will not regret it. A sitcom can never go wrong :p

#2 Pokémon egg hatching moment

fig 2.2 idea #2

At this point, I had probably overthink about the word decisive moment. Ms. Anis explained that a decisive moment is a moment that impacted the plot or changed the story narrative. But why did this Pokémon egg hatching came to my mind in the first place though hahahaha I am laughing so hard when I am writing this. Well, basically after the egg given by the professor is hatched, our character will have their first Pokémon and the adventure starts here so I think it is a decisive moment. Just imagine if the egg did not hatched, our character is most likely to be watching TV at home and the game will have a completely different story plot or worse there might be no game at all. 

#3 Glitching Vanellope from Wreck-it Raplh

fig 2.3 idea #3

Disney Wreck-It Ralph is one of my favourite animation ever! So I tried to remember a decisive moment from the movie that I can use for this project and this is what I came up with. Remember when Vanellope started to glitch and then she is forbade from the race by King Candy? In order to reset the game and stop her glitch she has to win the race, otherwise she will be stucked in the game forever. This changed the story to her fighting her own glitch, so I am pretty sure it is one of the decisive moment from the movie.

#4 Charlie found the golden ticket on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

fig 2.4 idea #4

I cannot remember how many times have I watched this movie since I was a kid but anyway when Charlie opens the chocolate wrapper and finally found the golden ticket to the chocolate factory that he has been looking for, all viewers must be so happy for him because I do. This scene has a very strong narrative in my opinion. I can already imagine illustrating the chocolate bar for the poster, and a red coloured background would be perfect to get the feels. However, I am not sure what to animate here, maybe the wrapper being ripped? 

#5 Yoon Se Ri parachute crashes landing in North Korea from Crash Landing on You, Episode 1

fig 2.5 idea #5

This is definitely a decisive moment. Yoon Se Ri is a CEO of her own fashion and beauty company in South Korea, she is independently wealthy and living a luxurious life.. However, when she went paragliding there was a tornado that blew her to North Korea and this accident changed her life.

#6 The flying house in The Wizard of Oz

fig 2.6 idea #6

A scene from one of the greatest movie of all time, The Wizard of Oz. This scene is quite similar to the previous idea, it has the same element, a tornado. A scene where Dorothy is sent to the Island of Oz through a tornado that blown her house away, this completely changed the story plot and her journey made her realize how much she actually misses her home.

#7 Kotobuki awaring Hoshino to walk in the right path in GALS!, Episode 1.

fig 2.7 idea #7

This anime was adapted from a manga with the same name. I have read all the 10 mangas but only have watched a few episodes of the anime. This scene is one of the most important moment in GALS!, it was how Kotobuki and Hoshino became friends. Hoshino was desperate that her parents are so strict to her that made her took the wrong path to earn money but Kotobuki succeed on making her come to her sense.

#8 Shinku first appearance in Rozen Maiden, Episode 1

fig 2.8 idea #8

The scene when Jun opens one of the packages he received and find this doll. Shinku presence changed his life where suddenly he became the master of the fifth Rozen Maiden and involved in many of their battles.

#9 Naruto first successful shadow clones in Naruto Shippuden, Episode 1

fig 2.9 idea #9

Naruto being able to do the shadow clone jutsu in the first episode is a decisive moment. This anime is very emotional, everyone underestimated Naruto since the beginning and distant theirselves because they believe that a part of the nine-tailed demon fox lives in him. Naruto dreams on becoming the next Hokage so everyone will look up and respect him. Unfortunately, he failed passing the shadow clone jutsu test to graduate from the Ninja Academy. This upset him that he will never be able to become a Hokage. Later on, when he is trying to save Iruka Sensei he somehow succeed on creating his own clone, solid shadow clones and not only one but thousands. This triumph makes him graduate and become a Genin, he now can continue his journey on becoming the next Hokage.

Wow I have never did this many idea exploration before, but this project is really fun like there are a lot of possibilities which made me very indecisive. Mmm, should I add one more to make it ten? Hahaha. I finally decided to use the idea #6 to finalize my poster design, it was a long way to reach this stage but I am glad that I did some exploration.

3. Idea Visualization

3.1 References

fig 3.1.1 the decisive moment I want to visualize as a minimalist poster design

fig 3.1.2  extra pictures for references

3.2 Illustrating: 

fig 3.2.1 illustrating the house based on reference one 27/05/21

fig 3.2.2 illustrating another house based on reference two 27/05/21 

I then decided to go with the first design.

fig 3.2.3 illustrating other sides of the house and trying out different colour combination 27/05/21

fig 3.2.4 illustrating the tornado 28/05/21

fig 3.2.5 creating the rest of the tornados and attempting on more colour combination 28/05/21

3.3 Adding Typography:

I went to dafont.com to find a typeface that is suitable for my poster design and installed these 3 typefaces under the name Oz.

fig 3.3.1 searching for the right typeface to use 28/05/21

I then decided to not use any of them but instead this typeface called "Roskell". 

fig 3.3.2 my final typeface selection 28/05/21

fig 3.3.3 adding title and additional information (the producer media company) 28/05/21

I created two different typography compositions and asked the people around me to vote which one do they prefer. Actually it was 50 50, but then I go with the right one (the one I created on fig 3.3.3). 

fig 3.3.4 two different typography compositions 28/05/21

fig 3.3.5 applying the same thing to the rest of the frames 28/05/21

fig 3.3.6 final decisive moment poster design in pdf 28/05/21

3.4 Animating

I attempted to animate in Adobe Photoshop before adding the typography to see how the final animation might look like using the frames from fig 3.2.5 with the third colour combination.

fig 3.4.1 animation timeline 28/05/21

fig 3.4.2 GIF draft 28/05/21

I think that the animation can be better if each of the frame tilt angle is slightly different so I decided to do an adjustment back to Adobe Illustrator which resulted as shown on fig 3.3.4.

After adding the typography, I did another attempt on animating the poster design. Still with the same time delay; 0,1 seconds for each frame. If you notice, the typography also has a slight animation on it.

fig 3.4.5 final animation timeline 28/05/21

fig 3.4.6 final decisive moment poster GIF

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REFLECTION

This project is really fun, it makes me want to create more minimalist poster design in the future. Compared to the previous exercises, I am pretty sure that I spent less time working on this project. Illustrating the poster design is not as complicated as the vormator challenge since this time the concept is more simplified which does not require a lot of details. The most challenging part is probably animating it, I have to think of what can I animate and how to actually realizing it without making the decisive moment less decisive. Minimalism aims for simplicity which captures the less in more, I love this kind of artwork so much.

Illustration and Visual Narrative: Exercise 1 & 2 - Vormator Challenge

2.4.2021 - 30.4.2021 (Week 1 - Week 5)

Wendy Seto / 0348805

COM61304 Illustration and Visual Narrative / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University

Exercise 1 & 2: Vormator Challenge

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LECTURES

Week 1: During the first IVN class, we were given an introduction about the module. Ms. Anis also showed us a brief representation of what our future assignments will look like. The class was pretty fun and I really like the lecturer, she seems so nice and friendly!

Week 2: Today, we started to learn about the basics in character design. In the beginning of the class, Ms. Anis wanted us to upload a picture of our favourite existing character. I have many so it was hard for me to finally choose one, but then I go with Toad from the Mario Games. The reason why I chose Toad is because I always use him when playing any of the Mario Games since I was a kid, so I feel like I grew up with him. Ms. Anis showed me the shape breakdowns of this character, it was kinda mind blowing to me because I did not payed much attention to it previously. It is interesting to see that the shapes can actually create such characteristics and impressions in our mind.

fig 1.1 my favourite character! 9/4/21

In the practical session, we finally meet Mr. Kannan. He was not able to attend our first week of class so this is our first time being taught by him. He took us around Adobe Illustrator and introduced us to pretty much all the basic tools that we can use on our future exercises.

Week 3: In week 3, we learned about compositions and the positive and negative spaces in those compositions. I really like Ms. Anis's lecture slides, it is very fun to look at and I just like the whole concept, handwritten notes on a crumpled paper. I have never seen this kind of slides from a lecturer before, she definitely put a lot of effort into it!

Week 4: We learned about perspectives in todays class, it was a pretty heavy topic in my opinion but interesting at the same time. Ms. Anis showed us a video of a painting breakdown, it was really satisfying which made me want to watch more of those videos in my free time.

Week 5: A self-directed class! The lecturers gave us the class time to finish up with our exercise one and two.

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INSTRUCTIONS

module information booklet

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EXERCISES

Week 2: For exercise one, Ms. Anis wants us to create a character based on these limited shapes:

fig 2.1 the vormator shapes

And these are my character sketches:

fig 2.2 first sketches 9/4/21

The one in the bottom left reminds me of Dratini from Pokémon. Fun fact, when I told my 5 year old little sister that I have this one assignment that requires me to create a character like in the Pokémon she is so excited!

fig 2.3 Dratini from Pokémon

I did some more sketches on my phone afterwards because I do not like the scanned version of sketches that I do on physical paper.

fig 2.4 more sketches 9/4/21

I think I am going to go further with the teacup one but Ms. Anis said she likes the cactus. Actually, I have been thinking to choose one between these two as well. I drew the cactus one first, it kinda look like a crossover between Pokémon and Plants Vs Zombies. 

fig 2.5 cactus plant from PvZ and Diglett from Pokémon

The ice cream and teacup are inspired by characters from the Koisuru Purin! comic series. There is an original character for the ice cream one actually, so I am just trying to sketch it out with the vormator shapes, not planning to use it for my own. 

fig 2.6 Koisuru Purin! comic series

Week 3: In the middle of the class, Ms. Anis wanted us to create 5 different background compositions based on the knowledge we have learned today. However, I only got to do 3.

fig 2.7 my three background composition ideas 16/4/21

I think the first one is a fail because it is very unlikely to work out. The second one is a basic foreground - middle ground - background composition and the last one I am not really sure, maybe it can be considered as a foreground frame composition? 

Week 4: In week four we were taught about perspectives, so Ms. Anis wanted us to try creating perspectives into our week 4's compositions. I thought I have understand how does perspective work but turns out I did not. I showed my sketches to Ms. Anis and she said that they did not show perspectives at all, it could be because I am not sure where to place my character.

fig 2.8 my failed perspective attempts 23/4/21

Week 5: Everyone has probably finished their vormator challenge, but I am just getting started on digitalizing it. April has been a hectic month, I am still struggling on managing my time between work and school. Luckily, Ms. Anis extended the assignment deadline so I promise that I am not going to take the extra time given for granted! 

I started by rewatching all Mr. Kannan previous practical sessions because I know nothing about Adobe Illustrator. The fact that he literally introduced us to every single tool available is a life safer (but of course I did not manage to remember everything lol). 

I did the chiaroscuro exercise first to practice using the pen tool and then start digitalizing my vormator character. At this point, I have decided to design my character to belong to the tamagotchi family! Will not be a hundred percent look like the tamagotchi characters though but she will definitely fits the world they are living in.

fig 2.9 the tamagotchi characters

I created a shapes breakdown for my character to make sure I am following the rule of the vormator challenge.

fig 2.10 my character shapes breakdown 29/4/21

fig 2.11 digitalizing my character using pen tool 29/4/21

I started pretty late so I am continuing it in the next morning. For this exercise, I am still very clueless on colour theory and how to create my own palette on Illustrator so I am just going with the flow, mix and matching everything that I think looks nice. It took me a while to form the eyes as well because they sometimes do be looking weird.... 

fig 2.12 adding a face and filling in some colours and details 30/4/21

In fig 2.12, she really look like one of the tamagotchis! I love how it turns out and not gonna lie that I actually quite enjoy illustrating in Illustrator so far. It is not as complicated as I thought, but I could still change my mind if suddenly the software makes me cry in the next few hours.

I took a big decision here, with or without outlines..? It makes it "less" a tamagotchi character if I get rid of the outlines but it looks nice at the same time. 

fig 2.13 getting rid of the outlines and creating shadow effects 30/4/21

Moving on, lets start illustrating the background! I have decided to use my second composition I sketched in week 3. I spent most of my time illustrating the sink, using the picture on the right as a reference.

fig 2.14 start illustrating the background 1/5/21

fig 2.15 finished "pen tool-ing" all the elements in the background 1/5/21

fig 2.16 fixing the weird shaped faucet 2/5/21

fig 2.17 filling in colours 2/5/21

fig 2.18 adding more elements and details 2/5/21 

Here is my final background illustration. I removed the books from the picture because I think it is a bit irrelevant. However, I still think that the background is so empty although I worked so hard on it. I am pretty sure that the background took me longer than the character itself, well the sink took forever so it is making sense. 

fig 2.19 final background illustration 2/5/21

Onto the last part of the exercise, creating a game card composite of my character and background. I never knew that tamagotchi has their own game cards until today!? These are so cute omg I officially need them now.

fig 2.20 tamagotchi game cards

I am using it as a reference for the cloud shaped text box on my card design. Did not take much progression screenshots for this part because I am running out of time.

fig 2.21 card illustration progress 2/5/21

fig 2.22 final card template 2/5/21

And here is my final final result for the vormator challenge! I freaking LOVEEEE how it turned out. This is my first time creating an illustration on Adobe Illustrator and I am so proud of it. I have not received any feedback from my lecturer yet for my background and final game card illustrations because I just finished it an hour before the deadline. Thank you again Ms. Anis for extending the due date for this assignment, hopefully you will like my design as much as I do and please let me know if there is anything that I should improve on so I can provide better work in the future. 

fig 2.23 final vormator challenge 2/5/21

A little introduction about my character, she is known as Miss. Teacup or Chawan Chan in Japanese. She is made from porcelain so she is indeed very senstive and fragile that needs a lot of care and affection. Chawan has the ability to boil water up to 100 degrees and break or repair another porcelain objects.