Digital Graphics Evaluation

Graphic Narrative Evaluation

Use this template to help you evaluate your project.

You should give specific details about your work.

You should provide both written and visual examples to explain your project.

You should find areas to praise in your work. Be specific about why you think they are good or why you are proud of them.

You should also find areas that could be improved. Look for areas that you could make better if you went back to them. Be specific about what you would improve.

Add additional slides as you need to. Don’t be restricted by what is here.

Any blank slides should be deleted before submission.

Does your final product reflect your original intentions?

• Compare your planning/digital flat plans/ storyboards to your final product

I didn’t draw any inspirations from my flat plans, as after I had made them I decided to change the style and some story elements of my book. I feel that I have done a good job working without flat plans although I can obviously see how they could have helped me.

The planning stages where I looked at other children's book however did indeed help me because it allowed me to see what had worked for other people and what perhaps didn’t. I looked at a lot of different styles of children’s book some were very simplistic while others were very detailed. Some you could see were obviously computer made while others could have been hand drawn or painted.

How well have you constructed your images?

• How well have you constructed your images? You could talk about the overall visual appearance and well as the use of texture and colour.

I am happy overall with how I have constructed my images, some obviously I am more satisfied with than others, this I think comes down to the amount of time I spent making that particular image and also how complex of an image it originally was before I made changes to them, these changes I accomplished by either rotoscoping or using morphed shapes.

I am extremely happy with how my fireplace for the story came out. The images that I made, I think are very simplistic and use basic colours and also including a slight stroke around my image and this image follows my convention perfectly. I am also happy with how this image fitted into my overall page that included this image.

The only thing I would say for this is perhaps I should've made an effort to make the fireplace look more 3D however due to time constrains I struggled to accomplish this task.

How well have you used text to anchor your images

• You should talk about the combination of words, images and text.

I feel that with the pages to my book, I have the right ratio of text to image. I also think that I did a good job of somehow working the text into the image, I accomplished this usually by plastering the text onto one of the walls in the image, this was easy for me due to the majority of my book being set indoors. I used the distort tool to fit my blocks of text into the right spaces that worked with the image.

Here is an example of this: However while I am happy with the way I have fitted my texts into this image and with my illustrations separately, I feel that I did a poor job of anchoring this image to show exactly what was happening but only describing it through text. To make this image better I should've included the young woman into the page looking panicked and distraught.

Looking past this problem with the image, I can say I am indeed happy with the illustrations as far as quality goes and also the way I have fitted my text into the image.

Is your product suitable for your audience?

• Reference your proposal• Give an audience profile and describe

suitability in reference to content

I think when looking back upon my book as a whole that the book is indeed suitable for the target audience that I chose. My only fear is that younger children may have trouble following the story and why the young woman must call all these objects these specific names. The one thing that makes me feel more comfortable about this is the fact that the majority if not all of the children will have their parents reading the book with them and can help to explain the circumstances of the book. I think that the older the audience is the more they will understand the story but even a young audience can appreciate the comical pictures and have fun reading through it with their parents.

My classic target audience will be at an age of 5-6 and will have no specific target gender due to the presence of both a male and female main character however thinking about the convention of young females being more interested in fairy tales etc. I can see the majority of my audience being male due to the fact that my book does not include any fairy tale elements and is more of a funny nonsensical story intending to make the audience laugh.

The content I have included in my book, I feel is completely friendly and in no way harmful to the audience, the only thing that could perhaps cause problems or concern is the last page in the book that shows the cat in the story with his tail on fire however the image still looks cartoonish and comical and the cat only presents a shocked face rather than a face with any fear that could be seen at harmful to my young audience. The problem is also resolved quickly by the old man throwing a bucket of water over the cats tail.

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

• Reference specific tools you used with images

Some techniques I have used that I am happy with is my use of the distort tool on my text. I used this tool in an effort to plaster my text onto mostly the walls in my background. I felt this was a good idea because it helps to blend the text and image together and overall I am happy with how this method worked and how my final images turned out.

Many of my elements were created using the rotoscoping method, this is a method in which you use the polygonal lasso tool to outline your selected area and then change the colour of this selected area.

This method is used mostly to turn a real image into something cartoony. This is how I made the majority of my elements. I either did this by taking a real life picture and rotoscoping over it, or by taking multiple cartoon pictures that I found and combining a little of all of their elements to create my own unique picture

Here is an example of me doing this:

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

One thing that I am happy with is the art style that I chose to use for my pages, when we first started our test pages I had originally gone with a different look for the background that involved me putting a filter onto my background (cutout), while I did indeed like the look of this background and also proved a lot easier for me to accomplish and a lot less time consuming, I felt that the background image was not actually mine but just someone else who I had filtered. I am happy that I went with rotoscoping for my background as it allowed me to create a more cartoon like image that I felt looked more easy on the eyes and would be more pleasing to children readers now a days, as I feel the original look that I had chosen look more like a convention of old children's books.

While I can see the positives of using a background like this, along with my previous point, I also felt that the contrast between my background and foreground were too different, while my background look more like a painting and my foreground looking more cartoony, as you can see from the two main characters.

I was very pleased with the characters that I had created and because of this fact and also the amount of time I had put into them it didn’t seem like a good idea to change them but instead change the background which I wasn’t entirely happy with anyway.

Overall I am happy with my product as a whole. However there are a few things that I feel that I could've done better.

For instance my models could have had more variety, I failed to do this mostly due to time constraints and ended up having to use models multiple times on separate pages. This is an annoyance because it starts to make the pages look repetitive and unprofessional, if given time to go back and make any improvements this is what I firstly look to improve about my final product.

As you can see in these three page I have used the exact same model for both of the characters and again this was just due to time constraints, while I am happy with these models, I am aware that they have been greatly overused.

Why did you include the content you used?

• Images, fonts, effects, colours

This is a image I have created myself drawing inspiration and elements from other similar images. I made sure when creating my characters to make them visually stimulating but in the right way that would appeal to children, giving her a normal body shape and making sure she is fully clothed, this is to make sure I wouldn’t run into any problems with complaints of over-sexualizing my female characters.

I also added a differently shaped head, I thought this would help create a comedic element for the children audience and also to give my book a unique look and something that was exclusive to my book, to give it its own personality.

With my male character I decided to make the colour scheme fairly darker as I saw this as a convention with older men and looked at other children's books that included old men to confirm my theory. I also stayed true to the head shape that I had created with the young woman to create a convergence between my two characters.

I also gave the man a walking stick and white hair with a moustache to make it more apparent to my young audience that this man is indeed an old man, making it more understandable why this man might need a helper to live with him. A walking stick and white/grey hair are some obvious ways to show a man as older so these are what I included when designing him.

When creating the old man much like the young woman I drew elements from various other designs that I managed to find and I then compiled all of them together to create my own unique character.

As you can see from the image below I used a series of effects for the background of the image (floors, walls and ceiling) This was in an effort to make the characters and items etc. stand out more and create separation between the background and the foreground. This worked well since I did not have any effects on any of the foreground items just a slight stroke on everything.

The text I used is simple and clear for my audience to read, on some pages of my book I included a shadow behind it to emphasize the text and in some cases make it more clear. On one particular page I decided to change the colour of my text again this was just a way to make the text more clearer to my younger audience.

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

• Choices of colour, style, locations, character design and tone all give additional meaning to your work.

I decided to use a selection of bright colours for my book, nothing too harsh on the eye but also nothing that would look dark and gloomy. I am happy with how I accomplished this task.

In the original text the old man meets the young woman at a fair, I decided to change this part of the book because it created this unusual sense of isolation, what I mean by this is that no-one else is seen even in the background. I did this because I thought it created more mystery to the old man that the young woman runs into him randomly in the forest.

The location of my book is set mostly in the old mans house, this is similar to the original text however as mentioned I did change the setting of the fair. I chose to keep the setting of the old mans house because it makes the most sense for the story and to change this setting would mean changing up the whole story which was not my intention.

When creating the old man and the young woman I made sure that they had their own certain characteristics. This was a hard task to accomplish but I think I did a good job at this. The woman was intended to look like a maid and to have a confused but sympathetic look about her. I also tried to make her look very innocent and sweet. The old man however I originally intended to make him look confident and wise. I think I did a good job of doing this. I did this as a way to add to the story and create more of a personality for my characters instead of them just looking like pictures on a page.

As I have talked about before I see my style as having a simple cartoonish look, similar to books like the Mr. Men series, this was one of the books series that I had looked at to draw inspiration however making sure that my book would not be a carbon copy of it.

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Audience ResponsesCultural competence:

Media texts require us to have a certain level of cultural understanding to be able to interpret them.

At a basic level, this could mean being able to read the language that a magazine is written in.

At a deeper level, it means being able to interpret signs and symbols that we use a visual shorthand to communicate ideas.

We recognise these signs in our own culture but find it harder to understand when looking at others.

We create and attach meaning to signs and symbols in many different forms.

Creative Media Production 2012

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What is this?

This is a Norwegian Pine tree, covered in snow and with a red ribbon on.

Our cultural understanding allows us to interpret its meaning.

To us, in British society, it means Christmas, presents and family.

This is because we share a cultural knowledge.


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There are many other signs and symbols that we attach meaning to.

A leather jacket can imply rebellion.

A sports car can imply wealth and power.

A cross can represent religion.


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Visual representations of everyday objects are often the same the world over. A car appears as a car, no matter what country it appears in.

What that car means however, can be very different depending on your cultural background.


What representations can be found in your work?

• How are men, women or children shown in your work? Does your work feature different ages, races, social groups or religions? Does a lack of any variety of character types create its own representation?

In my book the woman character is portrayed as a helper/maid, in the original transcript however the woman was described as a servant, this is something that I have changed to allow the product to exist in the modern market as some people may feel calling her a servant is offensive and sexist even considering the fact it is the woman character who is offering her services as a maid to the man in the story.

The man in my book is portrayed as the classic wise old man character who you see in a lot of conventional fairy tales. However my tale being more than unconventional subtly represents him as a crazy old man with rules that the woman must follow which ultimately make no sense but are included into the plot for comedic effect.

There are only two characters featured within my book, the characters differ in age and this is very apparent from their features shown in the illustrations but also from the text because the names of the characters are never mentioned, they are referred to as the young woman and the old man.

The two characters also differ in social class in the way that the woman must hire herself out as a helper to earn herself money and in contrast it is implied that the old man has money to spare, this is shown when the woman asks the man for 10 cold coins for her services and the man just gives her 1 platinum coin. It is implied that this 1 platinum coin is worth a lot more than these 10 gold coins.

My two character could be seen as polar opposites of each other (opposite genders, opposite ages and opposite social class) and this is why they work in a story together, this also creates a unique feel for my story.

What style have you employed in your products?

• Discuss influences/ existing products• What visual style does your work have and

why did you choose it?

I decided on a very simple look for my product, when creating my two main characters I had chosen to create very unique heads for my characters, I did this to distinguish my characters from any others that already exist, to create a unique look for them so that any one who saw them would know what book/ book series they were from, similar to the Mr. Men series which is one of the books I used for inspiration when choosing my art style and eventually decided on a art style similar to that of Mr. Men with a few changes of course.

I chose a very cartoon like art style, I feel that this art style is easy and appealing to the eyes and that most children's books these days will look like this to try and compete with the TV market which has long since taken over the book market. Since most children's TV shows also have a cartoon look to them (especially young children) this is the style that I went with.

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

• How did the planning and research help• How well did you manage your time• Reference specific examples

When it came to time management I did not really follow the time plan I had laid out for myself, instead of spending one session on each page I decided to just spend the first couple sessions creating most of my elements that I would need for the book. This allowed me to spend the remaining of my sessions just creating the background for each page and placing the foreground characters and objects into position then adding the text.

I managed to complete all of my pages in the allotted time that we were given so it wasn't a problem that I did not stick to the plan that I had created for myself.

The planning helped me to look at other examples of children's books and draw inspiration from them however when it came to making the pages, I did not follow the flat plans that I had created for myself. I instead decided to make my pages on the go because I wasn’t completely satisfied with my flat plans and also I had changed the story slightly after creating them.

Historical and cultural context

• How does your work compare to what has come before? What other similar products have existed in the past? What current products exist?

There have been no previous iterations of this particular story in the children's book format that I could find, so it is hard to compare my work to any that have come before it since barely any exist. I did manage to find some incomplete pieces after a quick Google search which shows what appears to be the front cover of the same story.

The illustrations of this book are hand drawn and look a lot more simplistic than my illustrations however I can only manage to find the front cover of this book. I can assume that this version is a lot more old fashioned as I cannot see a modern children's book being illustrated in this way. I imagine that this piece of work will follow the original script of the tale unlike mine which I altered to make it appeal more to a modern audience of children.

This piece also follows the same story as mine however is a lot more text based and features only a small black and white image at the top of the page which looks a lot more old fashioned than the images that I created. I would say that these images were hand drawn.

Peer Feedback

• Summarise peer feedback and discuss– Responses you agree with– Responses you disagree with

Internet

Digital Graphics Evaluation