Congrats on surviving the first comic challenge! Hopefully everyone had a good time thinking up of a little story to script out. Now I'm hoping y'all are ready to take things one step forward. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the concept of storyboarding for animation. It's a process in which artists block out the animation and timing of a scene to get a feel of how it will all play out before diving into the final shots. Well- guess what? Comic artists do something quite similar- we call it layout. (Layout also exists in 3D animation but people are more familiar with storyboarding. Similar concept.)
Layout works similarily to how layouts/storyboarding work in animation. It's the artists way of expressing the story and pacing using rough thumbnails of each page. Thumbnails commonly are smaller doodles of each page that focus more on the broad strokes of a scene such as how the panels are arranged, where the characters are in the shot, general motion, etc. These are done quickly for entire portions of a story so that both the artist and writer can see how the script could look as a whole in pages. It is vital to see the story laid out as a whole visually to see what is and is not translating as well from script to art. For example you may realize at this point you have too many panels in one page that are making it hard to tell what is happening- or too much text to fit in a busy panel. Or maybe a transition that just doesn't work as well visually as it does in the script. It is important to catch these things before working on final art since once lines are in it can be difficult to change.
Your task this week is to take your script- or make a new one, it doesn't matter- and create a set of layout thumbnails for it. Reference the comic tips and tricks guide for some things to keep in mind when creating the layouts (I know some of the images are broken: I will fix these sometime tonight!)
If at any point anyone wants some critique or feedback on layouts (this is a very tricky step!) please don't be afraid to message me. I will get back to you ASAP and am willing to offer advice.
Some final notes:
- You may create a new script if you wish.
I would ask that you include the script you are using with the layouts.
- You may use the script from another member if they give you permission to do so. (Collaboration!)
- Layouts are typically drawn without any text. However, drawing in speech bubbles to take into account the amount of text per panel is helpful.
- Layouts should be no less than one page with no upper limit. Try to keep it short for your sanity.
- This challenge is all about telling the story through visuals- not about art quality or writing. Make the drawings no more detailed than it needs to be in order to express what the story needs. If you can achieve this via stick figures, then that's fine. (I imagine you'll need more than stick figures though!)
- A helpful thing to look at would be general cinematography camera shots. Many don't realize it but film and comics actually have a lot in common when it comes to story telling. Comics just express time in a different way.
Link to guides/tips/tricks:
http://www.pokemoncrossroads.com/for...and-Guidelines
Example layouts from PRS Chapter 7
Judging
This round will be judged on the following criteria:
- Time: Do your layouts portray the sense of time intended? (Ex. Does an action scene feel fast? Does a tender moment feel slow?)
- Readability: Are your panels easy to follow?
- Layout: Do the 'camera' angles used help the story? Do you break the line of action?
- Emotion: Is the intended emotion evident in the layout? Can we tell what the characters are feeling without the use of words?
Deadline: Since I was late in posting this, 11:59 PM on July 8th. (Central Time) - I swear we'll get on track for that last task!
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