Reading 2

Blood in the Gutter

I really enjoyed this reading. I talked about the gutter- the dividing line between two panels in a comic, and how our mind is what fills those gaps.

There are moment-to-moment, action-to-action, subject-to-subject, scene-to-scene, aspect-to-aspect, and non-sequitur types of gutters. The idea of non-sequitur reminded me of the mini assignment we had to make a story about of the comic which had random images: cigarette, man on couch, dog bighting leg, etc.. That comic may have been non-sequitur.

The most often used of these are action-to-action, subject-to-subject and scene-to scene. I thought it was rather interesting that the proportion of usage of these types of gutter/transitions are almost identical in pretty much all comics. It is further interesting that in Japanese comics, the aspect-to-aspect type is actually used rather often while in western comics it is pretty much not used at all. In Western culture, the goal is to get to the destination, while in Eastern culture, its about experiencing being there. Its really interesting how different cultures could cause comics to be portrayed differently.

Module 2 Part 3

I found this assignment to be a bit more difficult than I had expected. I spent quite some time looking through the entire painting trying to fins any possible combination of images that could create a story. Finally I came up with this one: a tragedy about two enslaved men who attempt at an escape for freedom, and end up being sentenced to death.

Poetry & Comics

For this assignment I had a really hard time thinking of things that went together, so I kind of just wrote statements as they came to my mind. The background is an image I created last year in Intermediate Digital Imaging for our relative size project.

Module 2 Part 2

For this second part of module 2, the elements of fence, wall, water, dog and family are to be used to tell a story in comic format. In my story, I have a family of dogs relaxing by a small pond outside of their dog house. The mother falls asleep and one of the pups falls into the pond. She then goes to rescue the pup and all is well once again.

Module 2 Part 1- completed

I don't think I can make it any shorter than this without taking away from the story I am trying to portray...

Module 2 Part 1

I am trying to finish the first part of module 2, but I am having trouble using only 9-12 screen shots. I currently have 20. Here is the work in progress. I will continue to work to make it shorter.. Anyway, I am using frames from the movie 9 by the producer Tim Burton (who also made The Nightmare Before Christmas). I love the style of his work so I had to pick this film. Since I have not yet seen this movie, I am not exactly sure what is going on.. all I know is that some machines are "out to get them"... and the 9 stuffed dolls are somehow involved in the prevention of the machines destroying all.

I start my sequence with doll number 9 watching some kind of hologram/video thing which tells him that the machines have turned against us! He becomes concerned, runs off to notify his allies of the threat, and then a machine shows up. This machine grabs and kills 9's allies causing him to scream "NOOO!!!!" (as shown in frame 9). He manages to escape and is now all alone looking off into the vast emptiness of a world being destroyed by machines. That's my story anyway. I'm pretty sure the movie is nothing like what I just said... Again, I neeeed to see that movie!!

Comic 1

9!!

So I decided for the first part of module 2 I am going to use screen shots from the movie 9. I really want to see this movie, it looks awesome! I'm glad I haven't seen it yet though because if I did see it, then I wouldn't be able to use it for this awesome assignment! Woot!

In Class Activity 9.9.09

"The company had seen better days."

"The salesman smiled nervously as he reported his sales from the previous month."

Reading 1

The Vocabulary of Comics

I found the beginning of this comic to be really amusing and the rest of the comic was very interesting. It gave me a new way of thinking about everything I see. It's really interesting how we interpret cartoons as representing real things in our world. I learned about icons and that the things we see in cartoons are not what the really are, but are icons: images that represent people, places, things or ideas.

I like the idea of breaking images down into their simplest form. It's cool that a face can get simpler than 2 dots and 2 lines by showing it with letters as "F A C E".

I look forward to discussing this comic in class so I can better understand all of the ideas the character was trying to convey to us.

Module 1 Part 3!

Wow I am sooooo impressed with myself! I didn't think it would come out this good, but I actually really like it! I took a drawing by Lynd Ward and altered it to make the characters messy pile of papers into a neat pile and he turns away from the table. I couldn't really decide whether to consider this a "before" or "after", but I guess an "after" would make the most sense. I was originally going to make it a "before", and say that he got frustrated and messed up the neat pile... but the way I depicted the new image doesn't really look like that, so I will stick with it being the "after" image. Woo! By the way, I did this entirely using Photoshop.

Here is the original image by Lynd Ward:

Module 1 Assignment 2

Tada!

I decided that for this assignment I would portray the simple steps for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I did this entirely in Adobe Illustrator.

Assignment 1!

I would like to call this piece "The Duck Cycle". I was trying to simply depict a cute family of ducklings yet at the same time show the cycle of a duck. Beginning with the egg, a duckling is hatched, and eventually grows up into a beautiful adult duck. I began this as a drawing in light pencil and then went over it in mostly sharpie and some pen. I scanned it into the computer and used photo shop to make the lines even darker and used the texturize tool to give it the "ink" effect. I cropped it in certain places as well to give it more of a continuous, off-the-page, more realistic feeling.

Here is the original scanned drawing:

Assignment 1 Decision!

I decided I will use the idea of ducklings but I will have it portrayed as a ducks life cycle. I'll have a nest with duck eggs, some duckling, and an adult duck all portrayed in an image. I will make this hand drawn first lightly in pencil, then go over with pen and/or sharpie to make it darker for scanning.

Assignment 1 Ideas

So my first assignment is to create an image that depicts a complete narrative. I have to think of something that runs in a logical direction to communicate an intention. It must be in one space... what can it be?

People brushing their teeth? One person putting paste on the toothbrush... and the one next to him/her already brushing their teeth, and another person rinseing?

Or maybe have a group of school kids walking to class together.

O! An idea! How about ducklings following their mother into a lake shore?.. Not a bad idea? I will let you know if I've decided on it.

Ken and I

I was bored one summer day and decided to play around with illustrator.