Defusing the Story
Had my chat with Jonas about the possibility of reviving a past project and he ACCEPTED! YAY!
But now, Jonas wants to see a complete story, for the issue 1. Alot of the original ideas and stories I was planning to tell are increasingly getting more sensitive for the atmosphere here in Hong Kong, so this is the point when I realised that I needed to reshape, and point the whole comic in to a positive conclusion.
I am to complete issue 1, yet the story so far does not reflect my intentions for the Yellow and Blue political stances to put down their differences; if anything issue 1 shows fighting and resonates the 2019 protests here in Hong Kong. In order to display the intentions of the whole project, my plan is to produce a series of preview illustrations in presenting how the story would go on and end.
What I did was that I started with a hybrid of a story layout and a mindmap. I have certain stories that I want to tell = events that would take place in this comic, and basically started filling in the gaps to achieve a greater, more complete story with characters that would play their respectful part in expressing my views towards HK society.
90s Cartoons and the PowerPuff Girls
I think these toons are sort of a lost art, not as in the quality of movement in these cartoons themselves, but the facct that pausing on a still frame, the consistant quality of objects in the surroundings, mood, attention to facial expressions and posture are things that I was facinated by as a kid.
A good example would be comparing the quality of the PowerPuff Girls cartoons from the 90s and the recent 2016 reboot. The most notable would be the storyline and the humor, it could be the result of different teams of writers, and the involvement of original writer Craig McCracken.
The major draw to a super hero cartoon are the attagonists, I think what made the 90s PPG so great were that every villian was a stereotype of some one we would meet in our daily lives, someone with a bad habit, flaw in personality and even a hated vegetable, and having that deep rooted purpose and building a character on top of that gives the show draw and even benefitial, educational purposes. With the consistancy in art style, this has made the world of 90s PowerPuff Girls a vibrant and memorable one.
My Villians and Story
The aliens is a representation of foreign influences on HK during the 2019 protests, as “rumoured” by many having played a huge role in fanning the flame and esculated violence. In my story, they are the ones who have granted the rebel kids super strength, intellegence and a violent mind by spicing milk formula.
The idea of a cyclops is based the on going conspiracy of Illuminati keeping control over world order.
The Teacher (on the right) was based off of a collegue working at the college. The first time I met him I instantly thought to myself : he has the sterotypical look of THE local highschool teacher. Of course, in real life, Patrick is a great great dedicated teacher.
But taking his look, would resonate with the local reader : The hair, the glasses, tucked in shirt and dress pants.
Pounding On Lines
On the other hand, the line work for issue 1 is REALLY taking time. I am doing this in having recognised a trend in people completing everything on iPad’s pro-create. Is it the auto fine tunning of line? The repeating sets of brushes? To me the results are too polished and lack a human touch.
What I want to achieve is a 90’s cartoon look. I know for a fact that back then many of those animated panels were pencil line drawings that are so clean that would enable easy later on coloring in with computer software, but to shave time off I was not ready to take my not so mature penciling skills to the panels, so instead I turned to the tool I am most familiar with which is AI.
The process I am putting myself through is to first sketch on paper, and to pick every line out with Adobe Illustrator. Although time consuming, I find myself landing the general outlook I am looking for.
Reflection on Process
I am starting to realise the little rules I would add as I went along, and when those are realised at a certain point, some completed panels would require a rework and eventually those rules would stick and carry on to panels later on.
It’s in the amount of details in the drawings : creases on a facial expression, folds in clothing, composition and how my line work could guide the viewer in staying at a critical panel or lead on to the next. There are also the considerations of portraying an environment, as in how much detail goes in to the background art in setting the environment.
Here’s a video of me doing AI work!
ANDY WAS HERE
ANDY was here 🤓 