DEVELOPING VISUAL NARRATIVES

(IF YOU CLICK ON THE IMAGES YOU CAN SEE THEM BETTER)

ANTHOLOGY PROJECT

From the initial workshops introducing me to the different texts, I found that the necrosmologies folder stood out the most as it was a very dark, industrial world which is vastly different from the work I'd just completed and I fancied a change. Once again I decided to work with Izzy Molly and Xena for this mini brief, as we all wanted to do the same folder of texts and we could efficiently work together for such a short deadline. 

I personally decided to illustrate the story ‘Bone fishing’ although it was one of the shorter pieces I thought that there were lots of interesting details that inspired me to want to draw from it. On further discussion with the group we decided that we wanted to focus on the landscapes and the world building aspects of the texts as they’re all set in different locations near each other. We could attempt to make a concertina zine that folded off into each story to unravel Cartwright’s world. 

 

^ Molly's Sketch 

We also came up with some base rules for our zine to keep the visual language consistent (although we did also want our individual styles to shine through):

• Black and white- themes around shadows and light​
• Some texturey bits​
• Non typical page formats e.g pulls up/down, spirals, bends

 

^Sketchbook 

 

^Traditional art experimentation

For my 'non typical' spreads I thought my story would work best as a vertical landscape starting at the 'bone sea' and working its way toward the factory with smoke billowing into the sky and background. It is a continuous drawing but I wanted each panel to work separately so drew them one by one, this made the perspective a bit wacky but I think that only works to add to the imagined landscape vibe. After some initial experimentation that I didn't really like I switched to planning stuff out on Photoshop, I experimented with using imported textures and messing around with noise and blur and then drawing onto and I actually liked this a lot so decided to use this for my final spreads.

^ Final spreads

Our Zine would have a lot of folds and bits coming off of it so a typical cover wouldn't necessarily hold it together really well so we decided on proposing a sleeve design. I volunteered to do so, as everyone's style was quite different I thought a simpler cover would be better so did one just focusing on the shape of smoke.

   

^Initial sleeve proposal 

But then after giving our proposal presentation I was inspired to change this to be more material. Laser engraving on to an aluminium sheet and making that into a sleeve seemed like a really cool idea that worked with the industrial landscapes! So I translated this into line work and altered the type into a kind of stencil font so it could be cut out.

^ Laser Cut proposal sleeve cover

Click here for our proposal slides

We ended up just leaving this anthology as a proposal as everyone wanted to focus on their main projects.

MAIN PROJECT

 For the story review workshop I decided to write a blurb for my copy of Wind in the Willows, which was one of my favourite children's book growing up! I reread it in preparation and realised how it wasn't as wholesome as I remembered so thought It would be funny to write the blurb in a contrasting crime style. It's quite a well recognised book so even though I wrote it differently it's obvious that it's still about the Wind in the Willows. 

My Blurb: 

When Mole mistakenly decides to leave his hole at the first turn of spring, he is quickly coerced into joining a group of delinquents. Through his debilitating fear of the creatures that lurk in the Wild Woods, he unwittingly joins a life of crime with an opposing gang led by the nefarious Ratty, the belligerent Badger and worst of them all the notorious fugitive Mr Toad. Mole has no choice but to become a co-conspirator to multiple joyriding offences and a prison break! In this rotten world where corrupt prison guards are rife, and toads can get away with anything, should Mole have stayed home?

I received pretty good feedback from this and realised that there was something there as an idea for a visual narrative. A dark spin on Wind on the Willows where they're all gangsters? Combining these two visual cultures could be interesting!

^My mood boards

The Wind in the Willows was first published in 1908 but I liked the idea of looking at the 60s for inspiration as it is somewhat iconic as an era in crime with the Kray Twins and the dramatic rise in overall cases. It also has lots of strong imagery that I could reference.

^Initial sketchbook pages

I had a lot of different ideas on ways I could construct this version of Wind in the Willows into a new narrative but ended up really liking the idea of making masks and costumes of the characters and using environments around me to capture the setting, possibly in a film noir style short video or in a series of photographs for a book. 

In this initial phase I spent a lot of time thinking of ways to translate the main fours characters into new gangster characters and came up with roles in the gang for each of them.

• Badger is the oldest character and is described as being quite grumpy and stern, the other characters often go to him with problems--- this made me think that he had to be the Gang Boss 
• Mr Toad is the character who creates most of the problems in the book, he has an extremely reckless and addictive personality- I wanted him to seen smoking and gambling to fit this and his role in the Gang is the grunt and constantly is getting into fights
• Ratty- The loyalist character and is always there to help when there's trouble, very practical and calm. Makes the most sense to be Badger's right hand man
• Mole is the newest friend to the crew and is pretty timid and naive- He is therefore the newest member to the gang and isn't quite aware what he's gotten himself into.

ARTIST INSPIRATION!

 

^ David Hughes- Illustrator. I really like his animal drawings, there's something anthropomorphic and eerie about them- I'd like my masks to be kinda scary and more uncanny than the expected.

^David Lynch- Rabbits. A surrealist short film featuring these human like rabbits, very eerie and strange with random audience laughter and scrambled dialogue. The masked figures and normal clothes is kind of similar to what I have in mind. 

^The Company of Wolves. Horror Film directed by Neil Jordan. Very cool practical effects! Love the contrast between the wolf heads and the set. 

^ The Wicker Man (1973). This horror film features loads of different animal masks- possible inspiration!?

^Kristen Egan- mixed media artist specialising in masks. Super surreal combining patterns with nature, I really like the textures and combination of materials she's used to make them.

MASK MAKING

^Mini Paper Mache mask tests!

 The base of cardboard and newspaper was great and easy to make but for the furry animals I needed something else to add texture. With Toads warts I experimented with polyfiller which worked but it was much too thick to create the furry texture I imagined. After research into paper mache sculpting and ways to create cool textures I realised that a plaster solution mixed with gesso would work to cover them as well as using a dry brush to create indents in it as fur. 

PROGRESS PICTURES

^ Paper Mache Stage

^Plaster Gesso Stage

^Final Versions after painting

As seen in my sketches and experimentations I wanted each animal to have their own personality and vibe, as they are gangsters I ended up giving most of them different scars and cuts, Badgers being the most prominent him being the 'Boss' and Mr Toads still being red and fresh to show he often is fighting due to his addictive personality, Ratty also has a small part missing from his ear. I left Mole with none as the newest most 'innocent' member of the group has seen the least action. Also during production I decided to change Mr Toad to being a green Toad so each character has a different colour scheme and Ratty and him don't clash. 

COSTUME AND PROPS

I wanted each character to have their own unique outfits as they are all unique characters. I had an idea of what I wanted them to look like as seen by my sketches above but I knew that it would be difficult to get everything exact whilst working on a budget. The main compromises were I couldn't buy a coat for Ratty so I gave him a waistcoat instead and I gave Badger a plain tux but I actually liked that better!

I ended up sewing Mole a Bow tie as I really wanted him to have one as I feel like they're associated with the innocent and nerdy characters.

^Final outfits

^ I edited it to make it look more 60s

I made a fake old school revolver gun out of cardboard, but didn't really need any other made props.

STORYBOARD

I originally wanted to make a whole short film based on the part of the text I was working on however I started to realise that this would be very difficult given the time restraints and how long it took to design the costumes, so decided that having a short trailer for this 'film' alongside a detailed comic style storyboard would communicate and develop my narrative well too. The storyboard was really helpful into helping me imagine certain shots I really liked and which parts I could focus on. As I knew I wasn't filming the whole idea it allowed my story to be a lot more ambitious and wild (i.e smashing windows, inside sets, car chase). 

Since the Wind in the Willows is very long I just focused on the part where the animals lock Toad away to prevent him from driving but he manages to escape and ends up being sent to prison. He then manages to escape through the help of many people but I decided to leave the escape on a cliff hanger because that would be way too big of a task to draw alongside making my trailer- this also leans into the comic vibe as it's like a first volume! I translated this into a gangster story by making it a lot more high stakes.

FILMING

My group from the anthology project were very kind to help me by being my cast, as there were only three of them and I was recording I had Molly play two roles. Luckily I wanted Badger to be more of an overarching presence than a character with a lot of scenes so he doesn't really interact with the others so Molly could just switch between Toad and him. As I was now going for a trailer vibe it meant that I could condense my shots to more filler-y bits, to help get a sense of the vibe of the proposed film rather than the entire plot. That being said I still used my story board to inform some of the shots particularly the gun being pulled on Toad and Badger being told that Toad had escaped. When filming I made sure to stay in areas that had no cars or modern day giveaways to help give it the feel of being set in the 60s. 

BEHIND THE SCENES!

Editing changes-

• Organising clips

• Adding smoke effects to the smoking scenes

• slowing down and speeding up clips for dramatics

• zooming in and out

• creating smooth transitions between clips

• adding music (copyright free) and sound effects

• Adding some bits of dialogue (friends and family attempting cockney accents)

• Adding Trailer title cards

FINAL OUTCOMES

ZINE:

^ Photos of printed Storyboard zine

https://heyzine.com/flip-book/1ae47474b2.html

^CLICK HERE FOR FULL ZINE

TRAILER:

EVALUATION

At the beginning of this module, I explored the concept of anthologies with my group. I think that we made a successful Necrosmologies proposal utilising unconventional zine layouts to explore an imagined landscape. I think my illustrations for this portion, being continuous, digitally textured and linking to the theme of industrialisation, were successful both independently and alongside my peers as we had a strict set of rules we abided by. I do think we could’ve taken it further after the initial 2 weeks, but it was a great introduction to the module.

My main project was very different and took on a more comedic angle. My chosen narrative was the Wind in the Willows, as it is a very well-known story with a pre-existing strong visual culture, I knew I wanted to do something drastically different. After rereading it I noticed that there was a lot of crime in it that it was depicting in a light-hearted way. I thought it could be interesting (and funny) to focus on that aspect and change the story into a 60s gangster themed one. 

Initially I spent a lot of time drawing the main 4 characters as gangsters and imagining their roles in the gang. I had a lot of fun with this and as it’s a very character led story, it prompted me into bringing them to life. To do this I made a series of costumes- animal masks completed with their own 60s inspired outfits. Making the masks was the most time-consuming part of this module, but I’m proud of how they turned out. I used papier mache for the base, plaster to create fur textures and painted them realistically- they each ended up slightly uncanny and with their own unique details. 

I originally wanted to use these in a short film based on the part of the text I was inspired by; however, I started to realise that this would be very difficult given the time restraints. So, I decided that having a short trailer for this 'film' alongside a detailed comic style storyboard would communicate the narrative as well as the aesthetic I imagined. I think that the trailer is successful in displaying the costumes and setting the scene for the story. I particularly like the part where Ratty pulls a gun on Toad as the lighting and pacing work well to add to the suspense. I do however think that I could’ve given away a bit more about the actual story and used more inspiration from my storyboard as some parts feel like filler. It works better when paired with the zine as that gives you more detail as it follows a linear narrative and has character introductions at the beginning so watchers can understand the dynamics a bit better. Overall, I am happy with my outcome and think that the unexpected twist in genre makes a fun watch and read! If I was to do this again, I would spend more time developing my trailer.