This project's objective was to create a 4-page comic based in some capacity on an event or series of events in our lives. The comic could be wordless, and could be very loose or abstracted, so I had a lot of freedom in how I could approach this assignment.
I decided to base it loosely on my experience moving far away to a completely new environment in college. The Western motifs that I had explored for my 50 drawings were still lingering in my mind, so I decided to draw from those.
I decided to illustrate my comic traditionally in ink, keeping it mostly black and white. However, I wanted to add in a singular color at a time, to really make the pages pop but keep a cohesive feel throughout the comic.
I kept the composition wordless and to explore ways to let the visual aspects tell the story, even if it was in a more abstract and strange way.
Over spring break, I spent a lot of time sketching and developing some concepts and character ideas. I knew broadly how I wanted the comic to look and feel, but I was initially having trouble with the storyline progression and how to adapt my own experiences to it. So, the concept development stage allowed me to explore these elements more.
While still refining my “script,” I drafted out a very rough draft of a full, four-page storyboard. This gave me an avenue to sort out potential problems with the sequence; I felt a lot more comfortable with the sequence after I was able to tackle the storyboard, and it made my process a lot clearer. I then had something to look at, mark up, and cut panels from or rearrange them on.
Once I had finished the comic in its final form, I realized just how rewarding the process was. I felt like I got to spend a lot of time with my character designs and concept art. This allowed me to develop a clear vision of what everything would look like. I learned a lot about the process of creating a comic through this project.
