Graphic Narrative Evaluation

Use this template to help you evaluate your project.

You should give specific details about your work.

You should provide both written and visual examples to explain your project.

You should find areas to praise in your work. Be specific about why you think they are good or why you are proud of them.

You should also find areas that could be improved. Look for areas that you could make better if you went back to them. Be specific about what you would improve.

Add additional slides as you need to. Don’t be restricted by what is here.

Any blank slides should be deleted before submission.

Does your final product reflect your original intentions?

I think that my work both does and doesn’t reflect my original intentions, such as with my mood boards. With my character style mood board I feel that my final characters don’t match with what my original intentions were, this is probably due to the fact that I decided to do closer to realistic characters than overly cartoonish while I was drawing my characters. I also chose to do a different type of crown than I originally planned, this is because I wanted to add more significance to the extravagant crown, I wanted to use the bigger crown to show that she was a real princess. However my work does reflect with my original intentions in the flat plans. As shown by the images on the right the final product looks similar to the flat plans, I just added more detail and changed where the text was to fit into the page well. My final work matches with the flat plans because when I was creating my pages I went off of what the digital and drawn out flat plans looked like and embellished them to make them how I wanted the pages to look.

My location mood board also doesn’t match with my final settings in the book. For instance with page 6, shown below, the style of bed doesn’t match to what I had originally intended. I think its not like how I originally intended it to look like because my final product is simple and has very little detail, where as the images on the mood board are all very detailed and show lots of mattresses. Also when I made the mood board I planned on having a page with an image of the castle from the front, however I decided not to do that while I was producing the book.

How well have you constructed your images?

With all the characters I made within the book I first drew them out by hand then rotascoped around them, using the ‘polygonal lasso’ tool and made a ‘layer via copy’. Using this method to make the characters made them unique and was an easy to do.

I think I have constructed some of my images well, for instance with the first picture on the right, the map, I got a pre-existing image of a map and went around the edge with the ‘polygonal lasso’ tool and made a ‘layer via copy’, this took a long time but it made a map of Europe that I personally think looks quite effective.

In the second picture, the dining table, to make this image I used a range of different tools for different components of the image, such as to make the table I used shapes and transformed them in various ways, such as with the table top I used the distort option within the transformations to make it smaller on the top line to make it appear to be 3D. I also used shapes to make the fruit bowl, I then warped some shapes to be the shape of certain fruits which made it obvious what the bowl is.

In the image on the right I also used various different tools, which in my opinion made the crown look effective and realistic. To create the base shape of the crown I used a pre-existing image of a crown off of Google, I then used the ‘quick selection’ tool to get the outline of the crown, then made a ‘layer via copy’. However when I did this it let the cut outs of the crown still there, so I used the ‘polygonal lasso’ tool to go around the inside parts of the crown and deleted the part inside the lasso, this then gave me the base shape for my crown. To create the diamonds I took a image off of Google of a diamond, in both red and clear, then I used the ‘magic wand’ tool to get the shape I wanted, after I used the ‘cut out’ filter from the filter gallery to create a more simplistic version of the shape. I think that the diamonds make the crown look more realistic.

How well have you used text to anchor your images

I think in some of my pages I have used text well to anchor the image that goes with the text, however there are also some pages that don’t do as well with it.

For instance the second page, shown on the right, I feel the text doesn’t anchor my image well. This is because the image doesn’t have enough detail to show what is supposed to be happening.

Another image I feel that the text doesn’t anchor to well is the third page, shown to the right. This is also due to the fact there isn't very much detail in the image and it only shows part of what the text says.

However, one page that I think the text anchors the image well is page 10, shown underneath, this is because it is easy to tell what is happening within the image, there isn't a lot of detail but there is enough to be able to depict what is happening.

Another page I think the text anchors the image well is the 4th page, this is because it shows almost exactly what the text says is happening. The only thing that hasn’t been shown is the Queen placing the bone under the mattresses, I chose to not show this because I wasn’t sure how to show her putting the bone down without over complicating the image.

Is your product suitable for your audience?

In my development Pro-Foma, in the proposal section I wrote about the target audience. I decided that it would be aimed towards girls aged around 6-7, this was because it is a princess story and would usually appeal to girls more than boys, and the age was that because the images were going to be more detailed and realistic looking which would be more suitable for older children. I think that my book is still aimed towards this target audience, this is because it is a princess story which usually appeals more to girls than boys. However the pages are not overly detailed or realistic looking, which means that the age range the story was aimed at could be lower.

My target audience now that the book is finished would be children aged between 5-7, I chose to go lower because the pages are quite simple and the text doesn’t use works that children at that age shouldn’t know. The gender that it will be aimed towards is females, this is because the book is a princess story which is typically aimed towards females, as the book is most likely to appeal to females than males.

A book with a similar target audience to mine is ‘The princess and the wizard’, the target audience for this book is females aged between 6-8. The book is also a princess book, similarly to mine, which means it’s aimed more towards females than males

The graphics used in the book is also quite simple, like mine, but has used patterns which add more detail to the characters. Such as the wizard, shown in the first image underneath, the beard has a pattern that looks like fur, this it look more like a beard. This makes the book for a age range like 6-8 because it is simple yet has enough added detail to make it for older children.

What do you like/dislike about the techniques you have used?

A technique I used and liked a lot while making my final product, is rotoscoping. I find that it makes the process of creating the final sets and pages easier, for instance when I created the characters I used rotoscoping. I did this by drawing how I wanted the characters to look and then scanned them into the computer, once I did this I went around each part of the character and coloured it the way I wanted. I found it easiest to create my characters this way, because it gives me more control over how I want the shape to look than if I were to use shapes to create them. Another thing I like about rotoscoping is how once you have created all the components of the character you can clearly see which layer is which part.

Another technique I liked using while producing my children's book, is the filter ‘Cut-out’ I found this filter a quick way to make something look more simplistic and cartoonish. For instance when I made the flowers for page 10, I used this filter to make the roses, I think the filter effectively made the roses look more like cartoons yet still identifiable as roses.

However a technique I did not like using, was shapes, this is because when I was creating detailed parts of the scenery it would be difficult to get the shape to look right. Also when using the ‘warp’ tool, with smaller shapes, through ‘transform path’ I found it difficult to use see the small shape underneath the grid. Also I don’t like how when using shapes you don’t get full control of how the shape is going to look, whereas with rotoscoping you can fully control the look of the shape. For instance in the image on the right, the shapes overlap and don’t look like they should be attached.

What do you like/dislike about how your final product looks?

One of the things I like about how my final product looks is that is that is quite simple looking, there is hardly any detail which makes it easy to tell what is happening within the pages. Such as with page 4, shown on the right, the page has very little detail, but still shows what is happening. One of the things I dislike about this image is how and where the text is placed, it would have looked better if it was horizontal, however I couldn’t have done this because it would be difficult to read. Another thing I dislike about my book, is on some pages the text is white and on others it is black, I would have preferred if the text stayed consistent throughout the book, however I had to use white because the black wouldn't have been readable with the background. Such as with page 6, the black text was unreadable on the dark floor, so it had to be white. Also with page 4, the white text wouldn’t have worked because the colour I was trying to put it on was too light.

Something I really like throughout my book is the look of the characters, I like how I used a mixture of hand drawing and rotoscoping to create them, I think that it made them look unique and they match the graphics for the background well.However, something I don’t like about the characters is that on some backgrounds the stroke added to the characters to outline them, the opacity is set too high which makes the outline too dark. An example of this is on page 7, the prince and Queens outlines are too dark which makes them stand out too much.Another thing I like about my final product is how when the set is inside the castle I have kept the floor and wallpaper consistent, this helps to show that the setting of the page is in a certain place. As shown in the image on the right, when the setting for the page was inside of the castle the wallpaper was this cracked greyish looking paper, and the floors were wooden boards in alternating colours.However, something I don’t like about the background is that on some pages the colour of it can be a greyish colour and on others it is a purple colour, as shown by page 5 and 8 on the right.

Why did you include the content you used?I chose the font because it is easy to read and clear, I chose it to be like this because children may not have the best reading abilities so the font needed to be clear enough for them to be able to read.

When I made the scenery inside the castle I chose the wallpaper to be cracked and broken, because it made the castle look old. I also used wooden floorboards to show the page was set inside of the castle, I chose this because it is typically used in houses.

I chose for the colours to be greys with parts that are coloured, this is because I wanted it to look quite dull and to be brighter on the last page when the prince and princess get married. Also having the colours of the background be dull it makes the characters stand out more against the background.

When I made the flowers for the wedding arch on page 10, I used the filter ‘cut-out’ this made the flowers look more simple and cartoonish. This made it a lot easier for me to create the wedding arch. I used this filter as well to create the diamonds for the crown on page 4, this meant I created the crown a lot quicker than if I hadn't used the filter. Also I think that it effectively makes the flowers and diamonds look like cartoons.

What signs, symbols or codes have your used in your work?

In my book I has the characters wearing crowns, this shows they are royalty. I have used different crowns on each of the characters, this is because some are of a lower ranks than others. For instance the princess and prince have smaller crowns with less jewels, this shows that they are below the Queen, whose crown is extravagant.

I also made the princess a white fox, I chose to do this because it shows that the prince and Queen think that she is different from them, they think she is not a real princess.

On page 10, the wedding page. The page has brighter colours which makes the page look happier and more joyful, where as the rest of the book is in dull colours which shows how unhappy the prince was.

What representations can be found in your work?

My work has little to no variety with its representations, this is because it is both about foxes and royalty. This means that my story has no references to social groups, different races or religions. However my work does show some differences between age, such as with the crowns, the Queen has a more extravagant than the prince and princess’s, this is because she is at a higher rank than them. The way the males and females are shown is the same, I chose to do this because there is hardly any physical differences between male and female foxes and I wanted to keep the characters in a more realistic style.

What style have you employed in your products?

I wanted the visual style of my book to be simple and minimalistic I chose this style because I wanted my book to not be over detailed as it would be easier for a child to interpret what was happening in each scene.

When I was creating my book I looked at other versions of the book, I tried to change my book so the images would not be similar to any pre existing ones. Such as with the version to the right the graphics look hand drawn, where as mine looks more like it has been produced on a computer which is the style I wanted, mine also looks more simplistic compared with the more detailed version drawings in the other version.

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the pre-production and planning

I think that my planning did not help very much, this is because I found it easier to work on the pages in a different order to how I originally planned. I decided to start with the easiest pages to make and create the hardest last, I chose to do them that way because it meant that I created the easier pages quickly and had lots of time spare to create the harder ones.

Historical and cultural context

There are many versions of ‘The princess and the pea’, many that I found are the same as the original story but what varies is the graphics used for the books.

An example of this is ‘The princess and the pea’ by Rachel Isadora, the book uses almost the same words as the original story. But the story is set in Africa, this change means that the scenery is more styled after african culture, such as they feature black characters and show traditional african culture.

Another version I found is ‘The princess and the pea’ by Lauren Child. What diffrenciates this book from the origional is the mixture of drawings and photos which create the scenery in the book. This is the first version of ‘The princess and the pea which is this style.