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. Dont be restricted by what is
here.
Any blank slides should be deleted before submission.

Does your final product reflect your original

intentions?
My final product has come out looking better than what I had
planned, since my original plan had been to exclusively use
Photoshop, I had limitations to what was possible when it came
to 3D, however I decided to integrate my knowledge with Cinema
4D and Octane to create renders which I could then import into
Photoshop and proceed onto post production. I could then edit
the frame to my desired style. By sticking to the ideas from my
flat-plans, I was able to make 3D frames, with a hand drawn
style.
I could have improved my work by using more techniques in Photoshop,
For the most part, my frames were edited using the smudge tool, the
polygonal lasso tool and the filter gallery. Occasionally I used the warp,
perspective & skew techniques, but I feel with more usage, I could have
improved the 2D within the frame.

Additionally, My technique of using the smudge tool may

have looked better than using the filter gallery (in my
opinion). But I found that it would take significantly longer
as there were many different surface types of cover and
therefore, I needed a new setting, brush and technique
every time that I would do a new part on the frame.
Making the idea rather inefficient and adding to the list of
things that it did not reflect in reality from planning.
Finally, I feel as if my text pages didnt match with the images in
terms of the styling. They seemed plain and didnt match with the
look coming from the illustrations. To combat this I could have put
the text on the picture pages to remove the problem, or to keep
the text page, I could have gone with a blank page entirely, like
most other childrens books in this format, an example being: The
Tiger That Came to Tea, which features only text, I did however
break off from this trend by including a small illustration in the
centre of the page to relate to the main illustration. However I still
feel that the final outcome didnt reflect what my planning did..

How well have you constructed your

images?
In my eyes, the frames were a huge success, with the usage of
external programs, I managed to create 3D imagery which have
a hand-drawn style to them.
To allow an insight into the development of the frames, I had to
create everything seen in frame, whether it be cars, houses or
furniture, everything was developed using polygons in Cinema
4D, it was then rendered using a GPU renderer: Octane. This
made photorealistic images which I then adapted in Photoshop
to create the look seen within the frames.
The look I had aimed for has been seen in The Gruffalo before,
and I used this as a benchmark for what I was trying to achieve.

An Improvement that could have been made is my use of time,

since the programs are rather specialised they werent
available to me at college and so I had difficulty when
attempting to make pages when I was missing a part which
could only be done at home. When it comes to the pages its
self, I feel that the lighting I had created was different on each
frame, which is mostly a good thing, but it can make each
frame look quite diverse, and changed the overall look of the
style I was going for. This could have been changed by creating
a default light setup which would make lighting consistent.
Some of the things I had done in Photoshop were also debatable as to
there overall look or purpose in the end: I used curves, exposure and
colourizing to create colour grading, to make each scene seem
atmospheric, however after completion of the frame it seemed to me
that some of the colour grading was impairing the look I had wanted as
well.
And finally, some of the smudging that I had created didnt match the
surface of the texture that I had created initially whilst in Cinema 4D,
given it the look that it was metal, instead of glass at some points, this
could have been improved by using a smaller smudge size.

How well have you used text to anchor

your images
I am for the most part happy with the anchoring of the text to
the image, each of my image pages matches up with the text of
the designated page in one of the parts or another, but I feel
that some of my pages were too long and as a result I couldnt
paint the whole picture, metaphorically speaking. In order to
combat this I created a small illustration in the text page which
served 2 purposes, one I have already spoken about, and the
second was so that the audience could relate to both the main
illustration and the smaller one on the text page, keeping
immersion to the story alive.
Other than the large amount of text of each page, I am happy
with the imagery that I created in relation to the text on each
page. If there were to be one more improvement I could make, I
would change the angling of some of the frames to make it
more immersive with what the character sees.

Either that, or I would change the render to something more

relevant to the time of the page, for example but at the crack
of midnight, Matthew returns to the hole that holds his fortune. However little
does he know, someone is watching him. A pre existing example of
this could come from the gruffalo, on the page where the
mouse is describing the gruffalo, the image shows the fox
and mouse talking, and showing emotions. For my scene, it
would be wiser to go with a scene with a graveyard and the
main character stealing from a grave that to show a picture
of a ghost on its own as this would allow the reader to
connect with the main point of the text, if it were to be a
ghost, it wouldnt connect the text and image because its
missing the point. This was something that I could have
improved on as I made this mistake on some of my frames.
Considering my original proposal, and highlighting the main points
shows me that for the most part I have been able to anchor the
text and main points of each paragraph to the image accurately,
and therefore I am happy with my efforts to tie in both the text and
imagery together.

Is your product suitable for your audience?

My target audience was children of ages 7 11 and I think that the
content in my book is of an appropriate standard for the readers,
younger audiences may not be as suited to reading this book as it may
frighten them towards the end, to justify my opinion , I have looked at
other books targeted around this age range and looked at their features
to see how well my book collates: and after looking at Top Of The Class
(almost)- By Tom Gates and The Midnight Gang- By David Walliams: I
can see that both of the books share similar things to mine, however I
feel that the storylines between my book and the others is rationally
different, leading me to think my target audience should be changed .
Improvements that I could have made to make it even more suitable to the 7-11
age range, is put the text and image into one page, this would have made it look
more the part of that age range as I feel that the split pages for the image and
picture are more for younger audiences, neither of the two examples had split
pages

In terms of the style of illustration, I think that in

comparison to my book, other 7 11 books used more
plain and small sketches on the text pages, which I have
done, neither however had any full scale images in the
style of my book, leading me to believe that 1. I
shouldnt have used the split page format, and 2. That
the large scale images arent used in my target audience
too often, and more often than not are seen in books for
a younger audience; I think that I should have
investigated more into this before going ahead with
them.
In order to adapt it to this new age range, the storyline
may need to be changed slightly, but overall the book I
have created looks much more like a 5-7 book that a 7
11.

What do you like/dislike about the

techniques you have used?
The techniques that I used whilst in photoshop included using
tools such as: Smudge, Polygonal Lasso, Filter Gallery and Quick
Selection/Magic Wand tools. Since I made all my images in
external programs, I did post production in photoshop, and used
the smudge tool to create a hand-drawn look from the renders
made in C4D & Octane.
Whilst using the smudge tool it became apparent to me that
some of the surface that I was smudging over on the render,
didnt react very well, and created a dark underglow to the
surrounding areas which meant that had to undo the work in
order to re-make the smudge line whilst attempting to miss the
parts which reacted badly, I disliked the hassle of this whilst
using the smudge tool, but I really liked its outcome once
completed.

The filter gallery was used to amplify the oil painting

effect to make it look less realistic, I used Poster Edges
and Cutoutto make the smudged areas look more handdrawn. This effect had some success but in most cases I
ended up renewing the settings or removing them
completely because they didnt produced the desired
outcome, the polygonal lasso tool was used to create my
characters and any other forms of 2D in my pages. In
terms of what it create, I liked its easy usability, but I
didnt like how you couldnt implement curves in any
technique whilst using this tool, unlike the pen tool.
The magic wand tool was easy to use if you couldnt get
something with the quick selection too, and visa versa! It made it
easier to get transparent edges and also made it easier to colour
parts of my characters body and face. In order to improve, I
could have use tools such as the shape tool to help me get
certain shapes without the need for making a new one with the
polygonal lasso tool.

What do you like/dislike about how your

final product looks?
I like the style in which all of the pages have stuck to,
whether it be the style the text pages have evolved into, or
the image pages that have a common look, I am mostly
happy with the designs I have managed to create. To
improve I could have improved the text page much more, I
am bothered by it, and as a result: I cant help but thinking it
could have been better if I were to have used different
layers.
I do not like the characters, I feel that they made the other work look
messy, they werent edited hugely from previous frames:: they
werent changed into a different body shape or position for each
frame. This make the frame look strange with each character in a
similar stance to the one they were in before.

If I were to do it again , I would take inspiration from The

Gruffalo because of its clean looks between the text and
picture, it also has a nice style of hand-drawn imagery
which I could learn from also. I fell like my text page
wasnt up to standard, and although it did show features
which are in The Gruffalo, the text inside the book was
much better in The Gruffalos than it was my own.
I am happy with the image pages quite a lot, however if they
were to be improved I would again go back and look at The
Gruffalo and look at the way it has been designed in order to
take examples of hand drawn illustration that the illustrator has
managed to pull of

Why did you include the content you used?

I used images that I rendered extensively throughout this

project, this was the ground layer for each of my image pages,
seen as I had wanted my project to have a 3D perspective to it, it
seemed right to me that I use the available resources to me at
home to create these renders, I then used the smudge tool to
make an oil paint effect I used the tool in order to get the hand
drawn look that I wanted. Then after completing the smudging, I
added text where it was needed within the renders that I first
made, I used perspective and skew to line up the text and make
it fit properly.
The colours within the book were mixed through out, but I focus on using
pathetic fallacy to my advantage. For example, in the Hospital the colours
were dull and boring to create a sense of sadness, where as at home the
house was covered by a bright evening sunset, vibrant colours. ..

What signs, symbols or codes have you

used in your work?
As said in other slides, I wanted to create realistic renders so I
could then use Photoshop to make them look hand-drawn, this
method allowed me to create colours much closer to their real life
equivalent, whilst still making it possible for me to make it look
hand drawn in post production. My characters were designed to
look like how they played a part in the story, the main
protagonist is neutral for most of the storyline seen as he doesnt
care a lot about his first relationship, this is also reflected in his
first wife, except to show the audience of the books stance on
her, she constantly has wealth and money projected around her
and her surroundings, whether it be the building shes in, or just
money in her pockets.
The same can be said for the ghost, and his second wife, the ghost is
angry because of betrayal, and his second wife is angry at first, but when
he seeks forgiveness, she forget about it and become happy.

Audience
Responses

Creative Media Production 2012

Cultural competence:
Media texts require us to have a certain level of cultural understanding to
be able to interpret them.
At a basic level, this could mean being able to read the language that a
magazine is written in.
At a deeper level, it means being able to interpret signs and symbols that
we use a visual shorthand to communicate ideas.
We recognise these signs in our own culture but find it harder to
understand when looking at others.
We create and attach meaning to signs and symbols in many different
forms.

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Audience
Responses

Creative Media Production 2012

Cultural competence:
What is this?
This is a Norwegian Pine tree, covered in
snow and with a red ribbon on.
Our cultural understanding allows us to
interpret its meaning.
To us, in British society, it means
Christmas, presents and family.
This is because we share a cultural
knowledge.

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Audience
Responses

Creative Media Production 2012

Cultural competence:
There are many other signs and symbols
that we attach meaning to.
A leather jacket can imply rebellion.
A sports car can imply wealth and power.
A cross can represent religion.

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Audience
Responses

Creative Media Production 2012

Cultural competence:
Visual representations of everyday objects are often the same the world
over. A car appears as a car, no matter what country it appears in.
What that car means however, can be very different depending on your
cultural background.

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What representations can be found in your

work?
The main character is the representative face of materialism,
attracted to a genuine girl, only to let her down for the sake of
wealth and money. My characters dont have variety in religion,
race or age, this could be a point of improvement for my book as
this would reach out to a number of potential audience
members. Social class however is another factor that my book
does feature.
By making it clear of what level of wealth each character has, it can be
seen to show the personality of all people under a similar style of living.
This can be seen as both a good and a bad thing: for the poorer classes,
it allows more wealthy audiences to see that the type of class isnt bad
or untrustworthy, however for the more wealthy classes, it can show that
there not a good influence, or good people, which can produce a bad
reputation, which isn't good, nor meant.

What style have you employed in your

products?
The style I chose to adopt within my work was a hand-drawn
look, but with a formal looking text page, I achieved this by
creating a brown looking page and using textures on the
page to style it appropriately, I used this font to add to the
style and to implement it over to the text of the story. Most
books do not take on this style however, an example of this
is The Tickle Book by Ian Whybrow, his book uses the
same page to start with, and from there, it is just a blank
spot within the image page with a small amount of text.
However, though my book my be unique in its format, I prefer it
because it shows two different elements of the story, one large page
of an image, and one text page with a small illustration.

An improvement which I could have made it the

styling of my second page, though formal looking I
do not think it matches with my image page very
well: going from a colourful image to a rather dull
looking text page, though formal, it doesnt look as
good as it could to me. Another point I could
improve on is the way my characters have been
styled, though they do show emotion in the pages,
they do not fit in with the colour schemes within
the environment.
However I can fix this relatively easily by using a
rendering technique in Photoshop: by going to (Filter >
Render > Lighting Effects) I can simulate the look of
lights that were made in Cinema 4D, making the
character suit within the scene, fixing the initial issue.

What were the strengths and weaknesses

of the pre-production and planning
My planning for this project did help, and guided me in the right direction
throughout the production stage. After uncovering my plan and what the
time period, story and characters would be, I created a flat-plan, which
was a first draft on paper of each page, this allowed me to simply copy the
draft onto a computer, and have it open on my screen throughout
production, showing me what I needed to create for the entire project. I
could have done more research and planning however, If I had taken more
time to create another test page, I could have been more prepared for the
process and have made less mistakes in the development period.
I feel like I could have used my time better in ways when It came to creating the 3D
renders: I often found myself coming into college with nothing to do after the second
lesson because I had finished working on my frame that I had made the night before,
and since the programs that I used to create them are rather specialised, I didnt
have the facilities at college that could handle the programs, one of the main
problems being that Octane requires a Nvidea GPU to function at all, something that
a mac, lacks. Rendering Octane useless in college.

Not to mention that each render that I made had several

stages to it (creation, lighting, materialisation, framing,
rendering) they often took around 5 hours to complete,
meaning that I couldnt have 2 frames ready for each
day. In Photoshop I didnt have many issues when it
came to time effectiveness. As a result I feel that I
should have incorporated the potential issue that I could
have issues when it came to time usage into my planning
so I could take action against it.

Historical and cultural context

I firmly believe that I have managed to make something
rather unique, I have never seen (after research) a book that
uses 3D renders to create imagery in a hand-drawn fashion,
nor have I seen the original story the was based off
published into a book. In terms of the text page, the idea of
having a smaller image within the text, is not new and has
been seen in one book I have already referenced: The
Gruffalo. Using a smaller illustration allows deeper
immersion to the story as it can show more than one
perspective.
I did however adapt the storyline so more children could relate to it
in this day and age, seen as the story originally was set in the
Victorian era.

Peer Feedback
Summarise peer feedback and discuss

Responses you agree with

Responses you disagree with