Evaluation Task 3

Image ConstructionI think the overall look of my product has worked really well and keeps a consistent theme throughout. In my production, I took some of the images myself and used some of the images off the Internet to construct my images. I think the colour scheme fits in well and I havent used bright colours in my product to keep it quite dark and mysterious to fit in with the storyline and create a different tone to the fairytale. I also used the same effect on the backgrounds in the panels to make them consistent throughout. I put the characters on separately to the background so I wanted the characters to look as if they were there and didnt have that stuck on effect so I used the Comic Book Effect but in some parts I used the Cut Our Effect on the characters so it would work well together and I think it does work. Some of the colours in Red Riding Hood dont work right and the Cut Out Effect being put on her has made the red colour from her cape blend in with the basket which merges the colours and doesnt work right. I had to use 2 different images of the wolf, some were taken by me but then I had to get an image off the Internet which means that the wolf was 2 different colours and it doesnt work well at all so I should of stook to one image of a wolf but the images I took didnt work well as I thought they were going to so it was a last minute decision. Some of the detail at the end fades away with the Comic Book effect I used and because I used quite a bold Threshold it makes the black overpower the colour and blocks the details. I rotoscoped the characters in the book which worked out really well compared to what I thought it would look like because it reduced the look of them being stuck on. I also had to clone some parts of my images, I took an image off the internet which had a man in the background and so I placed an image over the top of a wolf as its a wolf I needed there not a man. But the mans axe was in the way and it didnt need to be there so I cloned that out by using the Clone Stamp tool. The images below show the result of using the clone tool. There are some mistakes as it started to mirror a little and left some of the marks from the Threshold image before so I should of waited till after I cloned the image to then start putting the Comic Book Effect over the top. With some of the panels, it was really hard to put some of the images in them to make it fit. For example, on the panel where the wolf is knocking on the door, the image of the house wouldnt fit with it being a landscape panel. This lost a huge amount in the detail as it had to be cropped which only fit the top half of the door and this was quite disappointing.

AnchorageI think the text overall in the product looks and is presented clear and simple to read. I found it really hard on some of the panels as I had quite a few speechbubbles which had to fit on a really small panel. This meant I had to make the font size really small and this makes the text harder to read because its so small to fit in the speechbubbles. Some of the speechbubbles I had to flip upside down to fit on a panel because there was not much room and that was my biggest issue in production. I also had to warp them to show which character was speaking which made the speechbubbles out of proportion to others and this didnt make a consistent size throughout. The description box worked out well and the colour made the text stand out and had a different colour to the speechbubbles which made them clear which one was which. The text in the description box fitted well and didnt overlap to the border and sitted well and clear in the boxes. The first text I used in both the speechbubbles and the description box were both the same and it didnt really have a comic book effect to it. So then I decided to do a selection of testers with different fonts on a test page. This gave me a clear understanding of what fonts would work well in comparison to other fonts. I settled on the font Suplexmentary Comic for my speechbubbles as it has clear lines which makes it easier to read when its so small too and its quite bold which makes it stand out on the page. It also looks a lot more comicy for speech and fits in really well. For the description boxes, I used the font Bang Whack Pow because of how clear it looked on the page and how simple it is for description. But thinking back I should of used a bolder font to make it stand out more than the text as in some comic books they do this. I think it might have worked better if both the fonts were swapped around so the bolder font was used for the description to make it stand out on the yellow background, then the lighter font used in the speechbubbles so its not too heavy. I think the text I used in the novel links with the images and fits really well together and doesnt not link with the images so it makes them relevent. I think I should of added some more description within the story to support the images more. For example when the grandma is in the wardrobe, its just the picture but the gran hasnt been introduced in the story so it should be highlighted that its her in the wardrobe and what happened.

SignificationI used a black bold border around my images and used a dark theme throughout my story as it represents darkness and mystry and with the black border it narrows it in and keeps the focus on the darkness in the panels. Red Riding Hood wears a red cloak and this means danger as she is the main focus on being killed and it could also mean blood as she is killed and this is important because the colour strongly symbolises what happens later on in the story. Also on page one, she stands out from the nature and green colours in the background which shows she isnt in her natural and comfortable environment and how vunrable she is in this new environment for her. For my backgrounds I chose quite hidden and deserted looking backgrounds. For exampe the house in the woods is quite run down and in a dark area as there are a lot of shadows along the wall which shows the dark and scary side which lies behind the shadows. The woodchopper is wearing grey which symbolises moral ambiguity so we dont know at the start if he is good or bad so this could lead to wonder and mystery, wanting to know if he is or not. The wolf on page 4 has tones of black and a dark grey which symbolises evil and the dark side but on page one he has the light greys and hints of blue within his fur which contrasts with the red on Red Riding Hood. When Red Riding Hood is in the room with the wolf, both the eyes contast really well as Red Riding Hood has blue eyes which symbolises vunrability compared to the yellow, hungry eyes of the wolf and these reflect welll against the pure black background which heightens the danger which is being shown through the wolfs eyes.

RepresentationIn my story, I have expressed the vulnerability of Red Riding Hood as she is a young girl who is more exposed to danger and this puts a negitive effect on women and children as also the gran and the mother are exposed more to danger too as the gran has been kidnapped and the mum is close to being killed, it shows the weakness in women and the vulnerability between them all. Then the heroic and the strongness is brought out in the woodchopper when he kills the wolf to protect the mum so it shows the protection provided from the men and their role. It shows the men are also there just to save the women as he doesnt have much of a character but then comes along and kills the wolf and thats his input in the story and is now the leader of the book and heroic for all women.

Historical and Cultural ContextI had a look at a website which had the tradtional fairytale that was witten by Charles Perrault which was published in 1697. I made sure I picked out the ideal parts of the story and most important parts that needed to be put in to show the main parts of the story and this was managed really well, I think that I picked the right parts. Since this version was written, there has been 28 adaptations of Red Riding Hood and this includes films too that have been created .

Production ProcessesThe overall production of my graphic narrative has been produced very well considering my shortage of time. During my production, I lost my memory stick and because I didnt back it up, I lost all the production I had completed which was the backgrounds and the layouts of the pages. So I had a week left to complete my production as I wanted to finish it in time with the rest of the class. So even though I had less time to complete it, the finished product looks just as good as what the product would look like if I had finished it without losing my memory stick, so next time I should back up my work to make sure I have it saved even if I lose my memory stick. I didnt look at my schedule throughout the project as parts took longer to do and some were quicker than I thought and in all honesty it should have been stuck to but when I lost my memory stick, I needed to come away from the schedule anyway as I had to start again. But I am very happy that I finished the product on time and then it was done and I am happy with that. There are some areas of the product which I wanted to change. For example, on the first page, Red Riding Hood is looking straight on when speaking to the wolf when the wolf is at hip level, so I should of taken the image so she was looking down at the wolf to make it look more effective and if they were actually speaking to each other and give them eye contact. Also, I wanted to take some images for the background but I knew this wouldnt of worked as well when I was wanting to complete it in the time set so I had to re-think and get the images off the internet for the backgrounds but I think it would have been more productive to use images I had taken for the background to go with the pictures of the characters I had taken. When I took the pictures of the characters, the lighting in the room turned some of the pictures orange and this came out in some of the images and this disapointed me because it made the characters have different tones. As you can see in the example image, the mum is orange in one panel and then in the next panel she is overexposed and so I should of used either natural light instead of flash or tweeked it on Photoshop before putting them on the final layout. I thought some areas of my product really worked well and I do think the characters were Rotoscoped well enough to look as if they were took on that background setting and I am really pleased with the last page because I put quite a few images together, the blood was all different images of blood, the characters, the wolfs head and the background and this was quite a challanging page and overall it looks great. I also think the cloning was a very creative part of the project and the image works really well as well with the wolf put on the top because the shadow from the man who was originally on the image, looks like its the wolfs shadow and works well together. I think on page two, the image of the wolf walking away from Red Riding Hood didnt work well at all and I should of got another image of a wolf to make it look like he was walking away as I warped the wolf image too much to try make it look realistic and as if he was walking away. In my work I used a range of tools in Photoshop, I used the Crop Tool, a range of comic look effects, the Clone Stamp Tool, the Threshold Adjustment, Rotoscoping (Magnetic and Polygonal). For my borders I used the Stroke Tool on the images but sometimes the images overlapped the border and this lost the border. So I decided to use the Rectangle Tool to put rectangles along where the border would be and this gave an equal border throughout the book. I also made sure the text box borders were the same thickness as the borders around the images to give an even look. So using Photoshop, I used a range of different skills that I have learned throughout the book to make it as good as I could get it.

I had looked at various examples of layouts when I was doing my research for my graphic novel. This was so I could see what I could do with my work and how I could make it look really professional and similar to ones that are out now. From looking at existing products I feel that mine in comparason has very similar features and could work really well if it was published as I have kept things the same as professional ones. Here is an example from a graphic novel that I have chosen to look at. The layout of the panels are very similar to some of my pages and even though the border is quite thick around the edge of the page, I kept the thickness of mine quite thick but I think it works better how I did it. The thickness of the border in the middle of the panels to separate them are abiout the same thickness of how I did mine so this is a similar feature between mine and the existing products. I think in the existing product, the speech bubbles seem to blend in better with the art and I think that it doesnt look cramped and its easy to read the writing. I think even though mine is easy to see and read and it fits on the pages, sometimes they look slightly cramped and some had to be overlaid over each other. This could be improved by me making bigger panel boxes like this novel has done and this will make it easier for me to spread it out without it looking cramped. They left there dialogue boxes in white whereas I changed mine to yellow but I think the yellow stands out better and a lot of novel books have used yellow for the dialogue boxes. The illustraition in the example novel is very cartoon styled and also looks really detailed and professional. I think mine works well but it doesnt have that effect of it being like a cartoon and it doesnt look as illustraited as the top one. This could be something that I could have done, maybe drawn the images to make it look more graphic and like a graphic novel. The fonts are quite similar too in the example and my version of a graphic novel. Its bold and stands out on the page and is also easy to read. The colours and the tones in the example image really flow well together and work well and it doesnt look like a clash and contrast of colours. With my images the red does tend to stand out too much and come across really sharp compared to the background images so I think there can be a clash of colours and it doesnt flow as well but I do think that the similar layout of both images show the comparason of the example and my copy.