The original impulse behind my creative project titled Shy Girl was prompted by an ongoing interest in both illustrations and story-telling. I found these two disciplines to additionally play a felicitous role in the relevance to my major in animation. Early animated cartoons had a special relationship with comic strips because comics served animators as an all-important fund of imagery and narrative material (Hatfield, 2004). This added to my eagerness to create a comic strip.
The outcome is a partial section of a comic strip, which I intend to continue composing following the completion of this unit. Despite the generous time frame allocated to the project, the final outcome was not on my original agenda. I highlighted back in my project brief that my initial goal was to create and produce a complete short story comic strip. I have instead finished the unit presenting a small section of the comic, in place of the whole story which I would have liked to have achieved. This has left me with mixed emotions regarding my creative project.
Further inspiration pursuing my desire to band together with a comic strip, was the collection of unfinished story plots I had accumulated through imagination over the years. I would confidently argue that animation and the comic book have a long-established relationship that features a myriad of adaption, remediation, and cross-media synergy. In consideration with this, my idea was born. First, animated cartoons have been a source of inspiration for many comix artists, and were an important fund of imagery for the late-sixties underground in particular, with its emphasis on the subversive recasting of familiar elements from cartoons past (Hatfield, 2004). I found this interesting and inspiring, a path I was curious to know more about, and potentially take myself.
I found that the main purpose of this project was an opportunity for me to practice my drawing skills, something that I have been meaning to do, after a few years of ignoring it. I believe I have achieved this relatively well and I am proud that this part of my goal came together. I do not think I would have attempted this if it weren’t for the requirements of this unit. Having the opportunity to combine my passion and drawing skills, I was genuinely excited about a project that allowed me to work with both.
The biggest thing I learned throughout the creative project, was that the planning of time played a central role in the development of any creative project. I am not exactly fervent on the finished piece, which I believe my poor time management skills had a role in playing.
I began researching fundamental aspects of comic strips and looking into the history of it all. I have never been an avid comic book reader, therefore I thought this exercise was a relevant stage to complete, in order to reach my desired goals. In truth it was squandering my time, I was not gaining any inspiration or knowledge so I stopped there. I never had the intention of copying a particularly style, a dominant goal of mine was to produce a work which was different, I wanted to take one concept (comic book style) and apply my own twist.
Zala, From Home, was the original title of the story, which has been amended on completion, to Shy Girl. A lot has changed from first consideration. I didn’t follow rules, particular because I did not know where to find the appropriate rules. I winged the entire thing which was a risk. The first thing I decided on was the name of my story. Zala is a county in south-western Hungary, where ancestors of mine originated. This felt appropriate as I developed an emotional connection to the name. From Home was the title of a magazine article I noticed, the font appealed to me so I took the two words and put things together. I believed I could easily gather inspiration from my title and begin the process from there. This ended up not being the case and I have since changed the entire concept of my storyline and its title.
Next, I completed a character description sheet to get my imagination flowing, followed by a beat sheet for my plot. I then left things there for over a week when I was distracted by unexpected work conditions and other assignments. This is where I fell behind in my creative project. When I came back to my comic strip, my idea’s had changed, I had new ones and suddenly the initial concept didn’t excite me. I felt stuck because my new ideas sounded good in my head until I put them into practice. Deciding to take a break from the plot and character development, I began drawing and became consumed in this stage for too long. For the remainder of the process, I felt stressed and frustrated as the result of I leaving things to the last minute, I found myself rushing the process.
The intentions of learning Adobe illustrator to render my works was hindered by the result of my disheveled time management skills. Leaving insufficient time to learn the skills to develop a work of quality standards, led me to hand produce the project. The result in hand producing from draft to finish product allowed me to work on my drawing skills. This was not the original plan, therefore, I am distracted in seeing a positive in this area. I developed my drawing skills and enjoyed the process of doing so, though I was eager to self-learn how to use Adobe Illustrator as part of the process. One of the reasons I was interested in using Adobe was to try something new, I wanted a challenge.
When I fell short of inspiration, which I did once I noticed the remaining time left for the project, I turned to picking up a graphic novel I had recently purchased. I was infatuated by every element of this piece of work, the book inspired me to take a more simplistic approach to my design, as it emphasised that less is more, through its warm, soft colours hues that resonated with the mood of each story. The inspiration developed from reading and viewing this book left me unimpressed with my entire project so far. I struggled to find rewarding aspects of my work which I had produced. I wished I had picked this book up at the beginning of the semester instead. Once new ideas encouraged by the book flooded my head, I wanted to re-design the whole concept of my story, though time was not on my side by now.
Toward the end of the process, I focused predominantly on getting the visual flow to work, the overall appearance and artwork of the comic piece. I neglected the storyline which I am disappointed in myself for. I understand the storyline is just as important as the artwork of any graphic novel or comic strip and I did not achieve this in my final work. It was purely down to the time management. I could have just completed a detailed cover page and a significant blurb with the time I had for the entire project, however, I am not regretful of my work as I have managed to face obstacles and learn from every aspect of the process.
Essentially the creative process or the design process is a problem-solving process which I now see clearly. I would have been more successful if I had approached the project in a systematic manner. In Hahn’s book he mentions that by focusing on the end product, rather than the process or journey, we set ourselves up for a life of boredom, stress, and tension (Hahn, 2011). I really should have embraced every part of the process and I should have documented more aspects it, such as my emotional journey. I was worried at times that my blog was going to be too long and I did not want to include anything unnecessary. Only realising this now that every part of the process, emotional and physical, was necessary to document.
According to Simon (1996), there are three main drivers of creativity, preparation, knowledge or expertise in the specific discipline and taking risks. Without fulfilling all of these requirements, I did not complete work on standards that I anticipated. The entire process was new to me as a first-year student and a creative. I am a bit of a perfectionist, therefore, I know I can be my own harshest critique at the best of times. Something as simple as understanding that the process was the main focus of this unit, was difficult for me to acknowledge. Throughout the process, I unintentionally continued to forget the reason for the project. Only now, after it all, I can see how valuable the process of any work is to its final product. To me, my final project did not turn out how I wanted it to but I learned a serious amount of helpful things that I will understand and use in my next venture, along with keenness to pursue this comic in a full graphic novel.
References:
Hahn, D. (2011). Brainstorm: Unleashing Your Creative Self: Disney Editions.
Hatfield, C. (2004). The Presence of the Artist: Kim Deitch’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams vis-a-vis the Animated Cartoon. 1, Issue 1. Retrieved from Image Text: Interdisciplinary Comic Studies website: http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v1_1/hatfield/?print
Simon, H. A. (1996) The Sciences of the Artificial (3rd ed.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Image 1: Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/19/killing-and-dying-by-adrian-tomine-review
Re-Creativity 