Illustration and Visual Narrative | Task 3: Webtoon and Motion Comic
The third task is to come up with a HORROR (oh no) webtoon/comic and apply
minimal animation to it later.
Inspiration/Research
I'm too chicken... come back later, maybe I will gather courage by then.
UPDATE: I found inspiration but in terms of the layout/style of the comics,
and it's all not horror :D
Figure 1: Comic Inspiration, Week 9 (29/10/21)
For the left comic, I liked the colours and the layout of it, where the scene
of the panel makes up for the background of other panels (if that makes
sense..). In other words, there are no white gutters. It feels very dynamic
and visually appealing. For the other two comics, I liked the pacing of the
panels, how it focuses on one object (middle comic) and the focus on the
subjects outside the panels (right comic).
3-Act Story
ACT 1 - Setup
Once upon a time, there was a child named Bob. Bob was a regular student
living routine-like life. Living alone with his mother, his mother wakes up
at 9am every morning, gets dressed, goes to school, studies and plays hard,
comes back, eats his dinner, and sleeps. However, there is another thing
that was consistent with his lifestyle: the monsters that came out every
night. Because of this, they have visited many doctors to find a cure but to
no avail. Bob became dependent on his mother to comfort him every night and
they would record the details of the ordeal.
ACT 2 - Conflict
One day, after Bob came home from school, his mother excitedly announced
that a cure has been discovered by a professional psychiatrist for his
condition and that she got a hold of a bottle of pills from them. Because of
that, Bob ate the prescribed medication in hopes that it will help ease his
nightmare. Because of that too, Bob felt very sleepy suddenly after dinner
and went to bed early. While sleeping soundly, he suddenly felt (insert
horror parts here)….
ACT 3 - Resolution?
Until finally, he woke up in cold sweat while screaming and his mother
hurriedly rushed to the room in worry. He cried and hugged her while she
softly comforted him, mentioning that it may take some time before he can
feel better. While doubtful, Bob nodded and slowly went back to sleep with
his mother by his side. After he fell asleep, her expression flips and she
hurriedly noted down the details. Opening the drawer, letters of test
hallucination drugs and compensation money are revealed, showing that the
‘cure’ that the mother gave to Bob was meant to induce these horrors in
return for money. She smiles sinisterly, and it ends
Feedback: Ms Anis said that I can continue with this story, but I need
to emphasize and portray the mother as loving in ACT 1 to link it better to
ACT 3.
Concept Sketches
Let's start with our two main characters: Mom and Bob (name subject to
change..).
Figure 2: Character design sketches, Week 9 (29/10/21)
I first designed Bob first and made use of 'safer' or more docile shapes like
circles and squares to show his timid, anxious nature. His expression is also
always scared (and the eyebags underneath his eyes are consistent).
For Mom, as she was the villain, I (tried) hinted at it through her character
design by using triangles in her design and giving her pointy hair. But, also
because she was also a ~hidden~ antagonist, there are some parts where she
looks soft (like the hips, hair curves, and eyes) to kind of disguise her
seemingly innocent, loving character.
Figure 3: Horror character (?) concept, Week 9 (29/10/21)
I knew I wanted to make use of shadows as part of the horror character(?)'s
design, so I utilized the space under the bed. I made the hands as gnarly and
pointy as possible, and the smile under the bed was inspired by a commission I
did a while ago (Fig 4). So it's kinda like this character living under the
bed, and can extend its two long lONG arms from under the bed to torture the
victim as they sleep.
Figure 4: My new nightmare, Week 9 (29/10/21)
Comic Sketches
Ms Anis did say we shouldn't go straight to drawing our comics in panel
form, but.. I kinda did it before she said that :,)... I can see why she
said we should plan first because it took so so long to just sketch these
out ;-;
I started sketching Act 2 first as that is where all the
horror horror things happen, then Act 1 and Act 3.
I present, my sketches:
Act 1
Figure 5: Act 1 sketches, Week 15 (29/11/21)
These 5 pages introduce the setting in which Bob and his mum live. It shows
his repeating routine of going to school, studying, playing, coming
home..etc, also including the constant nightmares he faces every night
(hence...eyebags). His mother's love is also portrayed through her providing
lunch and also kissing him goodnight (also implying it is part of the
routine).
Figure 6: Act 2 Sketches, Week 15 (29/11/21)
This act takes up more pages. While the first few panels don't directly show
the conflict, it provides the starting point of how it all starts (so, I
guess it's Act 1.5, acting as a bridge between the two acts). As
it transitions to night / the time of conflict, the colour schemes generally
become darker and monochromatic. I made it that way to show the contrast
between the two 'worlds', a difference between reality and when Bob is
facing his nightmares. There's also a contrast between straight and edgy
shapes in the nightmare pages against the softer, rounder panels in the
'normal' pages.
Figure 7: Act 3 Sketches, Week 15 (29/11/21)
This act reveals a small twist that his mother is behind his hallucination
ordeal - by signing an illegal drug test deal for a handsome reward of
$1,000,000. Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. But, with these sketches, the
entire comic totals up to exactly 50 panels :D
..time to digitize
Digitizing
Given that I sketched it with colour and had a 'planned' composition, it was
kind of directly tracing it. While straightforward, I had to keep in mind to
separate different groups and layers for animation later.
Figure 8: AI files, Week 15 (29/11/21)
Given that there were many panels (and, hence, many potential layers) to
animate, I created a new AI file for each page so that AE won't crash on me
later on (and that I wouldn't have to sift through hundreds of layers to
find the one I need to animate).
Figure 10: More digitizing progress, Week 15 (29/11/21)
Since the animation layout is not the same as the comic layout, I created two
different artboards for each page to depict how each scene will look in both
scenarios. It's a little troublesome but I think this sort of planning will
make it less complicated in the animation stage. The font used in this comic
are Komika Slim and my very own handwriting(s)~ I then uploaded the comic to
Webtoon :D
Click me for the Webtoon link~
Full webtoon (PDF):
Figure 11: Final Webtoon Comic (PDF), Week 15 (2/12/21)
Animation
Note to self (and anyone reading this): AE can only read ONE, and only ONE
artboard in AI.
Note to self #2: Max duration for the animation is 3min/180s, 180 divided by
17 pages ~ 10.5s per page.
Note to self #3: CHANGE AI TO RGB MODE
So after all the note-to-self(s), I finished the animation. I realized I used
a lot of the 'wiggle' code in the animation, as well as learned how to use the
puppet tool to give some life to the hand and claws. Also, to make my life
slightly easier, I made a new composition for all the pages to organize.
Figure 12: AE Layers, Week 15 (3/12/21)
Figure 13: AE wiggle effects, Week 15 (3/12/21)
Figure 14: AE puppet tool, Week 15 (3/12/21)
Adding SFX
I dreaded this part the most because I was/is/am very very scared to
search horror SFX. The visuals man, I want to sleep peacefully tonight :(...
Come back later when I have gathered enough courage
edit: I'm so happy Enderman sounds exists
I'm back with many updates :D!! I was very directionless throughout this
whole thing but the first step in audio editing is..finding as many audio
sources as possible on YouTube.
Figure 15: Audio files downloaded, Week 15 (3/12/21)
It was rather easy to find 'scary' SFX (like the evil laugh, creaky door,
scratch..etc) but I couldn't find a piece of suitable easy-going background
music (ideally, piano) for it. They were either too cute, too long, too
short, or lo-fi (which, let's be honest, doesn't suit this style at all).
So I decided to record a simple arrangement on piano, just looping the happy
fifths of C and G chords~ This particular tune probably exists somewhere anyways,,
I just can't find it. I recorded it on a whim, using Whatsapp, so,
please excuse the quality when you hear it :,D....
Figure 16: Whatsapp recording, Week 15 (3/12/21)
Figure 17: Editing piano BGM, Week 15 (3/12/21)
After editing and denoising it, I put it into Premiere Pro with the other
audios and got to work. I still didn't have a firm direction so I mostly
edited as it flows, getting inspiration as it comes. I think I had a lot of
fun just randomly mixing different sounds because, as long as there's
dissonance, it can sound like ~horror~
Figure 18: Editing video and audio, Week 15 (3/12/21)
It was a very happy coincidence actually, that the sound I recorded lines up perfectly with the duration at where I want to fit it in. And also, it so happens to end in the same note of the starting note (but in minor) of the ~horror~ soundtrack I was using (sorry I forgot the proper music terminologies..).
BUT anyways, with a whole day of Premiere Pro and more on After Effects, I
present to you, the final product with credits at the end (so that means you have to watch till the end :))
Final Animation
Reflection
Honestly, this was a project I dreaded starting because of the horror theme. I'm not a fan of horror at all, I don't find any appeal in it in terms of media like movies or comics and my horror tolerance is close to none... But I think the experience overall was pretty satisfactory as it really pushed me far far beyond my comfort zone in terms of genre and style. There are still things I think I can improve on, like the pacing and clarity of the setting.
I think I underestimated how long it will take to digitalize my sketches in AI, omygosh the layers were a nightmare to deal with because of how the AE-AI integration works. But, I was very surprised that the animation + audio editing took much lesser time. It was the longest project among previous ones but I can see why it is part of the scope because it forces you to imagine how the story can flow, to manage its pacing, how to convey the message in a frame and whether viewers can get your story. It was fun to record that small piano bit too. I also enjoyed the animating and video editing process a lot, especially the audio editing! Maybe horror is a good theme for this technical aspect; for me, it seems like adding anything with dissonance/clashing effects can create that horror sound effectively :D
I was kinda familiar with After Effects, but I did find a few gems that I kept using throughout. I did rely on re-using the wiggle feature a lot throughout the animation to make it less stagnant. The puppet tool was really useful in adding some life to the claws and hand as well! As for Premiere Pro, I was pretty familiar with it before this project so maybe that contributed to the speedy editing process. (seriously, I spent so much time on PR throughout this whole semester it should be considered as my 6th module).
I think this project also reminded me of the amount of work put into creating comics and animation, it looks deceptively simple but the process is anything but. Since forever I've watched a lot of animatics before and was always curious about how they were made. So after finishing this project, I feel like I finally figured out how it was made.
Maybe one day, I'll dig up ideas from years ago and create my own animatic :D
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