25/09/14 Idea development method
As I am still unsure on the final outcome idea as to how I wish to present this I'm starting with the basic structure of what is involved in breaking in / taming a horse (based upon my own horse as a reference). on this chart below I split a time scale of 4 months for breaking a un-handled horse (leaving a month in there as a turn away for the horse which is usually a year but easier for me to work out in the beginning written as a month), the standard for breaking a horse is usually 6 weeks if sent away but I going on want happened with my horse, so I drew in the key aspects that need addressing and the time they take - for example bitting is from first time getting a bit in the horses month to it now excepts it without a fuss, but for the lunging and long reining once they are started they can all be improved ever after backed so they go to the end of the backing time line. I then jotted down some key events that happened within each section.
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a quick sketch of a possible page idea see how a lot of text could fit in with a image
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I was going to see if a "How to" book would suit my idea but as I was reading thelwell I couldn't help but do a sketch with some thelwell humour
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my favourite style of communicating what is happening in a story or scene has always been sequential so I did this sketch of a horse jumping out of a horsebox being pulled around and rearing
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I have decided that I will turn my idea into a story using sequential but as there is a lot to tell within the story I will look at ways of including more text or detail so that nothing is missed due to space but making an achievable goal for the story
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sketched a scene within the story of the horse not wanting to be caught and jumping the fence but I think on the left page the close up of the horses face might work better before the close up of the legs...
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another sketch of a scene near the beginning of the story where the horse box arrives (there will be some text in the top frame
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black and white vs colour
i will be going with the colour as it has more depth and stands out more also through my survey people said they liked the colour better and was more likely to buy something that it in colour than black and white
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Thumbnails -
the sketches I did to plan out the pages for story. sketching each part separately making sure to get the important things in without worrying about page length and joining everything together
although these sketches are probably hard to understand being mainly lines and circles they make a lot of sense to me and help me know what is going where this first one is for the beginning of the story introducing the main character willow and the arrival of the horse
this one is of the horse learning to take the bit and catching it for the first time
this one is catching the horse and it jumping out of the paddock and them having to go catch it
this one is the second jump out which the horse fails and gets stuck behind the fence and they have to free it by doing this their bond gets stronger. and long reining after this
this one is the breaking in of the horse and them happy that the horse trust them enough to let them ride it
this one is set a bit after the breaking in of the horse and girl final best of friends
this is one of the pages of where they decide on a new name for the horse
first draft of the Story board - please forgive the spelling and grammar mistakes, also there maybe a parts that don't make sense sorry these will be corrected eventually.
colour tests
I experimented on how I was going to colour in my comic but this first two tests didn't really work and took too long as I was trying to hard to get good detail in the images but the colours were off a bit as well as the green is too green and bushes don't look like that.
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on this third test I decided to stick with simple limited colour palette and I think this works really well and is also quicker and I can't over think and work too much into it which tends to lead into it looks as such. but the background green is too bright so getting the right tone of colour I need to practice.
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decided that the story is boring and needs more background to the characters as was focusing to much on the activities of breaking in the horse so it wouldn't be interesting for someone to read.
so I'm going to add in another character and setting so that the girl will have to over come two problems one with the horse being wild and have to be tamed and second having no friends at college and having to try and make one and over come the difficulties with that
the changes I have decided to make to the story
this is the changes I made to the beginning of the story starting it with willow at college with a monolog explaining how she is all alone in the world with out a friend and that she thinks that getting a horse so that it will be her friend so she don't need people.
this is the second scene at college where willow makes the first encounter with her friend to be
this then goes on to the first stage of the horse where they have to catch it and then they try the bit making willow realise that the horse is dangerous and far from what see imagined
this is the next seen at college where willow is depressed because the horse is nothing like what she wanted and her new friend turns up to cheer willow up
this is where the mum introduces the treacle to catch the horse and uses it as an aid for getting the horse to except the bit and then the start of lunging
here we have the next college scene where willow has a fight with her friend
this is the scene where the horse jumps out of the paddock - originally I had the horse jumping out of the paddock twice making it the first time and failing the second time but thought that having this event happen twice is going to take the drama out of it and thought I could make this scene into the dramatic arc
putting it all together using some of the pages from the last story board that haven't been changed and sketched out the extra pages not worrying about how many pages it is going to be. - again please forgive the spelling and grammar and I don't there are parts in here that don't make sense or have been repeated I currently have someone checking all that for me.
the friends name started as faith but I changed it later to Abigail
here the name of the friend changes to Abigail
colour with text test -
as the intention was to have the text over the image on this page thought I would try and see how it would look or if I need to put some white down first
here you can't see the black text on the background so that will not work it needs a light colour behind it
I used the paint brush in photoshop to add some white in behind the text and that looks much better and doesn't make the image look bad with a big white blog
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the changes suggested to me
change the first page to include willow at college all alone without any friends
the draft I did for the changes to the first page showing her at college and traveling home
the changes to be made here are to show her imagining herself riding the horse possibly on a full page so that when she gets to ride the horse in the end its like what she imagined a link between the beginning and the end.
I did a sketch of what the full page would look like and viewed it next to the other pages but didn't really like how it flowed
as I didn't like the full page I tried expanding on the panel already there making the thought bubble bigger to have her riding the horse there instead but I didn't like the bubble being on the left
so I put it on the right
changes to be made here is to make sure that willow is in the shot
simple change here is to switch there two panels around
changes to be made here are to expand on this scene showing there expressions more
sketches made of the changes
I decided to make some changes here as I thought she wouldn't really say no to having a ride on the horse as it was her dream to be friends with it and ride it building a strong connection
changes to be made here are to add in a scene where willow is at college before the final section
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Title ideas -
trying to come up with a title was hard so I tried to form it around the horses name or something that happens/ said in the story
An Arrow of friendship
A Kind Eye
Fated Arrow
An Arrow to the Heart
title page and end page design.
cover design
i liked the one in the top right and lower left so i decided to try them in color
I tried this one but as I was doing this I thought that the atmosphere is not right and wouldn't suit the story
this one has a better atmosphere that suits the story
I thought this simple idea of the gate that appears a lot throughout the story might be good to put on the back cover
I added in a background and title which brightens up the whole image
I did you same for the back cover but the editing around the gate is a bit bad in places and could do with it done again and the text has some hyphenated words in there which I didn't notice straight off so they need to be fixed
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the newest story board with the amended text.
I printed off a dummy book and bound it together which gives a better idea of what the book would look like and feel like as holding a book makes a big difference being able to flick through it and see it for what it is. then I couldn't help but put in one of my bookmarks because it suits so well.
feed back -
try not centre aliening the type
make sure that the words don't get hyphenated
type different sizes, why is there a reason for this. could you use this to your advantage e.g. more important words bigger or emphasise words like 'HUH! in bigger type that the rest of the speech.
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left aligned type of all the same size and no hyphens -
I re done the type on the first few colour pages
getting rid of the hyphens makes it easier to read and I didn't want the hyphens in there in the first place but now I have found out how to stop them appearing that makes it a lot easier. the left aligned also makes it look neater. as for keeping the text all the same size it does make it more consistent and more professional in a way but then does make some of the bubbles too big for the text but I suppose in future I have to pay attention to the size of the bubbles more making sure they are the correct size for the text
left aligned with same size text unless expressing something or something is more important -
this works really well and I might explore this further throughout the story and it really brings emphasis to certain parts of the speech.
