Silent Witnesses: Graphic Novels Without Words

Just seen this, it looks like exactly the kind of thing we should be looking at, it will fit in with one of your later units on narrative illustration so you should definitely go and have a look see. Information is shown below!

Best of all its free

Silent Witnesses: Graphic Novels Without Words
Curated by Darren Diss

Artists include: Lars Arrhenius, Hendrik Dorgathen, Eric Drooker, Max Ernst, Matt Forsythe, Alexandra Higlett, Laurence Hyde, Jason, Andrzej Klimowski, Peter Kuper, Chris Lanier, Frans Masereel, Otto Nuckel, Shaun Tan, Zoe Taylor, Lynd Ward, Sara Varon and Jim Woodring.

This exhibition brings together the work of internationally recognised artists and illustrators from around the world working in Graphic Novel form. Spanning publications from the early twentieth century to the present day, the works contained in the exhibition are distinct in that all use the capacity of images alone to communicate narrative, functioning entirely without the use of text.

The exhibition celebrates the book form and in particular the Graphic Novel as an increasingly popular medium for artists and explores its enduring appeal to readers of all ages. By focussing on works without text it examines the underlying structure and mechanics of developing a Graphic Novel, exposing it as a unique art form. It looks at the Novel in the true sense, as an extended sequence conveying a narrative. The show includes preparation and working drawings, writings, flat plans, sketch books and character studies and associated works alongside complete book-works to reveal the various developmental stages in creating a Graphic Novel.

The exhibition combines works from a wide range of cultural contexts, from modern popular Graphic Novels, with scratchboard images by Eric Drooker produced for his novel ‘Flood’, to woodcuts by Frans Masereel for his his 1925 work ‘Die Stadt’, to original drawings by Sara Varon for her well loved books, ‘Sweater Weather’, ‘Robo and Hund’ and ‘Chicken and Cat’. Also in the show will be a large scale flat-print version of ‘A-Z’ by Lars Arrhenius, a novel produced on the iconic A-Z map of London. Shown in print form it allows the viewer to scan the intersecting narratives sewn through the map in a single image, creating ever new readings.

Works for the exhibition have been loaned to The Collection from the British Museum, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Klinspor Museum, Offenbach, Scott Eder Gallery, New York, and from the exhibiting artists.

The show’s curator, Darren Diss, is an established illustrator and Senior Lecturer in Illustration at The University of Lincoln. He has a specialist academic research interest in Textless Narratives.

COOP Film festival

Ive just recieved notification that the Co-operative Film Festival is looking for entries for this years awards. the deadline for entries is 28th May 2010.




I want to enter your final Unit 3 animations for this so make sure you make them awesome!
Also if you get your work shown, we can make use of it for Unit 4 next year!

Unit 1 Evaluation

1.You need to get client feedback off me to stick into your sketchbook before you evaluate your work.

2.You must include a written evaluation in your sketchbook, the following questions will help you cover all of the areas you need to meet the criteria of the specification. Do not answer the questions directly, instead use them to help shape your overall essay style evaluation.

Which of your 3 ideas have you chosen to take forward into a final animation?
Why have you chosen it?
How does your idea fit the brief set?
What Artists/Designers work has helped you develop your final Idea
What client feedback have you received?
Did your research help you? If not what would you do differently, and If it did help, how so?
What changes and modifications have been made to your idea?
What problems have you faced? And how did you overcome them.
What is the plan for your final animation in unit 3?

Finishing Unit 1

Your sketchbook work and finished designs should all be near to completion. to make sure you pass you need to provide certain evidence, alot of this will have been completed already but you should still check to make sure that all your bases are covered.

the specification requires the following evidence

Investigation into brief
Feedback from client (this will be done with me, as soon as you've finished your finished designs I can give you feedback to go into your sketchbook before your evaluation.)
Generation of initial ideas (this will be evidenced through your thumbnail sketches)
How artists/designers work has been used (you must annotate your work and explain how the artists you have looked at have influenced your work)
How ideas have been changed (annotations need to explain any alterations or changes)
Final range of Ideas Presented (A3 photoshop file ready to print off)



Evaluation

Once you have done the above work its time to evaluate your work. your evaluation must include analyse and reflections on the following:

Research and investigation
Changes and modifications
Client/audience feedback
Problems and how they were overcome
Opportunities for future work

Backgrounds and concept art

Ok youve designed your characters now you need to get your backgrounds designed and some concept art giving a feel for what your animation would look like. to do this choose key scenes from your animation and illustrate them!







The next examples is a really good way to show that you have used reference and thought through your background designs Have a look at it and I suggest maybe trying to put together similiar piece for your own animation ideas.






Below are some very detailed designs from the Halo series of games.






Designs below are for comercials made by some design agencies.

The next two designs are for James Cameron's latest film 'Avatar'

Below are some concept designs from a 3D animation that an artist is producing.

These last two images are concept art from Disney's sleeping beauty. the final film ended up looking very different but the feel was still the same as in these designs.

So while im away you need to get well into producing your art work, so that when i return i can help you out with making your ideas look as great as possible.

Mr R.

Character and concept designs

You should be in a position now to start working towards you final designs for your 3 different ideas for an animation, to complete unit 1 you must have produced art work for each of your ideas. Ive included some designs from a graphic novel im illustrating to give you a idea of what i mean and also some great examples of character design work done for animations and computer games,

I hope you notice how different each of the character designs look to each other. the theme and mood of the animation you plan to make will influence how you present your work, so keep your designs inventive, creative and exciting!

have a look at the examples below and if you need to go look for other examples either on line or in some of the 'making of' or 'the art of' books that get brought out when films are released.

Design sketches from 'the forgotten'

Character designs from Wolfenstein 3D




Characters from the Number 9 film by tim burton



Designs for a web games characters

Designs for a Red riding hood animation.

Designs for a Goldilocks themed cartoon.

So there are just a few examples, its up to you to make sure that yours look just as good and fit the mood of your animation.

Thumbnail sketches

You will soon be finishing off the rest of your project research work, which means we can start on the designing cool animations part of the course.

Your first design task is to produce 2+ pages of thumbnail sketches. these could be quick character designs, ideas of scenes or shots in your film or basically any idea that you have on how you might make your film.

Its important that you arent focusing on one idea too much at the moment, as I want you to produce 3 different ideas or versions of your idea as your final peice for unit 1.

Making your thumbnails look good!

While thumbnailing and the genral roughing out of initial ideas is always going to look a bit scruffy, I still have high expectations of what I want your sketchbooks to look like. I want every page to reflect your creativity and imagination.

To help you make nice looking thumbnails I've sketched out some roughs for a design job I'm currently working on. Ive drawn all the roughs in biro (its my prefered choice for scribbling down ideas) and then taken them into photoshop to add a few greys to them and arrange them in a way so I can add notes next to them.

Ive added the images to this blog for you can have a look see at what I want your thumbnails to look like.

I will run through the process of adding the greys and preparing your sketches in todays lessons.

You task

2+ pages of annotated thumbnail sketches for your initial ideas.