Horses in the Hallway

Another quarter is over! Is another year really almost gone?

Here's the grand finale of my only studio this quarter, Visual Storytelling 1. Our class was challenged to create a four-page comic in which we wake up in our dorm room late at night, grab a "weapon," and open the door to see something of our choosing.

My wonderful room mate and dear friend, Cassie (check out her blog too!), took this class previously and I remembered her assignment. At the end of her comic, she chose to open the door to a unicorn. Seeing as we share the same dorm room and had the same professor, I thought it would be funny to have my story be a continuation of hers. I wake up to realize she's not there, hear noises, and join her in the hallway with her unicorn.

Check out her project to see what I mean!

Page 4/4 of Cassie's comic

So anyways, here's what I came up with:


THUMBNAILS:

TIGHT ROUGHS:

Another aspect of this assignment was to experiment with bleed page format (panels that extend to the edges of the page). After doing our tight roughs, we were to arrange the panels in such a way that there would be at least one bleed per page. This was my first time experimenting with this, but I liked having the openness of this option.

BLEED EXPERIMENTS:

FINAL PENCILS:

And so ends another quarter at SCAD! Next quarter's menu includes two studio classes: Advanced Inking and Sketchbook. This will be a bit of break from storytelling, but I'm excited to build up my technique and craftsmanship.

Pastiche Comic: Doug TenNapel

Though Visual Storytelling 1 was my only studio class this quarter, I still had the opportunity to draw more comic pages. Survey of Sequential art has been a fascinating look into comics history. It's classes like these that make me so glad I chose this major.

Outside of class, we were to research a comics artist of our choice, put together a presentation, and then draw a single-page comic imitating his/her style and subject matter.

I chose Doug TenNapel, an artist I'm been enamored with since I was a kid. I grew up watching the Earthworm Jim cartoon and had more recently come across his webcomics Ratfist and Nnewts. He's an amazingly prolific artist with an incredible resume of working in animation, comics, and video game development. Not only is he hilarious and talented, but he's also an ambitious man of faith. I truly admire how he incorporates his passion for Christ in his work, most notably in graphic novels like Ghostopolis and Creature Tech. He's definitely an inspiration.

For my project, I came up with a story that followed TenNapel's reoccurring themes of curiosity, family, and amphibious creatures. If you don't believe me, check out his stuff, it's pretty rad. My story is of a son leading his father into the swamp to share his secret discovery of ancient amphibious diplocaulus (my class affectionally dubbed them "frog-puppies").

As far as the artwork goes, I inked using his tool of trade, a Winsor Newton Series 7 brush. I also included a panel mimicking his signature inverted silhouette style.



THUMBNAILS:

TIGHT ROUGHS/REVISIONS:

FINAL PIECE:

I don't do the guy justice, but this was such a fun assignment to do. It was a great opportunity to not only study another artist closely, but learn more about a personal hero.

Yeah, man!

Memoir Comic

This was my favorite assignment of the quarter! Our class was asked to put together a two page memoir comic, any story of our choice. I chose to draw the time I had to sneak into the back of Jacob's house because he forgot his keys. It was really late at night and we were trying our hardest not to wake his parents.

Ask me about it sometime.



THUMBNAILS:

 ORIGINAL TIGHT PENCILS:

FINISHED PENCILS:

Fun project! It was really neat seeing how everyone else drew themselves. Only one more assignment to go!

Bartman and Houseboy

Midterms have passed. Another quarter is half-way over. Here's what I've been working on the past two weeks.

We were given a Simpsons script in which Bart, Milhouse, and Santa's Little Helper act as superheroes and travel through the sewer, ending up in an alternate Springfield. We were to draw pages three through five.


CHARACTER REDESIGNS:

THUMBNAILS:

TIGHT ROUGHS:

Upon finishing the tight roughs, our class had a critique. Everyone suggested that I add more textures to areas of solid white/black. Also that I redraw some of my figures and environment elements.

FINISHED PENCILS AFTER CRITIQUE:

Critique today went well! My strengths were my shot calls and my textures. Weaknesses were issues with scale and perspective, but the class agrees that I'm making big improvements. Glad to be going in a good direction.

Gotham by Gaslight

This is coming in a little delayed, but here is my second assignment for Visual Storytelling 1.

We were given a script from Gotham by Gaslight and had to put together one page. It's like Batman in Victorian times, I guess? Oh well. The script describes a woman being followed down an alley by a Jack-the-Ripper type of character and Batman comes to the rescue.

This is the first time I've inked in a long time. I'm still pretty clumsy, but I really want to get the hang of the nice Windsor Newton brush I bought.


CHARACTER DESIGNS/THUMBNAILS:

FINISHED PENCILS:

FINISHED INKS:

I'm still an amateur with a brush, but I'll be practicing a lot more. I wasn't happy with the inks as much as the pencils. Class critiques are always helpful--- I have a lot of perspective issues to sort out as well as lighting on the planes of the face.

Really stepping outside my comfort zone this quarter and learning lots.

Visual Storytelling I.

I knew what I was getting myself into, but this quarter definitely started out with a huge workload. Visual Storytelling I. is my only studio class this quarter---and I'm pretty thankful.

So for this first assignment, our professor resurrected a script that he himself was the artist for, early in his career.

Yes. Early in his career.

I'll cut to the chase. Our class was asked to thumbnail an 18 page issue, and then we would be designated 3 pages to do full-sized pencils of. The class combined would cover the entire issue multiple times over.

I was assigned the first 3 pages in which Johnny speaks to his grandfather and then heads to school with his friend Kyle, who is carrying an enormous, heavy book.

So here's my stuff!

THUMBNAILS:

ROUGHS:

TIGHT ROUGHS:

FINISHED PENCILS:

Critique went well. I am so thankful to be surrounded by such a brilliant community. The verdict is this: my perspective needs some drastic work, but I was successful when I made some brave moves with my black placement.

Glad I was finally able to post up this assignment. I miss updating more frequently. You can see snippets of my work in progress on my twitter: @lisanaffziger.

Hefty Projects

I wish I could update more often, but this first project for Visual Storytelling 1 spans nearly three weeks. Expect a big, bulky update by the end of the month.

Only one studio course this quarter, which means I can keep busy with applying for internships and stuff. Wish me luck.

I AM ALIVE JUST SO YOU KNOW