Digital Graphic Narrative Planning

Use this booklet to help structure your planning and collate your planning documents.

Considerations:

There are lots of things to consider in this project. Fill out each section in detail to show you have thought about each one. You should imagine that this is a live project, so considerations like cost, quantity and codes of practice must be thought about in that context rather than just as a college project.

Costs: There isn't a ton of costs when it comes to creating a book, however they add up to quite a lot depending on

situations and choices along the way. The main costs are getting the book published, which can cost a lot of money depending on which publisher you want to go with, however this is a gamble, because if you go with a

bigger publisher then you have the chance of getting a lot more advertising and exposure, however by doing this you obviously have to invest a lot more money, which it is a choice on what to do for publishers. Another cost will come up when you are making a children's book is actually creating the physical copies of the book4

spend on the illustrator, however at the end of the day it comes down to how many books you sell, and if you don't sell any books, then creating a children's story book can end up being incredibly expensive.

Available resources: The available resources are pretty high, generally/always you will have a good computer with the ability to

connect to the internet with Photoshop bought and installed onto the system that you can use that has a high enough spec on the computer to actually work all of the programs well. Another resource that you will have if you are creating a children's book is access to the base material, this is the story of the book, and if the book

isn't new, you can use the internet to go look up different renditions of the same book, for example, I am doing the Three Little Pigs for my project and I go on Google all the time to get inspiration from other peoples ideas

and creations to help me with my work, for things such as the sizes of the models, or just the world that they are standing in, but not only to help me, but also to make sure I wasn't copying them without knowing and

make sure I wasn't going to get hit with copyright claims as soon as I release the product to the public.

Quantity: Selling different quantities of products can have different effects on your over all percentages on the amount

of products that are made. For example making a small amount of actual products to be sold means that generally more people actually will want to buy your products, this is because by putting the words "Limited edition" on you product, it makes people think that there are limited amounts of products being sold, and once

they are all sold that is it, making the audience and market of your product want to go out and buy your product, not only because they want to buy and use the product, but also because of the return they could get

off of the product, by keeping it in good condition and selling it back to other people who want the product later on and make some money. Another way of selling a product is by making a pretty much unlimited source of the product and then if anyone wants to buy the product then they can always know they can go out and buy

it. This is good because generally by doing this it means it maximises profits by having a lot of products being sold. I think for my book I would want to go on the second of these two options and making lots of books

which allows the book to sell a lot of profit, this is also because limited edition selli ng generally only works with a brand that's already built, and people know their products are quality, which is not the case for mine.

Audience and Target Market: The audience I am trying to go for when creating these books is the children's market, the reason I am going for this market is not only because I am making children's books, which are inherently designed for the

children's market, but also because the children's market is huge, and while the recommended age range of my books is 4-9 year olds, really this book can be read by any child between the ages of 3-13, depending on there skill in reading because everyone is different and some people just aren’t as good at reading as other

people making the audience and target market very broad. For the gender audience, I don't really think my book targets either gender, and really feel that at the end of the day either gender could go out and buy my

book and be happy with it. However if I really had to pick a gender that would buy my book more it would be males, due to the swords at the end being a more stereotypically male thing and there not being any female characters, I feel my book is more targeted towards males, however this wasn't done intentionally.

Quality Factors: The things that need to be done to make a children's book a quality product aren’t too extreme and generally it

is based in the quality of the illustrations in the book and the way the pictures are drawn, for example, if on each page of the book all the illustrations are really good, however the style of the drawings on each page is

completely different, this means the quality of the book is generally quite low, this is due to the illustrator not having a clear idea of what he wants the book to look like, causing the books art style to change from page to page. This is bad as well because it doesn't keep consistent throughout the whole book. Another thing that

can contribute to the low quality of the book is if the paper that the book is printed on is cheap and thin, this is really bad for children's books in particular because children generally aren’t very careful with their

possessions, meaning things get easily broken, especially something as easy to break as a book, becomes even easier to break if you use cheap materials to make it. Another thing that can effect the quality of a book is obviously the writing, and while this may seem obvious, for kids books a lot of people concentrate so hard

on the illustrations that they forget about the story and it gets overlooked, this is not good as one of the big points of a book is the way that the storyline flows and makes sense, and one of the big things in a children's

illustrated story book is the way the story line goes from page to page and makes sense with the pictures on the page.

Codes of Practice: The publishers codes of practice cover a broad range of topics but it all boils down to keeping the integrity of

the original author and illustrator in tact and to make sure that they get the money they deserve when the book is published and sold and to make sure they are not being scammed or having their ideas stolen by the publishers. Having things in the codes such as "The contract should be clear about ownership of the

copyright" and "The publishing contract must be clear, unambiguous and comprehensive, and must be honoured in both the letter and the spirit." both are put into the codes to make sure that the original author and illustrator are both getting the credit they deserve for the work they have done, not only in financial sense, but

also in the way that they are getting the recognition for creating a good idea and capitalising on it.

Regulation: Regulation is the rules that go with creating books and selling them, and while my book follows all of these rules, some children's books can, in a way, turn into toys and be effected by toy regulation as well. This

happens when a book puts things into it such as pop out pages and textured surfaces, and it has to make sure these things can't be used to injure the person reading the book, or playing with it because it is under the

toy regulations and rules. Another thing it needs to make sure of is that the toy, or anything in the toy doesn't resemble anything inappropriate due to being marketed at children.

Copyright: The copyright issues with writing a book and illustrating it is the way the pictures look and it's very easy for

something you to create to look like, or resemble another image that someone else has drawn before you and put into a different book that they have created, or have just drawn and you have seen before. You need to be

very careful with this and make sure that if you do use a picture or scenery as a base to your image to make the image that ends up being created by you drastically different from the picture you used as a base in the first place. This is very important due to how easy it is to sue someone over copyright, and how dangerous it

is to actually get sued in the first place. Another thing you have to do before you start making a children's book if you are not creating an original idea for the story is get permission to use the story that you are actually

going to use in your children's book. Some stories don't have anyone that owns them and are free to use by anyone, however others aren’t and you must get permission from whoever owns the idea of the story to use it in your book and especially to make money off of the story.

Ethical Issues: The big ethical issues with creating a children's is making sure the book is appropriate to children and doesn't harm them or teach them bad concepts, which seems simple, but even small things can be misinterpreted by children and parents will not be happy with this happening, and if it does happen it can be very bad for your

books, even, in extreme circumstances having all of your books pulled from the shelves and all that have been sold having to be handed in, and their money refunded, due to the book being inappropriate ethically to

children, which would obviously ruin your business. because of this you really have to be careful with the things that you put in your children's book, things like death, drugs, gambling, mature language and mature behaviour. If any of these things are found in your book, this can be very bad for your business, so I should try

and avoid it in the first place. There is nothing like this in my book however, meaning that I should be fine in the ethical sense when it comes to my book.

Resources:

A successful project relies on good planning. Considering all the resources you will need for a project and then assessing which you already have and which you need will help ensure you are ready to start your project.

If there is a resource you don’t currently have, then consider how you are going to get it before you go in to production.

Resource: Do you have it? What do you need to do to get it?

Computer Yes

Photoshop Yes

Camera (for original pictures of scenery

which I can rotoscope) No

I would either hire out or borrow a camera from a friend or I could buy one. Another option is using a phone camera,

however the quality wouldn't be as good.

Printer Yes

Internet Yes

Inspiration No

Using the internet to gather ideas and look at other peoples

work, without stealing it, you would slowly gather ideas and it would all come together to build your book.

Fonts No

Go online and download fonts that aren’t copyright and

explicitly say you can use them to make money with the font.

Production Schedule:

Delivering your project on time is vital. In order to do this, you need a solid plan of action. This will help you divide up your work in

to manageable chunks to be tackled one at a time. It will also allow you to plan which tasks need to be done in which order. It will also allow you to track your progress each day. If you are falling behind, you will need to modify the way you work. If you work faster than expected, you can clearly see what the next steps you need to take are.

Each session is a half-day of college.

Session 1: Start page two, We got an early start, so I started and finished page one at home, meaning I can start on page two. I also created the assets for the work before hand, such as the characters (the three pigs and the wolf) in all of their motions, such as running and standing still. I also created the housing too before hand, so when It comes to making these, I just put them into the pages where they belonged. For creation of the characters I used the warp tool on different shapes to actually create the characters, and took my inspirations from other renditions of the three little pigs, you can see this in the white gloves on the pigs, but I feel I differentiated enough to make a difference. I created the different housing by using actual housing and then rotoscoping over it and used the colour range tool to create housing that is unique, however it is based on real housing.

Do the background of the image, by putting the sky in using a blue fade effect, and by putting the floor, which is grass, into the picture by using a green box, with a fade. You add the grass effect to the green box by going online and getting a high definition picture of grass and using the colour range tool to put the shading of the grass onto the green square, creating a cartoony grass effect.

I will then grab the three different pigs in their walking animations and position them in the picture having the yellow pig walking out of the page at the left hand side of the page and the other two, the blue and the green pigs, walking out of the page on the right hand side. This will be made to make it seem like they are all walking different ways, and will be done by having the green pig facing away from the camera as to make him and the blue pig look like they are walking different ways. I will then get the picture of the wolf from my memory stick, which I will place right in the centre and a lot further forward than the other pigs. This is to make it seem like they haven’t seen him. He will be made a little bit bigger to show that he is closer to the camera.

I will then move the text box, which is a grey box with black text and a black boarder to the top of the screen as to not get in the way of the illustrations on the page, as these are the main focus of the book. This will be a recurring factor, of the text box moving and changing shape to not get in the way of the of the illustrations, and is why I will be mentioning it every page.

Session 2: On session two I will start by making the background of page three and make sure to keep it the same as page two and one, as not a lot has changed, this is also a recurring theme, the background of the image, as in the grass and sky, don’t really change, however I will be placing a lot of scenery such as the houses of the pigs, the characters themselves and the trees to make sure this isn’t a problem and for kids as because of these changes in the assets, it wont get boring.

I will then place the house I made earlier using a straw effect and the basic outline of a house to make a straw themed house and put it onto the right of the page. I will then place the stand still picture of the pig that is waving at the camera to the left of the house as to show that he made the house and is happy about it.

I will finish of page three by keeping the text box where it is, at the top of the page and entering the text “The first pig, Billy decided to build his house out of straw” in the text box. The reason I am keeping it at the top even though there is room at the bottom is because I don’t want it to look like the pig, Billy, is standing on the text box, and this might be an effect that gets added by putting it at the bottom of the page.

Session 3: Start page four by taking page three and keeping the house and the background grass and sky, as this wont be changing positions for this page and place the pig into the house, showing that he is in the house by the fact that he is in the window. After doing this I will place the scheming picture of the wolf into the image to the left of the house, in the space

where the pig used to be.

After doing this, I will place the speech bubbles into the image, placing the pigs in first and make the text of the speech bubble, “No, no, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin”. This is the response to what the wolf is saying in his speech bubble, which is “Little pig, little pig, let me come in”. I will be doing the pigs speech bubble first as it will be bigger, and I will take more time moving it around and positioning it, and editing the size of the font, to make sure that it fits on the page correctly and is readable.

After doing all of this, I will have everything in place to actually put the text box in, which by the looks of it, will either be in the sky of the page, or cut in half and at the bottom right. In the text box it will say, “After Billy built his house, the wolf turned up!” I have not put a lot of text on this page because it has text boxes and as this book is for kids aged between 4-11, I don’t want there to be too much text on the page.

Session 4: I will start page five by using the same picture as the last page, however at the end obviously save it as a new piece of work. This is because a lot of the assets are already there such as the background and the house, which I will be taking apart due to the wolf blowing the house down. However before I do this I am going to put a tree into the bottom right corner of the screen, I have one of these already saved in my assets, I made it by rotoscoping a real tree.

After I have done the first part with the background I will then take apart the house. I do this by using the polygonal lasso tool and cutting parts of the house out and then positioning them in such a way that makes it look like they are being blown away, the further away a piece has been blown, the smaller it will get, this is because when things are further away, they get smaller.

After doing this with the house I will delete the scheming wolf off of the page and replace him with the wolf in mid blow, to show that the wolf is blowing the house down, I will put him to the left of the screen, where he was standing before. I will also change the pig to his

running animation and put him slightly behind the tree to show he is running into the forest. After doing this I will then put the wind effect from the wolf’s mouth into the image. I have done this by using a shape tool and then using the faded rubber tool and faded the outlines, to give it a windy effect.

After doing this I will finish up the page, deleting the text boxes and putting in a new one coming from the wolf saying “Then I’ll blow your house down”. As well as this I will make sure that the text box is at the bottom of the page, and all the way across and enter the text “AND HE BLEW HIS HOUSE DOWN! Leaving Billy to run to his brother, Chris’s house, further into the forest”, which finishes off the page.

Session 5: I will then start page six, creating the floor and the sky again in the image, using the same technique as I’ve used to create the floor and sky before this, Like I said, it isn’t changing very much, but the assets in the picture are, so I feel this will keep it fresh.

I will then continue to put in the house of sticks into this picture which I made earlier, I made this house by getting the base shape of a house, creating a door and using the colour range tool off of a plank of wood, I copy and pasted a wooden plank effect up the house, I then cut a part out of the house and out a white square in it at low opacity, to simulate a window. After this I put the roof on by drawing a roof with the polygonal lasso tool and another picture as a guide.

After doing the house, there is only one more thing to do on this image that isn’t text, and that is to put he pig into the image, I will get the picture of the pig smiling and waving that I made earlier and put him into the picture, putting him to the right of the image, positioned in front of the door, but not fully, it should be slightly off, a little in front of the window too.

The last thing to do in this image is to put in the text box, and again, while the text box could go on the floor, this might end up like the pig is standing on it, and it could go all the way across the sky, however there isn’t much text in it for this slide, so I decided to go and only

put it in the top left of the page, I will then put in the text “Chris had decided to build his house out of sticks”. And this concludes the page.

Session 6:

I will start the next page by using the last page as a base; I will be doing this because a lot of the assets are the same as the last page, such as the background of the image, in the grass and sky, as well as the house. The first thing I will do however is get rid of the green pig from the image as I will be replacing him later, and scaling the house up as there isn’t anything going on to the left of the house in this scene.

After doing this I will put the two pigs into the image, which is actually one I made earlier of the yellow pig dragging the green pig around. I did it by extending both the pigs arms and tilting the green pigs head, I then linked their hands together. After doing this and putting the pigs into the image I will then open the door of the house. I didn’t have a pre made asset for this, so I outlined the door using the polygonal lasso tool and then layer via cut the door and replaced the background where the door used to be with the wood effect of the rest of the house, and then make sure the door is positioned correctly to the right of where it used to be, the reason it gives the open effect is because there is a stroke going around the house, and when you cut out the door it goes around the door frame.

After doing this I will then create the speech and the effects bubbles on the page. The first thing I did is the speech bubble as it is the bigger out of the two, which I will position above the yellow pigs head, and then enter the text “Get down Chris. The wolf is coming!” After doing this I will put a small red explosion bubble at the top right of the door and it will say “Bang” in it, this is to show that the door is being slammed open.

I will then move the text box from just taking up the top left of the page, as this was the case with the last page, which I used as a base, and then make it cover the entire top of the page and enter the text “and as he finished Billy ran up and pulled them both into the house”. I will do this because there isn’t a ton going on in this scene, so I feel this warrants the bigger text box as to tell the story easier over this slide.

Session 7: For page eight I will be making a new page altogether, and not using the background or assets from the last page, making sure I use the same techniques to make the background again, this is meaning the grass and the sky. I will then put in two of the tree’s that I made earlier into the picture on the right hand side of the page, slightly going off of the page as to make it look like it leads to a woods. I will then put the picture of the yellow pig dragging the green pig back into the image, however this time a lot smaller and to the bottom right, and in-between the trees to make sure it looks like they are running into the trees. After doing this I will put the blowing wolf asset into the image, making it a lot bigger than the pigs to make it look like he is a lot closer to the front of the image and to make it look a lot bigger than the parts of the house which I will be doing after this.

I will then put the picture of the house back into the image, and break it to bits using the polygonal lasso and the layer via cut tool to put each part of the house onto different layers so I can move them about individually. After doing this I will then spread the parts of the house out, and use the rubber tool to make parts of the house look like they are buried in the ground from where the wolf has been blowing them around, generally these parts will also be a lot smaller to make it look like the wolf has blown them far away. I will then put the blowing effect into the image in the same way as I did it before, using the shape tool, morphing it with the warp tool, and then using the rubber tool to make it look like air, and then position it near the wolves mouth.

I will then put the text box into the top of the page, all the way across the page, doing this because there is a lot of text on this page, and because there is a lot going on in this image, which takes up a lot of the page, there really isn’t anywhere else to put the text box. The text box on this page will read “But even the house of sticks wasn’t enough… HE BLEW THIS HOUSE DOWN TOO. Billy and Chris ran to Marvin’s house. Which will conclude the

page and leave it finished.

Session 8:

I will then start page nine, which is very different to the pages before it, I will create the generic background I make for all of my pages, referencing to the grass and sky, but then I will put the castle, quite small in the background which I made earlier from loosely rotoscoping a real castle. I will then follow this up by making a gray road coming from the entrance of the castle using the shape tool, and then warping it to my liking, to make it look like it is coming from the castle gate in the background to the pigs which will be standing on it in the foreground.

I will then place the three pigs into the image, they will be around the centre of the page and Marvin will be standing on the path from his house to the foreground, because of this, he will be a little bit smaller than the other pigs as he will be a little further back in the picture compared to the other pigs. He will also have a sword in his hand, as I have already made the asset of the sword and the asset of all the pigs, including Marvin, holding them. This will make more sense when I put the text into this page. The other two pigs will be facing away from the camera, and I have a model for every pig facing away from the camera, however I don’t think I’ll use the Marvin one, I still made them all anyway. Next to Marvin there will be two more swords that are stuck into the ground and these are for the other pigs. I will then create the speech bubbles for the page, making Marvin’s first, doing this because there is a lot of text on this page compared to the other pages, and this is mostly due to his speech bubble which says “Don’t worry boys, I’ve got just what we need to deal with this problem we have” and then the speech bubble coming from the other two pigs will say “YAY!” After doing this I will put the text box across the top of the screen as there isn’t a lot of room anywhere else which will say “When they arrived Marvin had already heard he news and was prepared…” Which will finish off the page.

Session 9:

When starting page 10 I will make the background again, however I will put a lot more trees into the image, making a forest effect in the background which the pigs and the wolf will be running through when I actually put them into the page. I will make sure to put a tree in front of the other trees at the right hand side of the screen, to make sure I have something for the wolf to be running past, like running into the thicker part of the forest. The next thing I will do when creating the page will be to put the actual pigs and the wolf into the picture. I will use the running wolf that I created earlier and put him to the right of the screen running between the trees and making it seem like he is running out of the scene. I will then put in the three pigs, using the sword wielding versions of the running pigs which I also created before the practical of this project began which will be positioned ranging from the centre of the page, all the way to the far left hand side of the screen.

After putting all of the characters and the trees and backdrop into the image I will then follow this up by putting the speech bubble with three tails going to each of the pigs mouths, which reads “GET OUT OF HERE WOLF!” I have done this, even though it is obvious because I want kids to be getting excited that the wolf is being ran off, and I feel this will give the desired effect. The last thing to do on this page is to put the text box onto the page, I am going to put it at the top again, because there is, again, a lot of things going on in this scene, and the things like the trees make it so there isn’t a lot of room to put the text box anywhere else on the page. The text box will read “And they chased the wolf off in time for dinner”. Which leads to the end of this page.

Session 10:

For page 11, the last page, it is very similar to page 9, in the way that it is pretty much the same scene, however the pigs are moved. The reason I did this was to show that all the pigs in the end lived in the castle made by Marvin, the third pig, and I felt that them eating food outside the castle, or an inside shot of them eating food, wouldn’t have worked so I decided on the three pigs in each of the towers on the castle looking really happy.

The first thing I did after going back and getting page 9 and getting rid of the parts that I didn’t want, such as the swords in the foreground and the pigs in the foreground and replaced this with the swords being stacked against the castle and the three pigs in their happy poses which I made before the project started and put them in the top of the castle.

And then for the last thing to put in, as there isn’t any speech bubbles in this page, is the text box, which again I’m putting at the top of the page, I could have put it in the bottom left, however when I looked at the page, it looked good to have it at the top as it seemed to be symmetrical with the pigs and the castle, and I felt this looked good, and much better than putting it in the bottom left.

Health and safety:

Your health and safety and that of those around you is very important. Just like in industry, an accident could prevent you from working. Whilst we don’t work in a highly dangerous environment, there are still risks. Some are short term, such as trips and spillages whilst others, such as long term damage to eyesight or back problems, may affect you much later in life.

Consider the risks based on the activities you will be undertaking during the project. Explain how you could prevent them from

happening. Ensure you reference appropriate pieces of legislation, design to protect people at work.

Health and Safety Issue How can you prevent it?

Back problems from sitting from too long

Take regular and constant short breaks and make sure to

stand up and straighten out your back

Eye strain from staring at the computer

Take time away from anything that you have to concentrate

on, maybe take a nap to refresh yourself and your eyes.

Hand problems in the long run from too much typing

(RSI)

Take constant breaks away from the computer and try not to spend too much time on it in your leisure time as well as your

work time.

Leg problems from sitting for too long Stand up and walk around, making sure

Getting too tired from too much work Make sure to keep a constant sleep schedule and the sleep that you do get is good sleep.