As of this blog post, i have finished the pages of my book and bounded it together. I’ll talk here about what my process behind creating the book was, and what i think of the book now that it’s finished.
As i said in my last blog post, i wanted to work on each page spontaneously, capturing my ideas and thought processes as i worked to give each panel a sense of my current mindset at it’s time of creation. It took me a total of 3 days to complete the book; i did 4 pages each day. I didn’t want to do too many pages on the same day, as i wanted to give my brain some time to refresh and come up with new ideas. I also didn’t want my panels to begin looking the same, and i think taking short breaks helped me to not overload my mind. I also made an effort to work on each of the pages at different times of day; when i felt hungry i created pages about food, when i felt angry or sad i created pages reflecting that and when i felt tired i created pages based on dreams, and so on. This worked well with my process of creation, as i was constantly creating pages while in different states of mind, giving the panels some variety.
Here are the 12 pages of my book, with 2 panels each. I’ll include some quick text to summarize what’s happening in the panels;
page 1
top panel- where is ‘here’?
bottom panel- a literal interpenetration
page 2
top panel- experiencing the world without vision
bottom panel- traveling the world through music
page 3
top panel- ethnicity vs nationality
bottom panel- being absorbed in fictional/created worlds
page 4
top panel- here in my dreams
bottom panel- not wanting to be ‘here’
page 5
top panel- ‘here’ when you’re unconscious
bottom panel- ‘here’ physically vs ‘here’ mentally
page 6
top panel ‘here’ on earth
bottom panel- ‘here’ is universal, but it’s not
page 7
top panel- ‘here’ online
bottom panel- ‘here’ alone vs ‘here’ with others
page 8
top panel- ‘here’ inside your brain
bottom panel- ‘here’ in the past (there?)
page 9
top panel- ‘here’ completely physically
bottom panel- ‘here’ doing uni work
Page 10- here emotionally, here eating
page 11
top panel- drawing to conclusion
bottom panel- self explanatory
page 12
top panel- my conclusion, where ‘here’ is
bottom panel- an ending question
Overall, i feel i achieved what i set out to through this book; a colourful piece, heavily reliant on imagery that communicates who i am, my identity, my experiences and some of my ideas and opinions to the viewer. Although there isn’t much of a connection between the pages (or even the panels to some extent), i think that the book is oddly coherent, possibly due to using similar styles and colours on each page. I’m happy with my end result as i feel like i challenged myself a bit, and i was able to learn more about my own ways of thinking through this project.
The hardest part for me was coming up with things to write about on each page. With the book being only 12 pages long i couldn’t cover everything i would have wanted to, so i had to only speak about things that i thought would be interesting or entertaining to share. I admittedly think that some of the drawings look slightly off (mostly proportionately), so i’ll work to improve on that, mostly through my live drawing classes. i also feel that i could’ve made the composition of the panels a bit more interesting, which is something i didn’t consider much while creating them.
At first, i couldn’t see how this task related to animation very much, but i think it did help me to explore my ideas, apply relevant research and ask myself questions. While objectively i didn’t learn anything about animation, i think i sharpened my thinking and exploration abilities, and although i still have a long way to go, i’d say i was able to create something that represents me well.