Cartooning Studio - Tuesday

Day Two... starting to get more intense!

When I signed up for this workshop, I had intended to work on what had started out as the "Rip-Off" graphic novel project (this past spring) - the magic trailer park story. I have about 8 pages done on that story and wanted to do more. But when faced with actually working on it - it seemed too depressing for a summer project.

I've really enjoyed doing the comic journaling (some of you are subscribed to that blog too - stay tuned for posts!) - and thought this would be a better topic for the week.

I took a sketch from my notebook:

and decided I'd turn it into a comic book. Easy, right?

I had this weird concept that I'd interview my inner demons. Like a talk show. I thumbnailed the ideas and the dialog - not the page layout though. I needed the story first and I get that by drawing, not writing.

In class, we worked on writing and character development - which were both really helpful exercises. We drew what the "space" where the story took place looked like - inside and out. Inside my head. A talk show stage set. We wrote about what our characters wanted and why. And we wrote a conversation between two characters where they each want something, but neither can get it.

Then we took parts of those writing exercises and illustrated them using scenery, no characters.

These were all great ways to get inside the characters' heads and examine their motivations. Which was particularly helpful in my case as my story takes place inside my character's head and interviews her actual motivations (Demons!)