Graphic Narrative Evaluation

Does your final product reflect your original intentions?

• I think that most if not all of my story reflect those pictures in my planning as you can see from the pictures of my flat plans compared to those of my finished product

The finished pages are those on the left whereas the flat plans are on the right

There are a few changes from the flat plans but the idea is roughly the same for example on the top flat plan the picture is zoomed out you can see the pot the whole of the old woman as well as the whole body of the tramp when I was making the image I decided to have the image zoomed in to focus more on the chicken this also helped me to have a wide range of angles within my story

In the second picture and flat plan you can see that not a lot has changed just more detail has been added to everything in the picture

In the third picture and flat plan like in then second you can see that a lot of detail has been added to the picture but yet the idea is roughly the same

How well have you constructed your images?

• I used the shape tool idea to make my images trying to give my cartoon book a kid friendly feeling this also allowed me to make my own cartoons rather then relying on those that already been made by other people is as a good idea as well as a risky one because although I could make the cartoons in the way I wanted to it also meant that my cartoons where not as professional that they could maybe have been if I had followed the ideas of the artwork of other people

What I decided to do was to make all of my characters in different positions so that way I did not have to change them as I made the book it helped me to save time and it also meant that It was easy to find the character that I wanted for that page in the position that I wanted it in and then it was just a matter of moving the character across from the Photoshop document on to the page that I wanted that character on

I also made a few props that I would need in the story so that I wouldn’t have to waist time making the props as I made the pages

When I was making the pages I tried to use subtle effects to make it seem like time had passed in the story by giving the whole picture a dark purple overlay but then removing that from the parts of the picture that I didn’t want to be effected by it therefore making those parts of the picture look as if they have a sense of light or a glowing effect for example the woman is bight colors as she is stood in the light of her won home whereas the tramp is not in any light therefore he is darker I didn’t do this with all of my pictures I only did this when it was night and outside in the story

How well have you used text to anchor your images

• When I was making my story I tried to make that the text explained what was happening in the picture I had a bit of a problem with this as my story was quite long and therefore I had to put more text on each page so when I was typing the text up I made sure that there was one very important thing happening on each page and this then is what the image was based on

My pages can be split into three types of pages those that have very little text those that have a middle amount of text and those that have a lot of text

The opening pages have very little happening on them therefore the amount of text needed to explain what is going on in the picture is very little whereas as you get further in to the story there is much more going on and therefore the amount of text needed to explain what is going on in the picture is much higher

This makes a sort of pattern of text with there being little text at both the beginning of the story as well as the end of the story

At three points in the story there are some poems and these are about what ingredients are being placed in the cooking pot this was a long process of trying to find words that rhymed with what was being used in the picture so when the meat is being added to the pot the poem is about the meat that is being added to the soup

Is your product suitable for your audience?

• I think that my book is suitable for the audience that I have picked to aim my story at because my story is aimed at 8 year olds

• This meant that I could use a few large words

As my audience is the age of 8 it means I need to make sure that my pictures are not too childish so I have made my pictures more like cartoon and I have also tried to keep the story as realist as possible this means that is possible to happen in real life

I have a lack of detail to keep the pictures looking like cartoons instead of having large bits of detail I have kept little bits here and there to get the effect across to the reader

What do you like/dislike about the techniques you have used?

• I used mostly the shape tool to make my characters as well as most of the scenery

With the fist picture I use mostly the shape tool to make everything the path was a rectangle that I used warp to make it less of a uniform shape same with the trunk of the trees they where rectangles too but the river was made using a shape from the custom shape tool and the grass was made using the paint tool

The second picture was also made using the same tools in picture one the clock was made out of a circle this is the same for the pot the flames where made from a custom shape again the fireplace was made using the polygon lasso tool to select parts of a fireplace picture I got from the internet to help me make my own fireplace the bricks where made using small rectangles

With the final picture I used the shape tool for the trees as well as the house but the grass was done using the paint tool again and the roof of the house was made using the polygon lasso tool to color a part of the house yellow the bricks where also made using small rectangles

What do you like/dislike about how your final product looks?

• I like the cartoon style of my book I think that the smooth shapes look very nice I also like the rhymes in the story I think the text is well placed and very clear as well as easy to read

• I tried to add detail to my characters as well as my backgrounds but I thought that it looked better without the textures on so I only placed textures on some things throughout the story like wooden and natural objects

The fist picture was a prototype of the finished image I wanted the background to be in the same style as my characters but that made the background look very simple and plain

So I added so detail like grass this was useful for making sure the straight bottoms of the trees did not show up as much as they did without the detail I also added some detail to the trees and the trunks so they didn’t so so clean and plain and therefore they looked more like trees yet they still stayed with the art style that I had with my characters

I also added a outline to the text in order to make the text stand out more and make it easier to read

Why did you include the content you used?

• Images• I wanted to make sure that the images I used matched with what the text was saying so that I

had a text picture link • Fonts• I used Apple Garamond as my text this is a serif text I wanted to have the flicks on the text

because I think this will help to guide a child's eye along the text from letter to letter whereas with sans serif the text is too blocky for a children's book I wanted to use these two texts because I think that keeping the text as simple and clear as possible will make it easier for a young child to read

• Effects• I didn’t add any effects to begin with but this made the pages of my book look to pain and

simple so I added more effects to the pages• I added a outline to the text to help the text stand out this also made the text easier to read• I also used gray to give the effect of glass on the bottle and jars this helped to make it appear

that there was something inside• Colours used a lot of brown this is because brow is a good colour to help show age as well as

being a natural colour I also tried to keep all of the colours faint and avoided bright colours because I wanted old style effect with my book

What signs, symbols or codes have your used in your work?

• There are quite of lot of Signification in my work for example the colour brown that is used in my story Is use on the tramp to show that he is poor the backpack shows that he is a traveller and the fact that the tramp starts the story walking though a wood reinforces this idea the text also states that the tramp is poor

• Whereas with the old woman she Is dressed in gray with gray hair this shows that the woman is old this is also reinforced by the text witch states that she is a old woman

• The whole chicken and three jars both show that the old woman has a lot of food as these are large amount of food this reinforces the idea that the woman is lying about the amount of food that she has this idea is also reinforced by the text that states that the old woman lies to the tramp

What representations can be found in your work?

• In my book the tramp is a man and is the clever main character whereas the old woman is easily fooled by the tramp this would imply that the young can think quicker then the old

• Also in my book it is the man that does the cooking although the old woman brings the food it is the tramp that does the cooking in the story this is different then the stereotype of the woman doing the cooking

What style have you employed in your products?

• My major influence was the book The very hungry caterpillar this is a very basic book when it comes to picture but it works well as a children's book because of this the pictures help to show what the text is talking about and the text helps to explain what is going on in the picture

• I also had a small influence from the book the bad tempered ladybird because there is a sense of time and it passing as you read through the story and I used the same idea in my story as you read through my story the time on the clock will change this helps to show children that time is passing

• The story was heavily influenced the fairy tail nail soup but I made a few changes to the story in order to make my story different I was also influenced when writing the story by the many Childs poems that Roald Dahl wrote in his stories a good example would be from Charlie and the chocolate factory with the poem

• There's no earthly way of knowing There's no earthly way of knowing Which direction they are going! There's no

knowing where they're rowing, Or which way they river's flowing! Not a speck of light is showing, So the danger must be growing, For the rowers keep on rowing, And they're certainly not showing Any signs that they are slowing...

I thought that this always makes a good link with young children and therefore I used the same sort of rhyming idea in my story

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the pre-production and planning

• Planning was helpful I looked at a lot of different ideas what characters to put in the story and what text I could have a clear layout of where I was going to put my text as well as where to place the pictures before making the book so I didn't make mistakes the pictures I looked at helped me because I had something to base my pictures on

• The pictures I got of travellers helped getting me an idea of how my traveller/tramp should look

Historical and cultural context

no one really knows when the story was written there are many different versions in different counties some of the other names nail soup goes by are stone soup, button soup, wood soup, nail soup, and axe soup each story being the same storyline but with a different object being used there are a lot of versions of the story under the name of nail soup written in the UK this is why I decided to change the story because I think it would be good to have a different version in the same country that way not all all the stories are the same a current book is Nail Soup by Eric Maddern this is based of the English version of the story

(right picture stone soup 1948 top left button soup a Disney version of nail soup 2012 middle left the cover of my version bottom left nail soup by Eric Maddern 2006

Peer Feedback

• Summarise peer feedback and discuss– Responses you agree with– Responses you disagree with