February 26th- Day 19 of SRP

Hello!

I can’t believe another week has already passed! (And that February is almost over as well!)

I continued training in After Effects this week a lot, which is always exciting for me. The illustrations are coming along nicely, but as I mentioned last week, they’re taking me a little longer than I would like. What I am planning on doing is finishing all the animations first, and then moving onto the static illustrations afterwards. This way the hardest work will be complete, and I can focus more intensively on the scene’s flow, and the details of all the illustrations.

Here’s something I’ve been working on this week, it’s not quite finished… but I’m saying that about all my artwork, since I am going to be going back over them later in the project.

With already a month gone, I figured this week that I should also start looking into completing some of the score I had planned. This is what I came up with so far…

Sorry I didn’t attach an audio file… but this is a little last minute, and the score still needs a lot of work. If I’m being honest with myself, I am probably going to start the score over form the beginning. This version above doesn’t really capture the feeling that I am trying for in this scene.

For the audio aspect of my project, what I’m planning on doing is having a looping song that plays over softly in the background while one is reading the story. It’s not meant to stand out so much as it is to create a mood for the reader, and keep him/her engaged in the story. Just like an illustration, music has its own way of speaking and telling stories, and I think that music is one of the most effective forms of emotional communication. (Technically, hybrid novels are not said to have auditory aspects in them. So what I’m doing is slightly unconventional… but I hope it pays off in the end!)

For next week, I have a new plan which I am very excited about. I took some time this week to sort through all of the illustrations and animations I have planned, and I grouped them in a specific way based on whatever their subjects were. For some reason, it helps me when I’m illustrating specific kinds of subjects.

Talk to you next week!

~Keanan~

February 22nd- Day 15 of SRP

Well, I've finally finished  one of the frames for my story. It took me all morning, but it is finally complete! The trickiest part was getting the texture and colors of the wood, but hopefully it came out alright. I always like to revisit the art the next day after I finish it, so that way I can better discern what turned out well, and what needs touching up.

My plan for these frames is to have the entire novel encased in them. On any given page, there will be a series of frames positioned all across it. Some frames will contain text, others will contain illustrations, and others will have animations inside them.

Let me know what you think of it! (Hopefully you'll be able to zoom in on the image and see more of the details.)

~Keanan~

February 19th- Day 12 of SRP

Hello everyone,

What an exciting week! I almost feel busier with this project than I did when I was in school, but I am really happy with how everything is turning out so far.

I was a little slower than I would have liked to have been this week as far the illustrations go. My computer actually crashed twice during both of my projects, causing me to lose a lot of my progress each time. I have learned the invaluable to lesson of hitting Ctrl-S for every five minutes of work I do.

A lot of the work I did this week also involved me going back over illustrations I had completed, and making sure that they were formatted in such a way that they could be animated easily. Since I am beginning to work with elements like clothing, facial expressions, hair, and so on, the illustrations are going to start requiring a lot more layers, and they are going to require a lot more detail as far the animations go. I am essentially learning how to re-paint everything right now.

Currently, the next animations are set to be complete by Sunday if I can get all of my layers worked out in time. So there’s a lot of exciting work still to come. With that being said, it’s going to be a very busy weekend for me.

What I am also working on right now is reworking all of the page layouts. Thankfully, it’s still early on enough in the project for me to still do this. What my goal is here is to try and create a slightly more dynamic flow of the artwork. Right now, my concern is that there are too many illustrations planned, and the same effect can be achieved if certain ones are cut, mainly the ones I feel to be repetitive, or the ones that won’t do the text any justice.

I promised last week that I would talk a little about what this scene is going to be about, so here it goes…

Basically, my plan for this scene is that it is the dream of the main character in my novel. The scene is in that sense perfect for this project, because not only is it extremely visual, but also because it can stand alone without any context.

The scene is going to take place during a harsh, and stormy night. It follows the story of woman riding through a dark forest on horseback. She is mortally wounded, and she is being hunted throughout the passage. On the verge of death, she races to bring her last, unknown possession to safety.

This is part of one of the illustrations I’ve been working on this week. It’s not finished just yet, but I figure it would be nice to include a glimpse of the mysterious heroine. 

Talk to you next week!

~Keanan~

February 12th: Day 5 of SRP

 

Hello Again!

This post signals the end of the first week of my Senior Research Project. I am very happy to announce that first of illustrations, (the one that I posted on 2/8) has been animated!!!

Since before the start of the project I have been keeping in touch with Joshua Currington, who is a Professional Animator. He primarily works with Flash programs, but has graciously lent his skills and teachings to help me complete this project using Adobe After Effects. I was unbelievably excited when the animation was finished this week, so I hope you all enjoy watching it! (It looks extremely blurry in this video, and I'm not entirely sure why!)

My plan for each of the animations I have is to create looping videos that play continuously alongside the text. Each page of the scene is going to be comprised of a number of panels, which consist of either the words taken from the scene, illustrations, or animated illustrations.

Right now, I plan on having around 16 of the illustrations be animated. Some of them will be much easier than others to animate, all depending on the subject matter, and how much detail I want to include. In this animation above, the only things that were animated were the rain and the stars. 

In other animations however, I might want to try creating different effects. For instance I might have stalks of grass blowing violently to show harsh winds, or perhaps I will add in flashes of lightning to compliment the downpour of rain and breathe more life into the storm. All in all, it's going to be an extremely fun and exciting project for me as I continue!

I want to emphasize some aspects of the project before I wrap up this post. Mostly about the nature of what is I am actually creating.

I've been doing more research, and I am more certain right now that what I am creating is not quite like a graphic novel, nor is it like manga, nor is it like comic strips. What I am doing with this project is that I am taking the text of an existing novel, my very own story, and I am enhancing it with a great deal of illustrations, animations, and maybe even a musical score. This makes it different from a the other genres, in a subtle way though.

Just because I include an illustration that shows rain falling down, or an illustration that clearly depicts nighttime that does not mean that I am deleting the parts of the text that might say "It is nighttime” or “It is raining." 

Graphic novels and Manga and Comic strips rely on pictures to convey very important aspects of a scene such as people's actions and movements, the appearance of the setting, the time of day things are occurring, etc. About the only instances when words pop up in these kinds of books is within speech bubbles. (In rare instances, there are some short sentences dispersed across these books) Pictures are what convey the majority of the meaning, and they are essential to these genres of literature. Most of the time, exposition is not a necessary, or even helpful addition.

But in my novel, pictures are never just going to replace parts of the text, and the entire story could be relayed in full detail without a single picture or animation ever showing up. Though with that being said, I do not feel that the text alone conveys all the emotions, and fantastical images that many accompanying illustrations and animations could contribute. That is why I am claiming that this work is a hybrid novel.

In Routledge Encyclopaedia of Narrative Theory (2005), hybrid novels are defined as:

“ones that combine, transform, and subvert the conventions of several narrative subgenres; break down the boundaries between fiction, poetry, and drama; import non-literary discourses and text types; and employ narrative strategies that strive to imitate the organizing principles and paintings, music, and film.” (p. 227)

Later, it goes on to say:

“Hybrid novels [are] novels in which graphic devices like photographs, drawings, and experimental typography are integrated into written text. Within hybrid novels, word and image combine to a text that is neither purely written, nor purely visual.”

Hopefully I haven’t bored or confused anyone too much with the lengthy distinctions I’ve been rambling on about! I just felt that it was necessary to explain the nature of the project, and how creating it will be slightly different from how one would create a different sort of work.

Next week, I plan to continue on with my illustrations and continue work with the animations. I’ve also started playing with melodies on my piano for the musical score. As far as my posts go, I am going to start revealing what the scene I am working on is going to be about, and start setting the stage for the readers. I am very excited, and I hope you are as well!

I look forward to talking to you all again!

~Keanan~

February 8th: Day 1 of SRP

Hello! 

I'm excited to announce that today I have officially begun work on my Senior Research Project. The first stage of my project is going to involve a lot of heavy planning, which I have dedicated most of today towards. I have completed a 16 page plan of what I am going illustrate, which illustrations get animated, which text goes where on the page, and what music accompanies each part of the story.

I’m trying not to feel overwhelmed right now! In the plan I just created, there are over forty illustrations that would be accompanying the text. (The text is a word document that is only about three and half pages long!) That’s okay for right now, since this is only my first draft of the plan. I will definitely have to look into shortening things downs where I can, and focus on illustrating and animating the most essential parts of the text.

          But I think I’ve done enough planning for today! Now I’m going to get back to the illustrations I have in Clip Studio. I have another teaser illustration that I’ll share. It’s pretty similar to the last one, but I still had a lot of fun painting it!

          All of the work is flexible (and I am probably going to be editing over all of my illustrations at a later point anyways), so if there you have any suggestions or comments on the artwork I post, I would love to hear them!

I’ll be in touch with you soon,

~Keanan~

Introduction

Hello All,

My name is Keanan Jenkins, and I am a senior at BASIS Scottsdale. I am creating this blog to document my progress on my Senior Research Project. What I will be researching for approximately 10 weeks (from February to April) is the elements of effective novels, and how incorporating various stimuli into a story can either enhance or detract from the overall reading experience.

My project will be centered on the fantasy novel which I have been writing for some time now. I have selected a scene from my text, which I believe is especially filled with visual imagery. What I want to experiment on is how I can add certain components to highlight or give added effect to certain parts, while still letting the story read naturally. 

To do this, I plan on experimenting with various combinations of illustrations, animations, and musical scores to integrate into the text. Learning how to professionally construct these additions will most likely take up the bulk of my time. But when I am not experimenting with these things, I will be researching various publishing methods and effective marketing techniques.

The sites and programs which I am going to be using are Word 2013, Adobe Photoshop CS6, Clip Studio Paint EX, Flame Painter Pro 3, Adobe After Effects (CS6, CC 2015), and Noteflight.

I am going to be under the amazing guidance of the Head Art Teacher at my school, Mrs. Dru Hardy, and Mr. Peter Hannan, a renowned illustrator, writer, producer, and artist. On May 2^nd 2016, I am going to give a final presentation on my work, and then I will continue on to graduate from BASIS Scottsdale with High Honors. But in the meantime, I am going to dive as deep as I can into my story and explore new ways to convey all that I want to.

As a final note, before I officially begin this project, I want to emphasize how central my writing has been to my happiness and personal fulfillment. I have been crafting stories and characters in my head for longer than I can remember, and I am so excited to be given an opportunity like this to take the time I need to craft the best ‘hybrid novel’ I possibly can.

To wrap up my first post, I would like to present one of the illustrations for my scene. I hope you enjoy!