evaluation

1. Graphic Narrative
Evaluation
Taynie Gage

2. Does your final product reflect your
original intentions?
I feel like my final edition of my children book based on Alice in
Wonderland reflects my original intentions well and I closely followed my
planning documentation discounting some slight adjustments.
The overall layout of each page was carefully planned out with
storyboards and flat plans. The storyboards were drawn out with quite a
lot of detail which helped me when creating the book using Photoshop. I
sketched out what I thought should be on each page and then copied this
as close as possible, I made a few alterations after creating the page and
then finding a better way to lay out the items. An example of this is my
character placement on certain pages, I had to move or even swap round
the characters in order for the layout to look better. The plans for the first
page were adjusted so that the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit were sat
in different seats as I believed it looked better upon making the book.

3. I created flat plans which were basic sketches
of the page ideas with an idea of where to
place the text. Upon creating the pages, I had
to change the positioning of the text so the
page would look better.
I have included an example of a page where
this applied. My flat plans show that I
intended to split the lines and have one at the
top of the page and the other at the bottom
however when I actually positioned the text
like this I felt it didn’t look right and therefore
changed it.
Within my proposal, I mentioned that I wanted my pages to be 10 by 10 inches
which is what I stuck to when creating my book.
Overall, I believe my final product reflects that plans I created as I used them
as a useful guide all the way through.

6. How well have you constructed your
images?
I believe I constructed my imagery quite well and have
had a vast improvement from the start of the course to
the creation of my children's book.
I used the techniques learnt in class to improve my work,
for example; the use of texture within my images. To
create texture on my images I used the Colour Range tool
and applied the copied area of texture over the item.
An example of work I produced
at the start of the course.
An example of a character
from my children’s book.
I believe adding texture to
the image improves the
overall look. I also used the
eye dropper tool to take
colours from actual
photographs of things like
trees to use on the cartoon
version so they would look
more natural and children
would be able to tell what
they are.

7. How well have you used text to anchor
your images
I believe I did a good job of fitting the text with what was happening on
each page. I wrote the script after drawing the storyboards so had a good
idea of how it should be worded.
On this example page, I have matched
the text exactly with what happened
in the image I planned for. This is the
same for most of the other pages.

8. On reflection, there
were a few pages I
could have changed to
make the image and the
text fit better. On this
particular page, it reads
‘Alice thinks her house
is dull’. If I were to make
the book again, I would
amend the colours
within the page and
dim the blue and green
within the image.
I would also brighten up
the colours on the
Wonderland pages as
the book mentions that
Wonderland it bright.

9. Is your product suitable for your
audience?
I believe I did a good job at keeping my children’s book suitable
for my target audience of 6-9year olds. I chose this age range as
at this age they would most likely be aware of the story of Alice
in Wonderland already and therefore have an interest in reading
my version.
In my proposal I said; ‘I believe although the book will be gender
neutral, young girls may enjoy it more due to the main character
being female.’ I feel this is reflected the work I produced as there
is no aspect of the book that would appeal to one particular
gender other than the female main character.
As it is a children’s book and intended for young kids, the book
does not contain any offensive material that would be unsuitable
for children under a certain age.

10. What do you like/dislike about the
techniques you have used?
Before starting the project, I learnt a variety of techniques that would help my
with the process of creating a children's book
I would say the most important and useful technique was
how to rotoscope as most of the book uses this method.
All four characters were created using rotoscoping and using
the shape method. I like this particular technique as it allows
you to create a character with realistic proportions as I found
it difficult to create one without messing up the sizes.
After selecting a section of the character, I would colour it
using the colour picker then to make the edges of the
selection blend better I would use the blur tool.

11. Typical page production process:
I would start with the rectangle tool for the background and select a colour to
create the basic shape of something like the grass or sky, I would then start
adding the items over the top such as the trees. The next thing I would do is
add the characters by dragging then from the Photoshop document I created
them on making small amendments to fit with what was happening on the
page such as moving the eye positioning so the characters would look at each
other.
To complete the page, I would add little features such as shadows under items
and characters and little bits of texture. I found using the dodge and burn tool
to create highlights and lowlights would bring a subtle depth to the page which
would make the page feel more finished.

12. What do you like/dislike about how your
final product looks?
I like the storyline and script of the book I produced and I think
this is the strongest aspect. I feel like it all works together and
flows well to carry on and conclude the story nicely.
I think the characters and items I created could have been much
stronger and would have been if I spent longer constructing each
one.
The facial expressions could have
been better to show how the
characters were feeling, I tried to
slightly alter the key parts of the
faces such as eyebrows to show
this, for example; Alice's face when
she decided to ask the others to
leave had a more concerned look.

13. To improve my final edition of the
book I think I should have paid more
attention to the script and added more
to certain pages, in particular the
pages that are set inside Alice's house.
In the story I have mentioned that the
house is a mess and on the pages
showing the house, the room doesn’t
seem a mess. I could have added
details to make it seem more of a chaotic household due to the
arrival of Hatter, White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat.
If I did this I feel the book would be improved and the script
with the imagery would have worked better.

14. Why did you include the content you used?
Font – the font I used was chosen as it is a simplistic design and
therefore easy for young children to read. I decided on using
either black or white for the text as it would stand out against
the background which ever colour it would be. In the end, I only
used white font on the first page as the characters were in the
woods of Wonderland and therefore the background was a
dark green so black would have been rather hard to see. On
each page I ensured the text was large enough to read for 6 to 9
year olds but not too large as the image is the most important
part of telling the story.

15. Images – I tried to make each image fit with the text as much as
possible. Each image is there to carry on the story of Alice in
Wonderland and therefore was carefully constructed to show
what is happening.
Colours – I tried to make the colours in the book bright and
happy as this is a common theme within kids books. At first,
when the characters were in Wonderland, the colours were
slightly darker due to them being in a forest, this contrasted with
the characters clothing. The colours got brighter once the book
had moved to the real world.
Colours and shapes were a good way
of showing what was happening
within the story, for example; when
the Hatter turned the TV on, I used a
zig zag shape to show the sound.

16. What signs, symbols or codes have
your used in your work?
As the original book is about a magical land, I ensured the story started
in Wonderland so it was familiar to children who were already aware of
the original story. The tea party scene is iconic to Alice in Wonderland
and therefore I began with this. Also iconic is the Mad Hatter, I took my
inspiration for the way my Mad Hatter looks from the 2010 film version
by Tim burton as I think this version is what most people will think of
when they think about the Hatter
Alice is often associated with
wearing a blue dress and
therefore I dressed my character
in a dark blue outfit so the
audience could know who she
was straight away just from the
blonde hair and blue dress.

17. What representations can be found in
your work?
• How are men, women or children shown in your work? Does
your work feature different ages, races, social groups or
religions? Does a lack of any variety of character types create
its own representation?
• Its hard to find representations within my work as three of my
characters aren’t human and I didn’t really include any
intentional messages in the story or characters. I had different
age groups as included as Alice is seen to be a teenager as
based on the 2010 Tim Burton film character and the Mad
Hatter is a grown man however, I didn’t include anything in
the story to show the age divide or any hint of age dominance
of Hatter over Alice in fact Alice tells all of the characters to
leave and is therefore the most dominant.

18. What style have you employed in your
products?
• Discuss influences/ existing products
• What visual style does your work have and why did you choose it?
• As I have mentioned previously, Tim Burtons 2010 version of Alice
in Wonderland has influence my work the most as I respect this
version and liked the look and style of Tim Burtons work.
• My version of The Mad Hatter was
based purely on Tim Burtons version
and I believe the similarities are
clear.

19. • My version of The White Rabbit is the most visually similar
character out of the ones I created due to the rotoscoping
technique I used. I think the way Tim Burtons creates a sort of
cartoon character that looks slightly realistic is extremely
interesting however I wanted my book to be completely cartoon
to appeal to the younger audience.

20. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the pre-
production and planning
• How did the planning and research help
• How well did you manage your time
• I feel as though my work would have been better if I did plan my work
better. One of my main weakness during this project was time
management and therefore I believe creating more planning documents
before production would have been better for me.
• I think the most effective planning documentation I created was most
definitely the story boarding I created, this insured I knew what would go
on each page and what would look good where. By drawing each page I
would be able to see where the text would look the best and how I would
be able to fit the amount of text in a certain area.
• I feel as though the idea generation section where I created spider
diagrams would have been more of a help if I went into further detail to
create a range of developed ideas to choose from. When I decided to do
Alice in Wonderland, I should have written more about each section to
insure I have a clear idea of where to go next in my development.

21. Historical and cultural context
• How does your work compare to what has come before? What
other similar products have existed in the past? What current
products exist?
Out of all the different adaptations of Alice in Wonderland I feel my
work is the most similar to the work of Tim Burton in his 2010 film. I
based my look of the Mad Hatter purely on the film version however I
made some amendments such as colour and clothing.

22. The character of Alice throughout the year is iconic for having the long
blonde hair and for wearing a blue dress, therefore I created my
version of Alice the same to carry on the image.
I feel as though keeping the traditional values of Alice in Wonderland
is important to keep the story recognisable to many different
generations.