evaluation

1. Graphic Narrative Evaluation
Anna Malpas

2. Use this template to help you evaluate your project.
You should give specific details about your work.
You should provide both written and visual examples to explain your project.
You should find areas to praise in your work. Be specific about why you think they are
good or why you are proud of them.
You should also find areas that could be improved. Look for areas that you could make
better if you went back to them. Be specific about what you would improve.
Add additional slides as you need to. Don’t be restricted by what is here.
Any blank slides should be deleted before submission.

3. Does your final product reflect your original
intentions?
In the planning stage, I made a mind map first of all, to gather all my ideas together. This
would give me direction in what tale I wanted to produce for my children’s book, and the
style of it. I also produced a mood board which would give me inspiration for the look of my
book and the characters I would create. I created a storyboard for my story to show how I
wanted it to look and to give me more guidance when I started production for the real thing.
I used 16 frames in the storyboard which would mean that I would create 16 pages for my
children’s book. I then made flat plans using my story board images to show where I would
add text on each page. I also completed a proposal where I said what production methods I
would use.
I decided to use the rotoscoping technique in production of my book, which is what I
originally planned. I felt that this was a good way to make characters and objects and make
my illustrations realistic. I decided I wanted the dimensions of my book to be 25.8 cm x 22.8
cm so I made each page that size.
I slightly shortened the original script for Goldilocks and the Three Bears for my final script,
and changed some words as I thought this would make it easier for my young audience to
read. This also meant that I didn’t have to fit huge amounts of text on each page.

4. I think that my digital flat plans are similar to my final product because I included the same text
that I planned to put on each page, and they have a similar layout. I achieved this by looking back
at my flat plans while creating my book to make sure it fit my original intentions. Some of the text
is not placed where I planned it to be because there were some struggles with getting it to fit in to
spaces where it should have been. On my mood board that I put together in the pre-production
stage, I added font samples that I wanted to include in my book, and I did add these fonts onto my
final product by looking at my original plans. There are also a few minor details from my flat plans
that are missing in a few of my frames, for example at the part where Goldilocks is tasting the
porridge, there was a clock on the wall, but when creating these pages, I changed this to 2
windows as I thought it looked more realistic, and it made the room look less plain.
One of my flat plan frames
compared to page 4 to show
the similarity between them,
and the text in the same
place.

5. How well have you constructed your images?
• I created all the characters, backgrounds and objects in my book by finding images from the internet and
rotoscoping them. I liked using the rotoscope technique because it was an easy process and I found it
simple to do. I feel like I have constructed most of my images quite well, even though I had to create a lot
of layers while making most of my images in Photoshop. My main character, Goldilocks required a lot of
different layers when I was making her, as I had to separately rotoscope different parts of her dress, her
body parts, and facial features. Despite having to use a lot of layers to build her character, I could easily
merge these layers together, meaning I could move the whole character around without having to move
each layer.
• On the first page where Goldilocks is walking through the forest, there is a bit of the sky peeking through
underneath the trees, which I made a yellow colour which is meant to be the sunrise. Then on the second
page where Goldilocks is approaching the house, I used a gradient effect for the sky to show the transition
from sunrise to daytime. This added a realistic aspect to my story because it represents the morning
time,and links with the bears getting ready to have their porridge breakfast.
• My main character Goldilocks is positioned in different ways throughout the story. It was easy to rotoscope
her from the front because I rotoscoped an image I found where she was already positioned that way. It
was trickier to add her character into the pages where she was tasting the porridge because I had to show
her front profile, but bending down slightly while she brings a spoon to her mouth. This took a lot of time
to do because I had to reshape and rearrange her clothes and reposition to make it look like she was really
trying to eat the porridge.I wasn’t too pleased with how I constructed this character in these pages, but it
did successfully show the action I wanted her to do. Positioning Goldilocks on each of the three bears’
chairs was very challenging as well because it was hard to angle her correctly and make it look like she was
realistically sat on the chairs.

6. • There were some parts of my work which I added texture to. For the grass on page 2, I used a paint
brush tool that looked like tiny dots packed closely together, and I increased the size to make it large
enough to place all over the grass to give it more texture and a grassy feel rather than leaving it plain
green. I also used this brush tool on floor in the living room, which gave the illusion of carpet flooring.
An example of a page
where i’ve used many
layers.
One of the
brush
tools I used
to create
texture on
some of
my images. I
increased
the size and
also the
opacity
in some
cases.
An example of how I positioned
Goldilocks sitting in Papa bear’s
armchair.

7. How well have you used text to anchor your
images
I have included text on each of my pages to tell the story. There isn’t a huge amount of words on
every page because I didn’t want to make it too challenging for my young target audience to read,
and didn’t want to discourage the children from reading the book further. Each piece of text on
each page pairs with what is happening in the scene, which will make it easier for readers to
follow. The font I chose for my text is a serif font, which means it isn’t all straight lines. This makes
it easier for younger children to read because it guides their eye through the words and makes
them flow more easily when they’re being read. I made the text colour black, as this is stood out
and was clear to read on each page. I made sure that I placed my text wherever it would stand out
against the background so it wouldn’t be a struggle to read. I thought about what kind of
vocabulary I should use, and I chose to stick to simple words that would be easily understandable
for my audience. I read over the original script and changed some words and shortened some
sentences which I would include in my adaptation of the book. I also included exclamation marks
following some of the speech in my text, which adds emphasis on emotion of the sentences and
shows the mood of how the characters are feeling, whether that be excited or angry. This keeps
the text sounding interesting, and the readers will become more engaged with the story.

8. Examples to show how my text accompanies my illustrations
and also to show how clear it is to read. Exclamation marks
are used in sentences here, to express the character’s
emotion.

9. Is your product suitable for your audience?
• In my proposal, I talked about how my target audience was children aged 5-7 because this is the
age when they start to build up on their reading skills, but they would also enjoy something not
too heavy with a lot of illustrations. I think my product does fit this type of audience because it
doesn’t include huge chunks of texts, but there is something for them to read on each page. My
book also includes some bright colours which will keep them interested and make them want to
read on.
• My product is suitable for my audience because my story doesn’t include any violence or things
to frighten them that would make it inappropriate for a child of a young age to read.
• As I also mentioned in my proposal, my book isn’t directly aimed at a specific gender, but it may
appeal more to girls than boys because of the female main character. After finishing my
product, I can say that it my book does have some feminine aspects to it, such as Goldilocks’
appearance as she is a very feminine character. However there are no dominant “feminine”
colours, such as pink, featured heavily in my book. “Masculine” colours such as blue and green
are also included, and also neutral beige colours, so there is a good balance of colour featured in
my book, which makes it clear my book isn’t openly directed at any gender types.

10. What do you like/dislike about the techniques you
have used?
• I used the rotoscope technique to create my children’s book, which I found to be the most easiest
technique I learnt. This involved using the polygonal lasso tool to trace around images and then do a
colour overlay over them, or you can also create your own images. I preferred this technique over the
others, such as the shape tools, because I liked how quick it was to go around any image and fill it in
with colour, and I found it to be a fast and easy process. I found this made creating my backgrounds and
characters much quicker. I also liked how I could rotoscope any image that had a lot of detail, as it was
easy to move the tool around shapes. This would have been harder to do if I used a technique like the
shape warping, because I’d have to warp a ready made shape to fit my image which would be more
time consuming. One of the problems I encountered with rotoscoping is that it’s easy to miss the line of
the shape I was drawing around, so when I came to add a colour overlay, and remove the original image
underneath, there were some gaps between my shapes that I had to fill in otherwise it would look
messy. The rotoscoped images I liked the best were the three chairs because they are all different and I
think I did a good job of making them look neat.
• I have added texture to some of my images by a few different ways. One of them being colour range,
which I used for the forest to make the grass and the leaves on the trees look more realistic. Under the
paint brush tool options, there was a leaves tool. I used this over the leaves on each of my trees to give
some extra detail, and I also resized this tool and picked different colour options to get colourful leaves
in different sizes, which added more variety.

11. • To make a range of my images much more interesting, I included effects such as the gradient effect to
show one colour as it blends with another. I used this for the sky when Goldilocks was entering the
house. I also used drop shadow and bevel and emboss which I enjoyed using a lot as it made my objects
look 3D.
Chairs I have created
by using the rotoscope technique.
They were easy to trace around
and add colour to using colour overlay.
I have also added Stroke, and drop
shadow to these chairs to give these
objects more dimension.
An example of where
I have used the leaves
paint brush tool on the
trees.

12. What do you like/dislike about how your final
product looks?
• There are quite a few things I am pleased with in my final product. First of all, the style of my
Goldilocks character is how I envisioned her to look, and overall I am pleased with her
appearance and how I put her character together. At the part where Goldilocks is first
introduced in the forest, I like the whole forest setting and the colour scheme with the natural
earthy colours. It almost looked like an enchanted fairytale forest. However, I am not overly
happy with the style on the page where Goldilocks is walking up to the house. It still features
some of the forest trees and all the grass, however I feel like it has quite a big change in style
from the previous page. If I could have improved on this, I would have made the colours and
style similar to the first page, and that would have made me much happier with my final
product as a whole.
• Another aspect of my book that I like, is how the illustrations look cartoon-y but also have a
realistic touch to them because of the effects I added to some of the objects and characters.
The drop shadow and bevel and emboss effects added much more dimension and made my
illustrations look less flat, as I didn’t want them to look completely like a cartoon.
• I liked the style of my bear characters because they were simple to rotoscope and I thought
they fit the style of my book very well. The fact that they are wearing clothes plays an
important part in making them seem as human as possible. Even though they are bears, they
are given human qualities and they live like humans, so in this sense, I thought adding the
clothes gave it a nice touch.

13. • I did not like the parts where I had to position my Goldilocks character to be doing different
actions, such as where she eats porridge with a spoon and when she sits down. As these were
quite challenging to do, I thought that these images could have been improved if I could do it
again.
One of my favourite pages from my final product because I like the
composition of it - all of the spaces in the room are filled up, but
it doesn't look like too much is happening in the scene.

14. Why did you include the content you used?
For the first frame, I used a background that I felt represented a typical fairytale forest, and I also
liked the warming colours in it, such as all the brown trees and the rusty colours of the leaves. The
image of Goldilocks I chose to include in my book was wearing a yellow checkered dress, with
matching yellow bows in her hair, and white socks with black shoes. She also has golden blonde hair
which pairs with the “goldie” part in her name. I thought that this would be the type of “innocent
girl” image people would imagine when they think of the Goldilocks character. The fact that she
wears this type of clothing and has an innocent and young appearance, contrasts with her bad
actions when she enters the three bears' house without permission. I thought that I should make the
bears’ house look simple since it is just a small house in the middle of the forest and I didn’t want to
include anything too large and extravagant.
I used a serif font for the text, since my target audience is younger children, and this would make it
easier for them to read because it makes the words flow easier, instead of having to read straight
lines. I made the text a size where it wasn’t big enough to take up a lot of room on each page, but big
enough to be clear for my young audience to be able to read easily. I made the the text black
because it looked bold and stood out clearly on each page, which again makes it easier for my young
audience to read.
I used a few effects when creating my children’s book. I used colour range on my first page to add
texture to the grass and the leaves on the trees, which added realistic touches to my background. I
also used colour range to create the checkered effect on Goldilocks’ dress for some extra detail. I
used bevel and emboss on a few of my images, for example on the bowls and spoon on the page
where Goldilocks is tasting the bears’ porridge.

15. I also used this effect on the chairs in the living room, and also the beds. This added more depth to my images
and made them look more 3 dimensional. Another effect I used was Stroke, which allowed me to add a black
outline to my images to make them stand out more and give them a cartoon-y effect. When I was looking at
image examples of the story online, I saw that a lot of them looked quite cartoon-y so I thought these would
be good effects to include in my work. I also used the drop shadow effect to again add more depth and
dimension to my images. I wanted to have a good use of colour in my work because this would make it appeal
more to my target audience. In the pages with outdoor scenery, I included earthy and natural colours like
browns, reds, greens, yellows and oranges because the story is set within a forest. For the parts after
Goldilocks goes inside the house, I started to include more colour. I used a light blue colour for the walls and
red curtains for the pages where she is eating the porridge. In the living room, I made each chair a different
style and colour to represent each of the bears and so the audience can easily tell who each one belongs to.
For example, the opulent looking lavender chair is easily identifiable as Mama bear’s chair, and the small blue
chair is easily matched to Baby bear. This change up of style makes it more interesting for the audience to look
at. For the pages that take place in the bears’ room, again I made each bed a different size and colour to make
them easily identifiable for each bear, and also include more colour and variety.
I created Goldilocks with a
“good girl” image as this is
how she is traditionally
portrayed. Her hair, outfit,
shoes, and her pose help
to create this innocent
appearance.
Serif fonts are commonly used in most children’s
books as they make the words easier and clearer
To read.
I have used bevel and emboss and
also drop shadow on
the bed frames to make them look
3D. I have also used
bevel and emboss on the pillows and
duvets to give them some dimension
and make them look more realistic.

16. What signs, symbols or codes have your used in
your work?
• When creating the character of Goldilocks for my book, I aimed to make her look like a typical innocent little
girl. I achieved this by giving her a yellow chequered dress, matching yellow hair bows in her plaited hair.
Her hair colour is golden brown/blond which could be an explanation of why her name is “goldilocks”. She
has a small bear on the white pouch on her dress, which has some connotations of childishness, and it also
foreshadows the fact that she will enter the house of the three bears and have an encounter with them. Her
long white socks and smart black shoes look like what a young person might wear to school, which again
represents her being child like. When it came to creating the character of the bears, I decided to add clothes
to them, which would humanise them more. Rather than being like wild bears, they act like ordinary
humans by the fact that they live in a house and can speak, so I thought giving them clothes would add to
these human attributes.
• On the beginning page where Goldilocks is taking a stroll through the forest, I created the forest with warm
colours and a lot of trees that were compact and close to each other. I chose to have warm autumn colours
such as red, brown, orange and yellow on the trees as this gave a calm and comforting mood and sets a
happy tone for the story. I thought it was important to set the mood because it is the first page the reader
would see. I also used vibrant colours, such as the yellowy green grass and also the pink toadstools I added.
The style in my work is quite cartoon like, but it is not completely flat and 2D because I have added effects
to some of my images, such as bevel and emboss and drop shadow to give them more dimension.
• The locations my story is set in are the forest and inside the three bears’ house. The first location the
audience sees is the forest where Goldilocks is walking. I created the forest setting by finding and
rotoscoping an image that included a lot of trees close to each other with some sort of path in the middle. I
thought that this was a good fairytale type setting to start off with. I also included this background on the
front cover page and on the last page. The locations shown inside the house are: the kitchen where the
bowls of porridge are set out, the living room with the 3 chairs, and the bedroom with the 3 beds. These are
the main places where the story takes place.

17. What representations can be found in your work?
With the characters in my book, I have used the same characters from the original storyline. My
work doesn’t feature any references to religions or social groups.
• The main character in my book is a young girl named Goldilocks who has the appearance of a
youthful and kind girl who couldn’t do any wrong, but her actions suggest otherwise. She shows
quite a brave and daring side of herself because she enters the bears’ house without thinking
about what the consequences could be. This could go against traditional stereotypes of girls in
fairytales, where they tend to try and stay out of trouble, whereas Goldilocks shows a more
assertive personality.
• The genders in my book are balanced out - there are the females Goldilocks and Mama bear, and
Papa bear and Baby bear, who I decided to make a boy to give a fair gender selection. The ages
are also evened out since Mama bear and Papa bear are the parents and adults, and Goldilocks
and Baby bear represent the younger generation.
• In traditional versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks is shown to be a white
Caucasian young girl. The characters of the bears also stay similar through every version of the
story, as they are always given human qualities, like wearing clothes and being able to talk. I kept
these characters the same in my work because I wanted my book to be close to the traditional
versions in terms of characters and storyline.

18. • To help me with ideas of the kind of style I wanted to include in my work, I looked at existing
characters, and took inspiration from other illustrations online. I wanted the Goldilocks
character and the three bears characters to stay close to how they are traditionally portrayed.
Goldilocks is given the appearance of a young and innocent girl, yet she gets into trouble. This is
shown in most versions of the story and I also wanted to include it in mine. The bears in the
story are anthropomorphic, and I have shown them to be very human-like in my product.
• I also wanted to make sure the style of my book is consistent throughout the story. As a lot of
my pages are quite repetitive, I just copied and pasted some scenes that would stay the same,
and then add any changes. For example, with the part where Goldilocks is trying each of the
chairs, I used the same page, but moved Goldilocks around on each one.
What style have you employed in your products?

19. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the
pre-production and planning
• I did a lot of planning and research before starting production of my children’s book so I had some background knowledge on the
type of product I was going to create. I started by looking at 3 different children’s books and analysing the style of them, and
wrote about the colours and text. This gave me ideas about how many pages to make and how much text would be appropriate
to include in my pages. This also gave me an understanding of what the common conventions are in children’s books, for example
a higher ratio of images to text, large use of serif fonts, and simple vocabulary.
• After I completed this task, I went on to create a mind map where I branched out ideas about a few fairytales and what they
include as far as characters and the type of ending they have. I added all the things that are usually included in children’s books
using the information I got from my research, this reminded me on what to make sure I added into my own work. I also included
the different types of techniques I could use to produce my work such as rotoscoping, photography, etc. I then created a mood
board for further inspiration and ideas. The intention of this was to give me ideas for the type of style to create in my book, and
also how I wanted my characters to turn out. A strength of doing these things in pre production is that it gave me some direction
and guidance when it came to to producing my final product.
• I then went on to writing my proposal, where I stated how many pages I wanted to make and the page dimensions. I also talked
about my target audience and what kind of people I was aiming my product at. I wrote about what techniques I would use during
production. Adding a lot of detail to my proposal before starting my work was useful because it was something to look back at for
more ideas and direction for what I was planning to achieve.
• As the final part of my planning, I completed a planning booklet where I wrote about a lot of considerations I would have to think
about, for example the resources I would need and the availability of them to me, the quantity of books i’d want to publish,
ethical issues, and audience and target market. I also did a production schedule where I wrote I would try to accomplish in each
lesson. The strengths of the planning booklet are that it makes you consider everything you would have to when publishing a
book in real life, and makes you think everything through. The production schedule is helpful as it keeps you on track with what
stage you’re supposed to be at during each session and it was a good method of time management. The weaknesses are that
some of the things to consider didn’t apply to me, such as costs. It didn’t cost me anything to get my book printed since I was
doing it digitally on Photoshop. You can lose track of where you’re meant to be in the production schedule and it’s easy to lose
track and confuse things, for example if you’re ill and miss a session, you’ll be behind on your work and it would require extra
work to get back on schedule.

21. My production schedule was a useful
way of managing the time I had to
complete my final product.

22. Historical and cultural context
The story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears dates back to 1837 and was written by British author and
poet, Robert Southey. Before his version, the story was in circulation on dates even earlier than that.
The title can also be “The Story of the Three Bears” or simply “Goldilocks”. This story is one of the most
popular fairy tales in the English language.The story experienced 2 significant changes during its early
publication history. Southey’s character that played the intruder became an intrusive little girl in 1849,
and was given various names until Goldilocks was settled upon in the early 20th century. The three
bachelor bears involved into Father, Mother and Baby bear.
In Southey’s original tale, “a Little, small, Wee Bear, a middle-sized bear, and a great, huge bear” live
together in a house in the woods. Each of the bears have their own porridge bowl, chair and bed. They
take a walk one day in the woods while they wait for their porridge to cool. An old woman who is
described as impudent, bad, foul mouthed and ugly and dirty, discovers the bears’ house. She walks
into their home when she assumes no one is inside. She eats the wee bear’s porridge and then settles
into his chair and breaks it. She finds the bears’ beds and falls asleep in Wee Bear’s bed. The climax of
the story is when the bears return and catch her. Then the old woman jumps from the window and
runs away and doesn’t return.
Over the years there have been many interpretations of this tale, even with different endings to
Goldilocks fate. In some versions she is almost eaten by bears but she is rescued by her mother.
As the tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears enters the modern day, it even has film, television and
theatre adaptions.

23. Some Victorian illustrations of the book.