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1. Graphic Narrative
Evaluation

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?
• Compare your planning/digital flat plans/ storyboards to your
final product
The original plan that I had to make the page was going to include the image and text in a different
place to what it is now in the final product. My original intentions where to have text on all pages with
small images in circle shapes. This changed when I was going through all the planning as I felt that not
enough image detail will be put into the book and I needed to space the story out over more pages
because I would only have four pages if I went by this plan which would make for a short story. What I
changed about the plan was that it now included text on one page and a few images in the top corner
and a full page image on the right page which was inspired by books that I had done some research
on. What I did keep the same was where the images will be positioned on the left side page and they
were also included in a circle shape which I also took as inspiration from a book called the gorilla. The
final product that I now have is better because I feel it has more detail and tells more of the story by
having a much larger image on the right side rather than having smaller images which don’t really have
much depth in the story telling. Something that I could improve on the current product is that I could
change the images that are in the circles so that they make a little more sense, originally the images
were to be placed there because they are little short summaries of the text in the form of an image for
example I have an image of three beds, chairs and bowls in my story which in the text explains that
these are in ownership of the family.

4. Original idea Final idea
This is the original plan that I was going to
use, when comparing the two there is not
much difference with them both being very
similar. The right hand page will now always
have a full page image rather than the three
circular images.
This is the flat plan that I have used for my flat
plan, it includes 4 circle shape pictures now
because it allows more images to be implanted
into the story. The page on the right also has
an image covering the whole page because it
adds more depth.

5. How well have you constructed your
images?
• How well have you constructed your images? You could talk about the overall visual appearance and well as the
use of texture and colour.
The images that I have made were created using Photoshop using a variety of techniques and tools, one technique that I used was
Rotoscoping, this involves using different shapes or tools to trace around an existing image such as a house for example where you
would trace each individual piece that is vital to that house, this includes places such as the door, roof and the actual house shape. This
would then be layer copied which would take that traced area where it can be edited as a separate part to the object being Rotoscoped.
I used Rotoscoping in all of my work making the story, I made the bear character by tracing around each part of the bear using the
polygon lasso tool which I found easy to use which is why I used it, I did this for two separate bears because I needed two separate
positions of the bear standing and sitting. The image turned out well as it looked closely to the bear and what I was aiming for as I didn’t
want it to look vicious and ferocious and made it more child friendly. Because the story involved the opposite of goldilocks and the roles
switched the bear needed a golden looking colour to portray them as being the goldilocks character. The colour that I had settled with
was a light brown colour, the bear was to be gold but when I experimented with all the different colour they didn’t fit with the bears
characteristics and feature. I used the brown instead because this is the colour that bears usually are and it was a better match. Another
image I constructed was the house which I Rotoscoped too, this house turned out well because it looked realistic and how I wanted it to
look, I used colour that were similar to the ones on the existing image including all the shadowing on the different parts of the house
that were shaded. The background that I made was also done using rotoscoping, although some of the different backgrounds used
shapes. The background which included the forest was done by Rotoscoping around each tree and changing the colour to a much darker
density. I added some new things such as the blue sky and the green grass because I wanted it to seem friendly and appeal more by
using the bright colouring. I also used some custom shapes for this as well which was for the tree leaves, I used a speech bubble and
changed it to a green colour which acted as the bush on the tree top which looked good. The house which is placed in this background
goes well with it and fits with the scene, all the trees are in the correct layer position so it looks like the house is placed in the forest
rather than just placed on the screen by having the house as the top layer. The trees that are closer to the screen which have a bigger
size are the ones in front of the house. I do feel that more detail can go into the image, I could add some more realism to the trees y
adding all the cracks and branches that trees have to add just a bit more detail to the scene. I also feel like there are not enough trees
spaced out enough, all the trees in the setting are all in a group together and need to be separated a bit more to give a much more open
setting.

6. For the characters that I made I wanted to try out something different compared to Rotoscoping because this is
what I used for everything, so instead the characters were to be made from shapes entirely. I found that making
the characters using this technique was a bit harder due to getting the sizing right for each character and the facial
features. What I did with the expressions of the characters was on a separate document where I had the characters
face and started to experiment with different expressions to include in the story. This went well as I was able to
produce expressions that I felt happy with. My characters however after I had finished them, I felt they weren’t as
good as they could have been and there are plenty of books that have much more detail characters then in my
book, the characters don’t look like people like they should but the shapes they were made from and they seem
bland when I placed them in the setting of the story. I want to change them because they have a main part in the
story and are the characters that we first meet in the story. More detail needs to be put into each character, this
can be resoled by going and doing Rotoscoping of the characters instead of using shapes to create them because
this would allow me to capture more features of expression on a person and also add more detail and realism to
the image. I have used some colour with the characters with the face, hair and eyes the clothing was also changed
to be able to identify the members of the family by the colour of their clothes. This might be something that I must
consider doing because I have to include them in the story to be able to finish it. Shapes are something that I can
use to be able to construct a certain object like a house because this would be much easier as it would just us the
square tool to make shapes and then use the warp tool to help me put the shape so that it matches in line with
where it meets other parts of the shape. In comparison to most children's books that I have read in the past they
use really detailed yet simple shaping and sketches for images. For example books such as the folktale versions of
Goldilocks and little red riding hood have very detailed characters in the story, the reason they have so much detail
is to show characteristics. Like the wolf in red riding hood will need to have detail put into it to show that this is
vicious because it is a wolf, but at the same time being appealing to the children. In Goldilocks they have detail of
the house interior and of Goldilocks and the bears. This shows that I need to have detailed characters in the book
to show a much better version of the expressions and emotions the character has because it conveys more than
using the shapes.

7. How well have you used text to anchor
your images
• You should talk about the combination of words, images and text.
To anchor down my images with the text what I have done is picked a scene from the piece of text that could be
created into an image to show a certain setting or an action that the character is performing. Some text that was on
the page might not appear as an Image even though it seemed like an important piece of the story as a key element.
I have used words that are easily understandable and can also be translated into an image to give more of an effect
of imagery. The text is big enough to be able to read so that focus is not lost to the images when reading the text on
the page, the text style is of a style that looks like it belongs in the folktale type stories which also gives the text more
interest.

9. Is your product suitable for your
audience?
• Reference your proposal
• Give an audience profile and describe suitability in reference to content
Yes I think that my book is suitable for my audience that I aimed for. The audience that I chose to aim the story
at is 4-7 years old, the reason I chose to do this age group is because I find that they will be able to read and
enjoy the story by themselves. The reason that my book is suitable for this age group is that it is based on an
existing story that is Goldilocks and the three bears, the only change I have made is that Goldilocks is a bear and
the bears are people. This makes it suitable because it is similar to the original with only minor changes. I have
done 8-12 pages because this is the amount that are typically found in children's books that I have read. By
having minimal pages this allows the children to read and enjoy a short story without getting bored, a children's
book with lots of pages and text might cause a child to lose interest in the story. The text size is around 20
because the story will need big, bold writing for a child to be able to see the text clearly, the writing is also
different from a much more modern story, it is based more on the old style folktale writing where it has all the
flicks on each letter.

11. What do you like/dislike about the
techniques you have used?
• Reference specific tools you used with images
What I liked about the techniques that I used were that it was very easy to use, I used Rotoscoping to create
the different settings of my story which I found to be easy, an example from my work is the background of the
forest which I had used for two scenes, this was easy to make because I only had to draw around a tree and
then I was able to duplicate the tree and place it where I wanted. This was effective because I was able to
produce a good realistic looking background for the story. What I like about rotoscoping is that its easy to use
with some practice. I used the polygonal lasso tool to draw around image to rotoscope, this tool was easy to
use because it involved just drawing around the image that I was rotoscoping.
Another techniques that I used was shaping, this was where I made up some of my characters using only
shapes, I didn’t like this method because it looked odd when they were placed in the setting as they did not fit
with the background. It did not capture all the detail of the character, when I was analyzing some children's
books they had realistic looking characters, particularly in The Gorilla which was a book I looked at, in this the
characters looked more realistic because they had facial expressions which you could tell what emotions they
were feeling because the characters were well made, although the images were hand drawn then placed into
the book it still looked better. What I think I would improve on is rather than using shapes to create my
characters because I wanted to try something different is to go back and use rotoscoping because this could
allow me to capture lots of expressions in more detail compared to being restricted to only shapes. This is the
only improvement I could make which would make my story a lot better. These are the only two techniques
that I used and prefer rotoscoping because it is much easier to use and gets more detail out of the image.

12. This is the polygonal tool that I have used throughout the project, this
tool was used to drawn around the image I wanted to Rotoscope where I
would then create a new layer with the selected piece of the image I just
drawn around.
It was easy to use as I have had practice with it and have used it before
To fix this problem what I was going to do was create the characters using Rotoscoping, the reason to using this
method is because I find I will be much better and effective at using this tool rather than using shapes, this would
allow me to also capture more facial features on the characters to show more emotion to them. this will take
longer to do and might take up time that could be used for other things but to complete the story the characters
need to be fully complete for each scene.
These are some of the shape tools that I used to create the character, the
ones I used were the eclipse tool and the custom shape tool, the custom
shape tool has a variety of different shapes which can be put together to
make an image, I used shapes from this for eyebrows for the character
because there was a shape that was similar to be able to make eyebrows. I
found it hard to use these shapes to make all my characters because I felt that
they didn’t fit with the background settings because i made them to look
realistic where these characters are Just made of different shapes.

13. What do you like/dislike about how
your final product looks?
What I like about the way my final product looks is that it has similar style to that of children's books, the text
looks good in the book because it looks similar to that of a classic story. It has the old style font which I like
because the book is based on one of the folktale books of Goldilocks and the three bears. I also like how the
images look like he backgrounds for example the forest which I made some changes on to make it more
colourful. I did this because as part of a children's book it needs to be colourful because it supposed to be a story
which children can enjoy. I also like the look of the interior of the house I created because of the detail like the
shadowing on the table and chair because it adds a perspective effect rather than it looking flat on the page.
I think that both the text and images goes well together because they are not just random images they are
pieces of the text I have picked out to that are important to the story. I like the way the right page is always a
much larger full page image that even though it has no text it shows progress in the story.
What I don’t like about my final product is that on the left side page which includes the text and four images, I
feel I can add a little more to it. Like from previous books that I have looked at they have more detail on the page
but I just have four images which some people might find hard to understand. They also look too plain, when
looking through the slides I feel they need more detail to them, on one page I have the chairs which show that
each family member has a different size chair, this could be improved by taking a background that I made and
placing it behind this to make it look like its in the house instead of having it in this blank space, this is something
that I find might not matter but could be improved upon to make it look much better.

14. This is an example of the spacing, I think that
the images in the shapes could have some sort
of background to add detail to it and take up
more space, this could be done by getting the
background to the house interior and using
this to show that these are in the house.
What I like about it however is the text which has the old
style looking text that older looking children's books had in
the old tale books, this text is consistent throughout the
story because I found it would make it look like one of the
older folktale stories and took inspiration from these books
as well.

15. Why did you include the content you
used?
• Images, fonts, effects, colours
The reason I used the image content in the story is because it fits for its purpose, the story that I made was based
on the Goldilocks story which I have taken key elements from and included in my work, these include a bear which
I made in Photoshop using rotoscoping, I used this image in my work because the bear is a key character in the
story as he is the equivalent to Goldilocks as they have the same role in my story. The story would not be good if it
didn’t include any of the characters it was supposed too. I used a font called Lucida Calligraphy which looks good in
the story and I used this font because it looks like the old tale story text that they used, I experimented with
multiple text fonts until I found the best one. compared to a modern children's book which uses a much more clear
written text, I think that my style of text looks better in the story, this is why I chose to include it in the story
because it looks unique compared to some stories that I have seen and find that it looks better than some stories.
However I find that the text might be hard to read for some children in the much younger ages of my target
audience of 3-7, I find they would struggle to read the text in the book which is why I have used quite a large text
size to make it easier for them to be able to read it.
The colours that I have included are used because they go well with the background colours, I tried to blend
everything together by using bright type colouring. I haven't made it too bright because it still needs to look part of
the image it is based on. The backgrounds I have used bright colours for like the forest image background, I have
used bright colours for this such as the sky which is a light blue because it is meant to show a happy atmosphere.
Most colours I have used are different shades of brown for subjects such as the bear and house along with the
interior, because I wanted these to look closer to the original mage.

16. This is the text type that I have used, it looks really
good as part of the story and I like it but find that it
could be hard for some children to be able to read
it. It is inspiration from classical children's books like
the old folktales.
This is an example of a background image with the image placed
in, I have included the bright blue sky which was not there in the
original image because it adds more colour to the image. This also
makes the scene feel more friendly. It also reflects the characters
good nature.

17. What signs, symbols or codes have you
used in your work?
• Choices of colour, style, locations, character design and tone all give additional meaning to
your work.
In the process of making my characters, my design was to make three different sized people, these were to be
the replacement of the bear family in Goldilocks, instead they were to be people, the design that I made for
them was to have one tall, small and medium characters by using different height scales to be able to tell who
is who. The location in which they live is in a house in the woods, the location design that I have made is all
bright and colourful compared to the original image where it was dark and had all grey colouring, I changed
this to give it a lighter tone and a much more cheerful atmosphere that would be suitable for a child to be
reading and feel a sense of warmth.

18. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
Media texts require us to have a certain level of cultural understanding to
be able to interpret them.
At a basic level, this could mean being able to read the language that a
magazine is written in.
At a deeper level, it means being able to interpret signs and symbols that
we use a visual shorthand to communicate ideas.
We recognise these signs in our own culture but find it harder to
understand when looking at others.
We create and attach meaning to signs and symbols in many different
forms.
18Creative Media Production 2012

19. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
What is this?
This is a Norwegian Pine tree, covered in
snow and with a red ribbon on.
Our cultural understanding allows us to
interpret its meaning.
To us, in British society, it means
Christmas, presents and family.
This is because we share a cultural
knowledge.
19Creative Media Production 2012

20. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
There are many other signs and symbols
that we attach meaning to.
A leather jacket can imply rebellion.
A sports car can imply wealth and power.
A cross can represent religion.
20Creative Media Production 2012

21. Audience Responses
Cultural competence:
Visual representations of everyday objects are often the same the world
over. A car appears as a car, no matter what country it appears in.
What that car means however, can be very different depending on your
cultural background.
21Creative Media Production 2012

23. 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?
In my work I have include a family consisting of a male, child and female, I have not represented them negatively as
they are so far only in one scene, from making my characters they are equally represented, with them going to
appear in each scene necessary all together with them being a family. I have used different methods to show the
different ages, for example the older male I have used a different hair style to represent them as being the older
adult. I included the different ages because it was a part off the story I was creating, in Goldilocks there is a family
of bears, small, medium and large. I have used something similar as part of my story, but portraying them as
human, this meant I had to include the age to tell they are a family, to do this I used different styles on the
characters to show different ages of the characters. Each of the gender in the story is represented differently to
each other, to show the older character I have gave them a different hairstyle to show they are much older than
the rest, to show the female character they have longer hair.

25. 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?
The style that I have gone for is a mash up of two types, I have taken inspiration from old folktale stories with the
fancy type text which some of them use and then included this into my work, along with this I have added images
in the style of much more modern stories, like the Gorilla which I took the idea of having the right hand page as a
full page image and having a single small image on the left above the text, I have done this my own way however
as I have added three other pictures above the text compared to the one image because I did not want to copy the
work of another author. The reason I liked the image on the right page is due to it been essential to the story, this
image is taken from the text and put into an image style, this image tells part of the story and can be used to
introduce new characters and settings to the story. Another style that I used was influenced by Goldilocks and the
three bears, the text that I used was influenced by the book that I had a look at, it used the type of handwriting
with all the flicks on the letters and the fantasy looking writing. I thought the style of writing would look good in
my story because I wanted the book to look more like the old folktale ones, which is why I was inspired by these.

26. This is the type of text that I have put into my work,
the reason I have used this text is because it looks
like text from an old tale book, I thought I would use
this as my book is based around this period of books
a problem that I think might occur with this type of
text is that I feel some children might find it hard to
be able to read the text.

27. 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
• Reference specific examples
The strengths of my work are that I was able to plan everything out so that I had no trouble in making the final
product when it came to production, this enabled me to plan out how I was going to create my story and what
types of techniques I was going to use to make the book. Doing research also gave me lots of help, I looked at
different types of children's books that are popular today and compared them to see what similar techniques
they each use in there stories, this helped me decide what I was going to include in my story with the type of
narrative and style of the story. This was a strength to me because it helped me to plan out a story with all the
right techniques and styles that are very similar to a modern/old story book. What I did was also manage my
time, this helped me to also plan out how I was to effectively use time to make my story and how long I was to
spend making it, this was to make sure I was not spending more time than I should so that I could get it all done
and handed in and complete. I found a weakness during the research time I had, because I wanted to be able to
compare some books which had different style to each other and some which were close the much older style
children's books. This was quite hard as I could not find many books that met this criteria and had to use
different websites to be able to eventually find some of the books, this took up a tiny bit of time which could
have been spent planning out my own story and getting more detail in planning to ensure I had lots of ideas
generated.

29. 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?
My story is based of Goldilocks and the three bears, it is not entirely based on the story but has some similar
aspects that I have taken form the original, this compares to my work as they are both very similar in story with
the roles only turned around but the same thing happens with someone intruding the house and eating the
porridge and breaking the chair. Some other stories which could be relevant and compare to mine are other old
folktale stories such as little red riding hood which is an old folktale classic book which can be compared to my
story as it is based off the style of these books with mine being based on the old classic books. Current books
which exist in the style I have been influenced by are The gorilla, the reason this can be compared is because it
has taken the image layout from book and used this style for my own because I liked having the right page as a
whole image, because it tells more of the story and has more detail, the image tells the story by itself.

30. this is an example of influence that inspired me from another
book, the book The Gorilla used a similar style to that of this which
I found to be good because the large image told part of the story
even though there is no text on the page. I have added lots more
detail onto these pages because the pages are meant to show
more of the story and scenery so I put in more detail.

31. Peer Feedback
• Summarise peer feedback and discuss
– Responses you agree with
– Responses you disagree with