Digital graphics evaluation pro forma first draft

1. Graphic Narrative
Evaluation
Emily Pinder

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?
• I feel that my final product does reflect my
original intensions as the storyline is the same
as my plans and my pages are very similar to
my storyboards. My pages do look very
different to my digital flat plans as they were
only a rough guide of how I wanted my book
to look. However, I did change the layout of
my book as I struggled to fit two images and
two paragraphs of text on one page as my
page size is small.

4. • I also made slight changes to my script to help
my story flow and be easier to understand. My
characters and background also look very
different from the digital flat plans as I found
better source images to use to create these.
• I feel that my story is less advanced than my
original intensions as I did not want to include
a lot of violence that the original Batman
stories have. I also feel my script is less
advanced than what I first planned to use.

5. How well have you constructed your
images?
• I feel the overall appearance of my images is
well constructed as I made 3 different versions
of my children's book, each time editing the
backgrounds and characters. I made a big
change to my Batman character and decided
to create a new one that was bigger, bolder
and more defined than my first attempt.

6. This is my first Batman and you can see
he is very small and faint compared to
the new Batman.
All colours
merge
together.
Hard to see
the face and
no eyes.
Very small and
not big and
impressive like a
superhero.
Clear facial
features.
Bright and bold
colours highlighted with
thick strokes.
Very tall
and
masculine.

7. • I like the use of colour range in my backgrounds
as it softens the colours and gives them texture to
make look a little realistic compared to my
characters.
• I also like how my backgrounds colours reflect the
atmosphere of the setting, for example, the toy
store has bright colours and is a happy place
where as the Jokers lair is very dark as it is not a
good place.
• This is also shown in my characters as the good
characters like Jace and Batman have very bright
colours where are the Joker who is a bad
character has dark colours.

8. How well have you used text to anchor
your images
• I feel that my text has to expand on what my
images already show. As without the text you
would be able to infer an outline of the story.
My text however, elaborates on what the
image shows and give extra detail such as the
characters talking to one another and what
the next image is going to be.

9. Is your product suitable for your
audience?
• “My target audience for my book is boys aged 9-11. I feel
that superheroes and action is more stereotyped to boys
and that girls like princess, especially as my target audience
is very young, parents are more likely to stick to these
stereotypes. The social class of my target audience will be
middle class, however I do not think this effects my target
audience as this book is aimed at children. My book will be
written in English so its geodemographic it is limited to
English speaking countries.”
• I feel that my product is suitable to my target audience
stated in my proposal as my story is easy to understand but
does contain a small amount of violence, when Batman
throws the batarang to knock over the Joker, that is not
suitable for a younger audience.

10. • I also feel that my book is most suited to boys
as there is not female characters in my book
and is not typically in the interest of girls due
to stereotypes of colour and the types of role
models for children. Typically princesses are
for girls and superheroes are for boys.
• My story could be suitable for a younger age
range if a parent or career helps to child to
read and understand the story.

11. What do you like/dislike about the
techniques you have used?
• I decided to rotoscope my images using the
polygonal lasso tool, from source images and
create my characters. That way as I like how
the colours are very bold and have no detail as
I feel this appeals more to children, it also
helps my character stand out from my
backgrounds.
Source
image.
Rotoscoped
character.
Removed
details.
Bold
colours.
Lots of
detail.
Different colours to
show shadows and
lighting.

12. • As well as rotoscoping my backgrounds with
the polygonal lasso tool, I decided to use
colour range to add texture to my
backgrounds to make them look more
realistic.
Source
image.
Lots of
detail.
Rotoscoped and colour
range background.
Removed
details.
Removed
people.
Logos.

13. • I decided to use the polygonal lasso tool
instead of the shape tool as I wanted to make
the characters look human and life like so I
needed to make different shapes.
• I also decided not to use the comic book style
for my characters as they would not look as
cartoon like as I wanted. I did however use
some of the photo filters on my backgrounds.
Source image. Background with rotoscope, colour range and filter.

14. What do you like/dislike about how
your final product looks?
• I like how my background and characters have
turned out for my children's book as I like the use
of the bright and dark colours and how the
characters stand out from the backgrounds. I also
like the size of my images as they are quite big
which makes it easier to see all the small details
and colour range.
• I also like my range of different characters and
how they all have a different look despite all
being made by rotoscoping.

15. • I do not like how my text is laid out on my
pages as I feel it looks squished as it is very
small and some pages have a lot of
information. Also, my text on my pages are all
different shapes and sizes. I would have
preferred to put my text on a separate blank
page from my image as it would allow the
audience to concentrate on the text as well as
the image. I would also make the text the
same size and shape.

16. Why did you include the content you
used?
• I decided the use the range of images I chose to
create my backgrounds as I wanted my
backgrounds to look realistic apart from the
Jokers lair. I wanted those backgrounds to have a
more cartoon style and be more dark to reflect
the Jokers personality and persona.
• I also used pictures of real items such as the car
and toys for rotoscoping as I wanted to make
them look realistic and bold and again, stand out
from the background.

17. • I changed the font I used for my book 3 times
as the first font only had capital letters and
was very small. My second font was to tall in
terms of the proportions of capital and lower
case letters. This made it hard to read and was
unsuitable for children. My final font is bold
and has a balanced proportion of text. Some
of the letters also use serif which makes it
easier for children to read.

18. What signs, symbols or codes have
your used in your work?
• All of my characters in my story are male which did not
realise and was completely accidental. However, this
adds to the appeal to a male audience as young
children find the opposite sex disgusting and like to
play in same gender groups.
• I made the backgrounds of the Jokers lair very dark to
symbolise that he is a bad character and the other
backgrounds bright to symbolise the good characters.
The Joker is also referred to as a “weird man” to
symbolise his unstable personality that is show in the
films such as, The Dark Knight, produced for an adult
audience.

19. • I created Batman to be a very tall and muscular
man to show his strength and bravery as a
superhero. Where as I created the Joker as a
small man with face paint and eccentric clothing
to show his kooky behaviour and unstable
personality. I created Jace to be a small boy with
everyday looking clothes so that my audience
could relate to this character.
• I used everyday locations as my backgrounds for
the street and toy store as I wanted it to feel
realistic to a child even though it does not feel
realistic to an adult.

20. What representations can be found in
your work?
• All of my characters are male in my story which I
did not realise until I had finished my book.
However, this helps to appeal to my audience. I
did not feature any different races in my story
other than white males as I did not think it was
relevant to my story. Batman is typically a strong
white male and the Joker wears face paint so you
don’t know his race. Jace is the only characters
race I could have changed but I did not think
about it when I was creating my character.

21. What style have you employed in your
products?
• I employed the Batman characters and items
into my story as I wanted my story to be about
a superhero. I felt it was easier to use an
existing superhero and their enemy. There are
many different stories of Batman but are
aimed at an older audience. I wanted to
create a story that was aimed at a younger
audience and I could expand my audience as
parents who are fans of Batman are more
likely to buy the book for their child.

22. • I wanted my children's book to have a cartoon
style and have lots of colour to make my book
interesting to the audience. The book I looked
at for research ,The Gruffalo, adopts a similar
concept. I also decided to keep the story very
basic and not very descriptive, instead making
my images large to be the description.

23. What were the strengths and weaknesses
of the pre-production and planning
• Strengths of my planning helped me to keep on time with
my children's book and keep up to date. Having a goal for
the end of each session was also good to motivate me to
get my work done. Going into a lot of depth planning the
layout and script of the book helped me to create my book
as I knew how everything was going to be done.
• Another strength is the test page I created as it allowed me
to get use to the different tools in Photoshop and how I
wanted my page/ style of my book to look.
• Weaknesses of the planning process is that it it took me a
while to work out how I wanted to present my book and
was slightly confusing as I did not have the right size page. I
did end up changing my layout in production anyway but it
was good to give me different ideas for my layout.

24. • I feel I managed my time very well in
production as I was never behind at any time
but I was ahead of my schedule which gave
me time to change and create a new Batman
character as I was not happy with my first
attempt.

25. Historical and cultural context
• Batman has a large franchise of films, TV shows
and toys etc which all started from the Batman
comics. I feel that my work is aimed at a younger
audience than the comics as they can be very
elaborate and hard to follow as well as including
a lot of violence.
• Batman has been made in a children's TV series
and has a Lego version film and games. There is
not many books of Batman for children however
so I feel my product is unique despite having a
large subject.

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