The author remade the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears for their graphic narrative project. They initially considered remaking Hansel and Gretel or The Three Little Pigs but ultimately chose Goldilocks at the last minute. The author used rotoscoping in Photoshop to create simple images with bright colors suited to their young target audience of 2-5 year olds. While rotoscoping allowed for accurate images, shape tasks were also used but took more time. The author feels their images, text, and story are well suited to their intended audience due to the simplicity and clarity throughout.

1. Graphic Narrative
Evaluation

2. Does your final product reflect your
original intentions?
For my final product I remade Goldilocks and The Three Bears, I talked about this story a little bit on my
mind map I made but at that time it was not going to be my first option because I didn’t think about
it straight away, instead I was either going to remake Hansel and Gretel or The Three Little Pigs
because I thought about how much detail I could get to illustrate if I chose those stories. It was at
the last minute I thought about the Goldilocks and The Three Bears story. This shows that the
strength of my planning wasn’t very good because I kept on changing my mind about what story I
wanted do, I also changed my mind a bit when deciding what illustration technique I was going to
use, at first my initial decision was to do a comic book effect throughout my book, but then I
realised that that technique would show too much of the original image I used and so there could
be copyright issues. Another illustration technique I was going to use was the shape task technique,
this is probably one of the more creative options but it takes a lot of time and is not as accurate as
rotoscoping, which is the technique I finally decided to use. My initial plans for the text stayed the
same throughout the project because I was always going to use a big font size because it would be
easier for my target audience, that is why I didn’t write that much on each page as well. I used the
same font as I said I would in my text mood board. I used the same page dimensions I said I would
in my proposal, I also said that my book would be 20 pages long in my proposal but instead the
book turned out to be 32 pages long. I kept the same story as I said I would in my proposal and
made it with my target audience in mind.

3. Mind Map
Finished Product

4. How well have you constructed your
images?
I used the roto scope tool in Photoshop to create most of my images, I
also used shapes for the trees and other little details. My images
follow the same style throughout my book, I used bright colours
because my target audience is quite young so they will be more
intrigued by bold, eye catching colours than dull, plain colours. I
haven't used any textures in my images, this is because of the age
my target audience is, which is from 2-5 years old so I don’t want
the images to be too difficult or complicated to look at. I tried to
make my images as bright as I can because my target audience will
probably be more interested in the pictures and not the text. I think
I have done well with making my images have the same style, there
aren’t any pages that are noticeably different from the others, each
image has the same bold colours and simple designs. Overall I feel
that my images are well constructed with the target audience in
mind because of the simplicity of the pictures and the bright
colours that could attract the audience into reading the book.

5. This is an example of one of the scenes in my book, the colours
are bright and bold, there also isn’t much going on in the
background or foreground.

6. How well have you used text to anchor
your images
I think that my text and my images link together well, there isn’t any
confusion when you look at an image after reading the text that
goes with it. I think this is because I planned what I was going to
write first so then I had an idea on what my images should look like
and what details and objects should be in the image. I used a font
that I downloaded from DaFont because it looks like it links with the
story and the genre the book is in but is still easy to read to most
people, including my target audience. I made the background the
text is on a different colour to white, this is because it makes the
text easier to read and makes the page easier to look at as well, I
also did this because after doing my book research I noticed that
many other authors and illustrators did it as well. Overall I think I
anchored my images and text together pretty well, mainly because
of pre-production planning, if I were to improve any page it would
be the first page because the image doesn’t link up with the text
completely accurately.

7. The text says how Goldilocks is
walking around a house she finds.
The image shows Goldilocks walking
towards the house like what happens
in the text.

8. Is your product suitable for your
audience?
I made the book with my target audience in mind. In my proposal I
mentioned that the the preferable age for my target audience is 2-5 years
old however this is quite flexible. Another restriction is the language,
because I have written the book in English meaning that only English
speaking countries like England, USA and Australia will be able to read it,
unless it is translated, other than that there are not any restrictions on
who my target audience is, the book doesn’t steer towards any gender,
race or religion. It is also suitable for all classes, I did this because I don’t
want to single out anyone, and if I were to put this on the market I want
everyone to be able to buy it, therefore making more money. My book is
suitable for my audience because I used simple English language and
images in my book meaning that it easier for my target audience to read it
and look at the pictures because they are quite young, and will most likely
speak English. Even though the main character in the story is a girl I have
tried to make the book suitable for both genders by not saying anything in
the book that could push it to one gender and not the other. I handled the
race and religion situation the same way by not mentioning anything to do
with different races or religions.

9. This is my proposal I made before production but after planning, it states who my
target audience is and how I will try to make my book suitable for them.

10. What do you like/dislike about the
techniques you have used?
When creating my images I mainly just used the roto scope
tool, this is because I enjoyed using it more than the other
tools in previous projects I have done in Photoshop because
its more accurate and it is also quicker plus the end results
look better and more like a professional cartoon than the
other tools like using shapes. The roto scope tool is
normally easy to use, it allows you to accurately draw
around sharp and pointy edges as well as smooth edges
too. Another tool I used is the shape tool, this allows your
images to look unique and incredibly creative by using the
warp tool with it. The problem with shape tasking is that its
quite a slow process and it can get quite frustrating, that’s
why I only used it for small details and some background
images like the trees in the first few scenes.

11. This is an image taken from my book, I chose this image as an
example because even though most of it was drawn using the
roto scope tool, some other parts of it were drawn with shapes
and warped like the trees in the background. Other parts of the
image were painted using the paint brush tool like the grass on
the floor.

12. What do you like/dislike about how
your final product looks?
I like my final product because it is the best I could do whilst making it
suitable enough for my target audience, I also like how there isn’t
any shading or textures meaning that the images are quite simple
but at the same time you can understand what is going on in the
picture. I like the font I chose and the size of the font as well
because its curly and different, I like the font size because its fairly
large and takes up a good bit of space on each page plus it is easy to
read. What I dislike about my final products are that they look like I
have not put too much effort into them, this will make people think
that the overall quality of the book is not as good as it could’ve
been. Overall I think that the final product/book looks simple but I
know that that was the style I was going for because of my target
audience, who are only young so they might get confused over
detailed drawings.

13. The image on the right is an example of how simple my images are,
but you can still understand what's happening, especially if you
read the text which goes along with it. The text which is on the
right shows that its quite easy to read because of the pink
background making it easier on the eyes, and showing that it is
easily readable even though it’s a curly font.

14. Why did you include the content you
used?
I roto scoped over images of people or objects I found on the internet
that I thought I could use in my book because of the stance they’re
in or the fact they can be used perfectly in my book, for example
the chairs in a few of the scenes in the middle of my book were put
there because they link with the story and they also match the
details of the ones in the original script. Without the images I used
the pictures would not work with the text or the story as a whole. I
didn’t put any text in the images but the font I used for the story
was chosen because of how easy it is to read, and because it looks
like it can be used in a lot of fairy tale stories and other children's
books I looked at during my research. I used the paint brush tool to
add texture to the ground in the first few scenes of the book, I also
used the stroke tool to create a border for the window in a lot of
frames that are in the book. I used bright and bold colours so that it
would grab the reader’s and the audience’s attention, whilst
keeping them intrigued as they keep on reading.

15. This photo is an example of a photo where I used multiple
images from the internet as a guide for drawing some objects
like Goldilocks, and the chair.

16. What signs, symbols or codes have
your used in your work?
I used bright and light colours to set a happy mood in my
book, this is because the mood of the book might
affect the mood of the reader. The mood of my book is
mostly positive as well so using bright colours will help
show it. I used the background images as a way to set
the mood, in the first scene Goldilocks is lost in a forest
which leaves mystery with the reader. In one scene I
made Goldilocks’ face up close in the image so the
reader can tell what her facial expression, I like this
scene because its slightly different from the others in
the way that it’s the only close up of a main character
in the book.

17. I chose this image as an example because this is an image I
talked about in the previous slide, it makes the reader shocked
to see Goldilocks from a different angle from what they are
used to seeing in the book, shocked like Goldilocks is when she
breaks the chair.

18. What representations can be found in
your work?
I have stuck with the original characters from the original
story and I have not made any comments that could
possibly be derogative to any race, sex or religion. The
original characters are Goldilocks who is usually
depicted as a young female Caucasian so I have made
my Goldilocks like the rest, Father Bear and Mother
Bear who are always the same in every adaption of the
story. I have decided to make Baby Bear a boy because
that way there will be an equal amount of male
characters and female characters. A representation
about bears could be created because of how they are
living as a family like humans.

19. I chose this photo because it has all the characters from the
book in it, two male characters being Father Bear and Baby
Bear plus two female characters being Mother Bear and
Goldilocks.

20. What style have you employed in your
products?
I used the pictures I found during research whilst I was
planning as examples of what I want my final product to look
like. A lot of the pictures I found were bright and looked like
they had either been drawn but mostly roto scoped. There
wasn’t an exact illustrator that influenced but just the idea of
simple images I found in many children’s books on the
internet or through research in general were the ones that
influenced me because they were the type of images used in
books targeted at people aged between 2-5 years old like my
book. I also chose to use the roto scope tool because it’s the
tool I found the easiest to use but also the most flexible. I
didn’t concentrate on making small details in the images as
they could be distracting or take the audiences eyes off the
main part of the image.

21. These are the images I found during my research, the images were used as ideas for what to
draw or how to draw them, the image on the bottom right is the one my final product looks
like most because its simple and it looks like it has been roto scoped.

22. What were the strengths and weaknesses
of the pre-production and planning
The planning I did helped a lot because it enabled me to narrow down
most of the options I had so I didn’t spend too much time thinking
about other opportunities I could do during production. By creating
my mind map I explored a lot of possible fairy tales and folks tales,
illustration techniques, and font sizes and decided on which ones to
go for. I used my mood boards to explore different ways that other
illustrators have drawn and used computer assisted design to create
their images, I also used the mood boards as a way to decide what
font I was going to use for my book. The negative side about my
planning is that I did not put in as much detail as I could have which
means I still had to make certain features of my book up during
production. My time was managed well because for most of my
production time I was well ahead of schedule and so I used the rest
of production time improving my pages to make them look better.

23. This shows all the planning I did, there is
a lot more I could’ve written for my mind
map because there wasn’t enough detail
in it for me to go through the whole
production process without making
something up on the spot.

24. Historical and cultural context
The first variation of the novel there wasn’t a Goldilocks
but instead an old woman who was described as being
foul mouthed and dirty. It was only in later variations
where the character Goldilocks was introduced, this
was probably because this way it would be more child
friendly. My book is the version with Goldilocks in it
because it is more child friendly. I did not base any of
my drawings from the images I found during my
research I just used the images for help on what
illustration technique to use. However the Goldilocks
and the Three Bears story is quite popular and many
versions of it have been made in the past by other
authors and illustrators.

25. This image shows that I have chosen to make my book following
the new more child friendly story that follows a girl instead of an
old foul-mouthed woman through her adventures in the bears’
house.