The peer feedback praised the dark tone and evolving art style of the graphic narrative, noting how well it conveyed the darker themes through visuals alone. However, some feedback suggested improving character designs to better match the changing scenery and developing the historical setting more clearly. While the author agreed more could be done to sell the time period, they felt the character designs served the story appropriately given the limited production time.

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/storyboards to your final product
The final draft of my script was altered slightly when it came to making my final pages. During the
writing process, I would often describe what was happening on the page, not realising that I
didn’t need to do this as the images themselves would show the character’s actions and the
page’s setting. I then removed most of these parts when writing my final draft, and then changed
certain parts again when copying the text over to the final pages.
My digital flat plans reflect my work well in terms of how the characters, text and objects on the
page are arranged. From the writing process I was able to get a good idea, visually, on how the
pages should look. This meant that making the final product was a lot simpler and actually
organising the look of it didn’t take much time at all.
The only time the final pages deviated away from my plans was towards the end, where I thought
up a more interesting way of showing what the character’s were doing. These changes mainly
came from using Photoshop’s more advanced tools and being influenced by what I could do with
them. Just using clip art on PowerPoint didn’t really let me experiment much with perspective or
other visual aspects like that, so realising that the pages could look a lot more interesting didn’t
occur until later on.

4. 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.
I feel that the structure of the images gets better as the book goes along, which could be due to
the fact that I wanted the art style to evolve from a bright, fairy tale setting to a darker, Tim
Burton inspired style. I knew that combining the two styles could potentially create
inconsistencies in the art style and be jarring for the readers, so I made sure the change happens
gradually. Each page features more and more warped imagery as the book goes on and as the
story gets darker. Looking at pages 3 and 7 highlights the differences perfectly. The first takes
place in a bright country side with bright green hills, features an inviting looking village and has
the characters acting pretty cheerful. Jump to page 7, and all of the sudden those same
characters are walking through a storm at night-time. The imagery is a lot darker, with almost
everything in the image being silhouetted, and the atmosphere is very moody. This is due to the
change in the story and the darker turns it takes. I wanted the imagery to represent the change
and show readers that the book isn’t your typical fairy tale.
For some of the objects seen in the book, I decided to use textures to help make them look more
detailed and to make them stand out more.

5. How well have you used text to anchor your images?
• You should talk about the combination of words, images and text.
Throughout the entirety of the book, every piece of text has been incorporated into the page’s
image in some way. Sometimes it will be placed within the sky, so it stands out from the rest of
the image, or it will be placed within actual objects and structures in a way that sort of frames
the writing. I felt that presenting the book in this way would help guide the reader through the
story, as they follow the text down each page, resulting in the story’s events being seen and read
in the right order. If the text were to be kept separate and placed at either the top or bottom of
the page, then I feel certain sections wouldn’t make sense as they would be viewed or read out
of context.

6. Is your product suitable for your
audience?
• Reference your proposal
• Give an audience profile and describe suitability in reference to content
While my book is targeted towards children, I figured that it would be more suitable for those
who are aged between 6 and 8. I believe that kids of this age will be just old enough to
understand the story and it’s heavy theme. Younger readers may find the material upsetting or be
disturbed by it, along with some of the images. I mentioned in my proposal that my target
audience would be people living in the UK. While I did stay true this concept by setting the story
across England, I felt that it would be best to not give the locations seen in the book a name. I felt
that doing this would ensure that nobody would feel excluded due to their city or town not being
featured in the book.
I also wanted to target parents as my secondary target audience, seeing as they will be the ones
reading the book to their children. Initially, I felt that parents could discuss and talk about the
book’s events and what really happened within it. Very rarely is the dark events actually talked
about in the dialogue, or mentioned in the writing. The death of the female character, for
example, is heavily implied by the images and text. However, I can imagine parents coming up
with a reason as to why the character turned out okay in the end. This allows both the parent and
their child to get more involved in the story, which I believe can only be a good thing.

7. What do you like/dislike about the
techniques you have used?
• Reference specific tools you used with images
Pretty much every aspect of the book was created using shapes, which was accomplished with
the use of the ‘shape’ tool. Basic circles and squares were used to create characters, backgrounds
and objects through Photoshop’s ‘transformation’ tools. Hills and character’s faces had to be
‘warped’ by myself in order to get the right shape and a natural, convincing look. On the other
hand, using shapes definitely made it more difficult to achieve the right look for a person. I spent
a long time trying to get the shape and angle of the characters right, and even when getting the
final look of a character, I was never one-hundred percent happy.
Gradients were used on many occasions to try and create depth within the images. These were
mainly used in the shots that take place in the country side to make it look like the hills curve
upwards and symbolises the darkness that follows the characters.

8. What do you like/dislike about how
your final product looks?
The aspects of the book that I favour the most are the sense of perspective that some of the
pages offer. Early on, tried to create the look of endless hills and mountains stretching far into the
distance. However, the effect didn’t work that well due to the characters and objects on the page
looking flat and being placed along the setting’s lines. Page 2 highlights this problem, as the cart
is positioned at the very top of the hill and makes the scenery look smaller. Fortunately, I was able
to fix this later on by placing scaling down the characters and placing them in the middle of the
hills/environment pieces.
I also like how the final few pages are structured. By that point in production, I really started to
play around with different ways of framing an image and positioning characters within it. Page 11
really shows this the best. While it does thematically and stylistically fits in with the rest of the
book, it’s the only page to be tilted on an angle and features a close up of the main character.
Page 7 also stands out for me personally. The dark silhouettes contrast well with the bright light
emitted by the lightning bolt and create an effective image. The effect was created through the
use of a gradient effect being applied on the background. I then created a lightning bolt shape
and placed in over the gradient, making it look like the bold was creating light.
Several of the later pages also feature a rain effect. I struggled to create this look at first, as I tried
to use basic shapes and effects, but later found a great way to put a convincing rain effect in,
which I ended up really liking.

9. What do you like/dislike about how
your final product looks?
One of the elements which I’m not particularly happy with is the look of the characters. They
seem to work well in the earlier pages, but as the imagery and colour pallet changes, I can’t help
but think they look out of place. Another reason why they might look out of place is because of
the direction they’re facing. Pretty much every page has most of characters facing forwards, since
that’s the only way I designed them. With a bit more forward thinking, this could have been fixed
before even going into production on the book.
Another improvement I wish I could make to the book is to try and sell the time period a bit
better. In my proposal, I stated that the story would take place sometime in the 1800’s. While it
certainly doesn’t look like it takes place in the modern day, the look of the buildings and
landscapes could make some think it takes place even earlier than the 19th century. To improve
this, I could have mentioned the time period in the dialogue somewhere or maybe put some
historical landmarks being built in the background.

10. Why did you include the content you
used?
• Images, fonts, effects, colours
The same font was used throughout the book (Trajan Pro), although the size of the font often
differed from page to page. The placement of the text also changed depending on the
background. Sometimes it would be placed away from all of the pictures so it would stand out,
whereas other pages include it within the actual image, such as on page 5, page 6 and page 8.
The beginning of the story features very bright colours, consisting of greens, blues and yellows
that later change into browns, blacks and reds towards the end of the book.

11. What signs, symbols or codes have
your used in your work?
• Choices of colour, style, locations, character design and tone all give additional meaning to
your work.
The colourful nature of the earlier pages used bright colours in order to make the book look like a
traditional fairy tale, only for the story to go in a darker direction and take the book’s art style
with it. The gradual shift into darkness not only serves the themes of the story, but symbolises
the character’s journey and how the protagonist is getting closer to death no matter where he
goes.
A large majority of the story takes place across (what should be) the English country side. The
characters often come across villages and towns, but no name is ever given to them. This leaves
the actual location unknown to the reader, making the story more mysterious and leaving the
location up to the reader’s imagination. I feel that this helps the person reading put their own
thoughts into the book, which could lead to them relating and connecting with the story more.

12. 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.
12Creative Media Production 2012

13. 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.
13Creative Media Production 2012

14. 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.
14Creative Media Production 2012

15. 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.
15Creative Media Production 2012

16. 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?
Both male and female characters appear in my work, as main characters and supporting
characters. The number of males does out way the number of females, however the decision to
do this comes from how the two genders were treated back in the 19th century. It’s well known
by many that men were the dominate gender back in those times, so that gender being the most
dominant was done in order to represent the time period correctly. That’s not to say the female
characters aren’t giving any attention though. Some lines of dialogue are meant to be from either
the main male or the main female character, depending on how you view the page’s situation.
The wife of the main character may seem underdeveloped at first, seeing as she is never given a
name and is often seen on the side of the page, but that applies to many other characters. The
other female character we see takes on the role of speaking for an entire town, so she is given a
pretty powerful position in the story.
Other than that, the book doesn’t actually feature somebody of another race, age or delve much
into religion. There is a small amount of religious imagery here and there, but it isn’t a focus of
the book. All of those references are in the backgrounds of the the pages that they appear in. I
simply included this element in an attempt to portray the time period correctly.

17. 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 mentioned earlier, one of my biggest influences for the book came from the art style of Tim
Burton. When looking at his work and other pieces inspired by him, I was drawn to their iconic,
shadowy imagery and dark colours. I felt that this style would work well for the darker parts of
my own story, and would be easy to recreate with Photoshop’s shapes tool.

18. 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
In preparation for the book’s production, I made a couple of practice pages to see how my art
style would look in the final product. I found that doing this helped me get a solid idea of what
the rest of the pages would look like, as I discovered the right look for the story and how to
achieve that look.
Seeing as I only had two weeks to finish the entire book, I also created a schedule that would
allow me to make and finish six pages each week. Each half of a day was considered one section
in which I could work on my book. I would start each section by placing in characters, text,
objects and making the background. By the end of section one, I would have started work on the
next page.
As the days went by, I actually managed to finish the book sooner than expected, with the first
eight pages being finished in the first week and the next four a day before production ended. The
reason for this happening was due to the fact that I was re-using character and background assets
for multiple pages, as well as getting used to the art style and being able to work quicker.

19. 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?
Before writing the book, I decided to look at several sources to help me decide on how dark the book should
really be. One of those sources was Grimm’s Fairy Tales, by the Brothers Grimm. The anthology series of classic
children’s stories all come with a dark, unsettling twist. The alternate version of Cinderella, for example,
features the ugly stepsisters chopping off parts of feet in order to fit them in the glass slippers, only for the
blood to leak out and ruin their plan. Knowing that fairy tales and classic stories have taken turns that dark
made me feel more comfortable using dark imagery and tragic themes in my story, as I basically knew there
had been worst things written in those types of books. So while my book isn’t as dark as those books, some of
the images could definitely by seen as cruel as the Grimm’s tales. One of the pages depicts a town, completely
wiped out by a bloody plague. The difference in my book is that it is never directly stated that this is what
happened to the town. It is only shown through the visuals, unlike the Grimm’s story that goes into detail with
descriptive text.

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