A few obstacles but back to progressing.

So I was originally planning on making my comic on Manga; however, it has decided not to open for me anymore. Now I am making my pictures on Photoshop which I am quite liking. Between the two programs I tried Adobe Illustrator but I found it VERY hard to draw with, it does not give the illustrator very much freedom with lines on the tablet.

After being frustrated with Illustrator because I had spent a few hours trying to draw a picture, but was not getting anywhere, I decided to switch to Photoshop. I was a tad panicked because I had never used it before, and my Professor was not on campus because it was a Thursday afternoon; so I could not bug him.  Probably the most important thing that I learned from this class is that you can google instructions and tutorials on line for pretty much everything. Thus, I decided to google how to use Photoshop and did a few tutorials.

Along with learning how to use new programs for this project I am also learning how to use a Mac. I am actually starting to like it; the only thing I tend to keep trying to do is Right click the mouse, which does not exist.

Another thing I keep doing because it’s hard to break natural reactions, is touching the button on the pen. The button is right where I naturally hold a pen, so I keep switching my grip without thinking. However, from this constant mistake, I learned that if you touch the pen button while having the tip to the screen a window pops up that allows you to manipulate the width of the pen line, which is very convenient.

 

To speed up the process of drawing, and to make things a tad more consistent from picture to picture,  I made an octopus outline that I saved, so I can use it for different screens.

Here are a few pictures that I drawn so far... However I have no clue how to combine the pictures with images on photoshop for the next phase.

The cover image

I drew the people in blue

The Historian Hunch

Sometimes when I observe professors at the university I notice that many hunch. I have developed a theory that I shall dub “The Historian Hunch”, though it probably relates to all academics.

To obtain the knowledge needed to achieve a PhD, one is forced to sit at a desk numerous hours of the day, hunched over a book reading. Consequently, as the academic’s mind begins to develop (one may argue to a ‘superior’ state if they are Sheldon Cooper) their body begins to regress into a pre-homo sapien state, to when humans were still hunched over.  

Story Board...

Story Board.
Some photos have arrows because I decided to change the order of image and words.

Planning ...

I think I will be taking a silent film approach to my animated short. I am currently trying to decide where to place the words and the images.

These are some photos I have taken of my work so far.

The beginning of my outline.



I took several photos of the book shelves on the fifth floor of Weldon where my comic takes place.
I am planning on using the images as the back drop because I find it hard to draw with dimensions.

First 3D Image of Ninja Historian vs. Octopus

What I did in class today on Google Sketchup. I would like to give a shout-out to Dave for all the help. THANKS!

MOUSE TRAP!

Pinky and the Brain may be my favourite two mice in history. Their show was one of my favourites as a kid. Pinky and Brain were two laboratory mice, who would break out of their cage at night and try to take over the world. Brain (the short one) was the mouse with the plan. He is like the Napoleon of the mice world. My favourite scheme of theirs, was when they tried to take over the world by having the last tea bag, they were convinced that Britain would crumble to their wants – I don’t think this was such a bad plan.

Using Google Stechup, I made the two a fun mouse trap. The first image in the picture is a full view of the mouse trap. In the next images (going left to right in the first row, then again in the second) I give close ups of the path they will take.

I enjoyed using a 3D model more than the Inkspace we did last week. I found that 3D images make better use of creating images on the computer. I really enjoyed the ability to move parts of an image inward or outward.

Plot Outline and Character Background Information

1.

(Done in Star Wars flying text)

In a land were history has turned into mythology.

Where people copy and steal from others.

Where the historian has been caste from the Ivy towers,

And thrown into the dingy pits of the mines,

Forced to perform manual labour for eternity.

Their books locked-up, and their primary documents destroyed.

There is no hope left for the scholarly world…..

2.

The Adventures of…..

Ninja Historian

(KA POW! N.H. does flying kick through screen)

3.

On the highest floor, of the largest library chaos has taken over.

The 10-foot tall, man eating, octopus – Ambrose, has just devoured the knowledge from half the monographs on the fifth floor of Weldon Library.

The Engineers, whose section Ambrose has just destroyed, are fleeing after a failed attempt to subdue the octopus.

Science has no tools to defeat Ambrose, and there are still students trapped in the library.

What can be done?

4.

Ninja Historian approaches as stealthily as a Grey Wolf, Ambrose does not hear a noise.

Ambrose lunges for a student, but he is too slow.

N.H. strikes Ambrose with a hard karate-chop

5.

Angered, Ambrose uses the ink that he has stolen from the books, to whip it at N.H.

With the ease and grace of a dancer, N.H. leaps away from the ink, never being hit.

6.

Next Ambrose uses his 10-foot long tentacles to swing at N.H.

After leaping away from one, N.H. is hit from behind by another tentacle.

(N.H. is knocked through the air.)

Worry creeps over N.H.

Can he really defeat such a large plagiarizing beast, the more knowledge he steels the more powerful Ambrose gets. 

7.

N.H. takes out his throwing stars (that are FN for Foot note) and whips them at Ambrose.

One, after another, and F.N. cuts off the eight arms of the octopus.

Ambrose is scared. The F.N.s will not come off.

8.

Close up of a F.N. leaching on to the severed tentacle, slowly expanding around the tentacle.

9.

Full views of Ambrose watching in amazement, as his severed tentacles begin to shrink.

10.

Ambrose continues to shrink into human size.

11.

A tiny first year appears where Ambrose the octopus once stood. Shacking with fear.

12.

N.H. pulls out his Rampola Style guide, and tosses it at the boy.

13.

The boy catches the Rampola Style guide.

The N.H.’s voice is heard saying: “Source it!”

Character Background:

10-foot tall octopus. Name: Ambrose

Why is Ambrose Evil? – He sucks out all the information from the books and does not reference where he got his knowledge. When he takes the information, the pages of the books are left blank, stealing knowledge from the world. Further, he uses the ink from the books as a weapon against Ninja Historian. The ink is hot, it can burn.

Named After: Ambrose is named after popular historian Stephen Ambrose. He wrote Band of Brothers, which became a popular mini-series on HBO. However, he is a known plagiarizer. In his book The Wild Blue, he copied full passages from Thomas Childers’ book Wings of Morning.

Ninja Historian- One bad-ass historian. (that’s all that needs to be said)

I think it’s essential that my characters have a deep history, and that future plots include illusions to famous books, to make the text richer. I personally love figuring out what authors are referencing and looking deeper into it. I think it’s a great way of learning lots of little things.