First Story Board
This is based upon a Chinese Xianxia/Fantasy drama called Ashes of Love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashes_of_Love_(TV_series)
This is the opening sequence, where a “goddess” is having a magical birth.
Inspired by Brandon J Wallace I was keen to try give sense of mood and pacing.
The mood is very soft, slow pace and airy.
Expression and reactions are an important part, this dialog with with characters set the whole series off.
Here the scene sets to another scene, and the mood turns sadder.
Now more focused on the “goddess” than the birth as she is “fading” away and leaving her subjects wishes regarding her new born daughter.
This one was harder for me as slowly show flowers dying, wasn’t sure how best to show this on the story board.
This scene ends.
Next I moved on to a Sci-Fi / post apocalyptic drama called Falling Skies
While I picked up on a season 5 / it was still the opening scene, I know now I should have picked up somewhere mid-season/show.
It has the same feeling of above / opening “speech”, but the mood is in contrast, it start heavy but ends up on a more positive note.
One of the things I did notice has the scene flips between locations in direct contrast with each other.
The main is in a middle of a meeting/mourning, the scene is heavy and dark.
Then you switch to a bright scene, the only dark contrast is the character.
I again choice a scene (unintentially ) a slower pace, and all about facial expressions, which on one hand is good as it is an area I could use as I have lots to learn about characters interacting with each other.
BUT, I could have also done an action scene… (nothing to stop me later on doing all scenes in movies/dramas/shows that I’m obsessed with)
I started another storyboard study, but this one was a mistake.
I was starting one based on an animation, within moment I knew this wasn’t going to work the same way and quickly moved away from this.
Storyboard study at first in my view should be from “real” sources, it is the same way you cannot learn how to draw the human body via cartoons/drawing you need a more primary source of reference, as a secondary source is never going to give you want an artist needs in order to grow and learn. (Least that is my thoughts). Later can study cartoons/animations to see how move/made but first should be raw.
My inner dialog
Since starting this unit, the moments I had before in my sketchbook, saying this to myself has started a growth.
This part in the unit has started to give this growth a method, a way to communte things.
I honestly can say I see the world different, I have a growing strong inner voice that is creating a dialog as I go along, what was thoughts and ideas have now a narrative seaquine of its own. Thoughts, feelings and my emotions are being given a narritive that is capible of expressing in illustrations.
The best thing is, that I am not forcing it nor can I stop it.
So my extra in my sketchbook following on from my storyboarding, started as a doodle, started seeing this scene in my head to reflect a feeling I held inside me for just over ten years.
My own “story board” took shape, very rough but shows promise that one day I may finish this, maybe even animate or create as a picture book. It is the story of the “broken butterfly”.
I started as I explored my own story board, thinking about the emotions and story I wish to tell, thinking about pace, angles and colours.
What started as a “play” became a story I needed to get down on paper.
I also created in pencil quickly, but I like the nature of this medium and I think it set a mood that would carry forward if was to take this story board to the next level.
A character board was created for the young girl
and I started to clean up and make the flow and pace better on a procreate story board.
The Broken Butterfly is a wordless story until the last scene.
It starts with a baby girl crying, a butterfly comes and calms her.
The girl grows with the butterfly always by her side, encouraging her when she falls and guiding her.
They became friends that share so many memories together.
Until one say the butterfly falls and the girl fails to catch it, one wing of the butterfly is torn/broken and cannot be fixed.
So the girl carries the butterfly in her hair and on her shoulder.
The girl tries to cheer the butterfly up by making things as normal as possible, does all the same things.
But it isn’t the same, the butterfly misses what it once was, flying free…
One day they laid down on the grass and fell asleep.
The girl woke, but the butterfly did not.
The butterfly was gone, slowly turns to dust in her hands and carried off in the wind.
The girl is heartbroken, sits , cries and does not move.
Until the day comes she can lift her head alone, takes a first step alone and finally walks on alone.
As she walks away, the sparkles of the butterfly follows her in her steps.
Finally the words are read and spoken
“I miss you”
I was having fun creating story boards, so I didn’t stop there.
I made mini story boards for some previous work in this unit I wanted to give more content to, as per my tutors advise.
Such as the “Peacock” queen in the grass, the world is a lovely clean/bright place and then some people come along and little.
I used colour and expression to show the peacock queens feeling.
Next was BOLA – I remember my tutor wanting a bit of BOLA’s personality.
I wanted to show Bola’s wonder with the world, childlike and curious A.I taking joy in watching birds fly ahead.
And simple friendship.
Next and Lastly (for now)
Based on taking my son sketches as he run around the garden, I made into a mini story board that he was friends with the wind and the wind taught him how to fly.
This one I think was merging a little with the objectives of 4.3 exercise Conversations with pictures.
I had fun, I think spent a lot of time of this as it truly inspired me and I enjoyed it.
I know some areas of growth, such as worthwhile be picking some action scenes or at least a faster pace part of a show/movie. Also you can see where I started to lose interest a little as the details start to fade (which is not always a bad thing)
I did do a bit extra for this, as the concept of story boarding was playing in my head and my own stories started to grow.
I was thinking like I was filming, why I wanted to show something, how is best to express this and tie the story together.
How can I set the mood and pace.
I understand a lot more on a whole.
Emclemmie OCA Sketchbooks 