Production
Reading
Activity
You now need to produce the two pages that will be your part of the overall Graphic Novel that the class is creating.
2 pages
"A" proportion
Portrait orientation
Before you start - Think about colour
In your teams, think about the colour scheme across your two pages.
Are all the backgrounds going to have the same colour scheme?
Will there be two colour schemes - one for each page?
Do you need the characters to stand out from the background?
How will you do this with colour? Look back on your Using Colour work.
The decisions you make about colour need to be kept to across the work, in all the elements that you use except the speech elements as they are always black and white to make them easy to see and read.
Task 1 - Layout
Here is an example layout made on Google Drawing. The 2 main rectangles - the pages - are A3 size (297 x 420mm)
Use this template then change the layout, shape and size of the story panels.
Task 2 - Backgrounds
You can create your backgrounds in a variety of ways.
Hand drawn and coloured - you do everything on paper with pencils and colours, then photograph the backgrounds to include in your panels. (you can colour the panels with whatever you like - pencil, paint, pastels ..... )
Photographs of actual places used with filters put across them.
Using the image tracing ability on Google Drawing - use the link to the document to remind you how to do it.
DON'T try and use lots of DIFFERENT methods for your backgrounds as this will make your pages look visually confusing and it won't work all together as a story.
Task 3 - Characters
You need to draw the characters for each panel in the pose that you need them to be in for whatever action is happening in that panel.
They can be drawn in a DIFFERENT WAY to the backgrounds or THE SAME way. What ever you choose, make sure you keep it the same for each panel.
The characters then need to be photographed or saved and have the backgrounds removed (saved as .png files) so they are ready to put on top of the backgrounds when you assemble everything together. This needs to be done even if the page you have drawn the character on is white as the background needs to be transparent.
Task 4 - Written Elements
You will put all of the written elements on your graphic novel pages when you assemble everything together using Google Drawing. The call outs will be used for speech bubbles ands thought bubbles. Boxes can be used for story boxes.
You will be typing all of the spoken and story information into these boxes and keeping the font very plain so it is very easy to see and read.
If you need a shape that is different to the ones available in Google Drawing then you will have to either draw it or source it elsewhere.
All of this kind of element will stay BLACK and WHITE.
You can view this resource to inspire any OTHER elements you may need. These can be coloured but have your colour scheme in mind. Do you need them to STAND OUT or BLEND IN?
Task 5 - Assembly
Your pages will be assembled using Google Drawing. This can be happening as you go and as you complete elements. It does not have to all happen at the end.
Backgrounds - place the file / image in the correct panel on the page layout. Size and scale to fit.
Photograph any drawn elements / characters and remove the backgrounds.
Layer all element together so everything is showing in the correct order
Use the call outs on Google Drawing to put in speech and story elements.