Freestyle Academy proudly presents

Reflections: A Junior Visual Narrative Comic by Elena Razgonov (2016)

My story is based on the history of the Nenet people in the Soviet Union. In the 1950s the USSR began a process of re-education for young Nenet people where they attempted to ''Russianize'' them. This process was torturous for the Nenet people as their nomadic lifestyle was wiped out in the wake of state policies. In my story a young Nenet girl and her family are forced to face an ultimatum in which they must make the choice between getting medical care for her father at the cost of her being re-educated or face government penalties. This is the last page of my comic and it depicts her making the decision to save her father and risk losing her culture.

When drawing out my comic I used the utmost care to illustrate a compelling and comprehensive story. Once it was drawn out on I began to transfer it to an artboard using a burnisher to carefully indent the lines. This was a long and arduous process as I took extra care in perfecting it. I later colored in the artboard to get a sense of what the ‘look' of the comic would be. Finally began the complicated process of replicating my eight panel page into Adobe Illustrator. The resulting comic book page turned out far differently than its original counterpart as I put far more thought and time into it. Being a bit of a perfectionist I spent hours working on individual panels and figures. I used over 100 layers in the final piece with some layers holding upwards of thirty paths. Even when it wasn't necessary I added shadows and highlights to give each panel depth in addition to the one point and five point perspective techniques I utilized. I made sure to strictly adhere to a neutral color scheme as I attempted to make it both compelling and beautiful.
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