P.O.V.: A Junior Visual Narrative Comic by Parker Jue (2016)

This comic illustrates a typical day of a very self critical teenage girl. She compares herself to those around her constantly, and because of that she has come to believe that she is a failure at whatever she does. It doesn't help that there is immense pressure put on her by her family. In this comic, the reader gets to see things through her point of view.

I started this by sketching different layouts and potential scenes in my sketchbook. I had previously learned how to draw settings using linear perspective and I incorporated that technique into three of the seven panels. It definitely helped add some depth to the drawings. The hardest part about this process was to decide what panels to keep and which ones I did not need. Once I'd decided what was to go on the art board, I began to sketch the comic on a sheet of graph paper. I moved on to placing and taping the graph paper on top of an art board. I used a burnisher (for the first time!), and this allowed me to transfer the outlines of my sketches from the graph paper onto the artboard by pressing down and tracing. Quite a while later, I outlined everything in sharpie and colored everything in. I downloaded a scanning app in order to scan my artboard and use it to trace over in Illustrator. While using Illustrator, I learned how to use some of the many tools and techniques such as blending, the shape tool, and the brush tools. I was able to clean up the drawings and straighten out the panel lines. However, it took a long time to complete and I was not able to add some of the small details or finishing touches. Overall, this was a great learning experience and I am pretty satisfied with the results considering that it was the first time using Illustrator.