Freestyle Academy proudly presents

Misfortune: A Junior Visual Narrative Comic by Owen Winkler (2017)

My piece was inspired by a flash fiction I wrote as an assignment within english class. The original piece was envisioned after learning about the effects of hurricane Matthew’s and how it influenced life for its victims. This subject sparked my interest because the majority of news articles cover what has happened to the people living within the area. Yet you can rarely find anything about the storm's effects on wild animals.

From this I decided to tell the story of a lost Squirrel trapped in the hands of the storm. Ultimately putting his life in the hands of an unsuspecting resident. During the process of creating the comic I learned how new tools can help us to create images no matter how we imagine them. One new tool I learned and now cherish was the pen tool. This tool allows me to precisely trace over anything I need creating a fillable layer I can then apply gradients or solid colors and patterns to. One issue I ran into was creating the base comic drawings on paper that we later transferred into illustrator. I realized I lacked in the artistic department which dramatically slowed my progress during the beginning stages of the project. Once I transferred the project to illustrator my workflow greatly increased lowering the average time it took me to complete each of the panels. If I could change anything on my comic I would change the way I created my drawings. I would make them more detailed along with incorporating more professional looking styles. I would do this because I feel that with the use of stencils along with more refined drawing skills I could create the eye popping product I want. Overall I am most proud of my creation of the panels within illustrator since I have never done a project of this sort. This project has changed the way I view art dramatically. Prior to this project I would skim art and not truly appreciate the time and effort put into pieces. After being assigned and completing this project I can now say I truly admire the dedication of artists to keep turning out new pieces of art.
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