Welcome and Congratulations! You have landed on my Innovator Project information page! For our 7th project in Freestyle, we were given the oppurtunity to creat our very own project following 21st century skills. Very Innovating! What I decied to do was create something I enjoy reading, creating, and admire! Which is a graphic novel that incoporates Japanese comic elemts in it! My graphic novel is called "Pieces of Tommorrow" and it is a very short memoir of my past life in China and incorporates comedic elements along with simple drawings.

For my Innovator project, at first, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and at first thought about collaborating with someone. However, I thought the type of medium I loved viewing and would I enjoy producing. The product I thought of was a short graphic novel, specifically manga, Japanese style comics. I thought about what I wanted to write for the story and how to implement graphics and because I was doing a very big project with numerous steps without a partner to help to write or draw, I decided on a story about myself because there was no need for making up a whole new world, I thought it would take less time, however I was wrong. Thinking about how to start and end my story as difficult, therefore after much thought, I made it so that there would be a continuation of my story.

Through my research project, I got to learn more about manga and how it affected people. I learned more about the process of making it and what some authors along with the truth of what is happening in its the world today. I found books on how traditional manga was made and how graphic novels can be made today with the usage of technology, and although I didn’t use all of what I learned and researched because the lack of traditional resources , I did enjoyed reading about the mysteries behind the making of a manga and read interviews of famous manga artists. I would describe the relationship between my research and outcome of the project as material that explains what I am doing and how it could be done.

I collaborated with others by getting feedback when shaping my novel and drawings and getting suggestions and how I might add and take away from it. I also was able to receive some help with drawing a few panels to help with the paste of the project. What was unsuccessful about it was scheduling and finding the right time to sit over with my friend who helps me with the art once in awhile.

In the end, I was able to decide on accomplishing one chapter for my innovator project which has 23 pages. I drew on manga paper first with pencil then pens. I then scan it to edit in Illustrator, which I am almost finished, but I will need more time.If I could do the project over, I would have partnered with another person freestyle to accomplish more work together and produce more. I would also take more risks in rewriting a story and probably tried adding more of a twist on the story. The 21st Century Skill I did improve most would probably be risk taking and making the right decisions on my own for the project. The least practiced skill would probably be social and civic responsibility because I don’t think I addressed much of my short novel. The learning experience I think I would put use in the future would be paneling and techniques used in manga making along with storytelling. Better time management and the corporation would be something I would like to work on in the future.

I feel I have innovated my own education this semester by educating myself about the long process of graphic novel making and given myself responsibility for my own work and assignment. Overall, I valued this project because it became self-reflecting on my past and gave me practice and a place to explore my pasmarginsion for manga and manga making.

In English, we wrote a research paper based on our project and since I planed to make a manga, a japanese graphic novel, I then decided to understand more about manga and how it effects it readers. Also about what manga is, how it is as a medium, and the downfall of printed manga. This is the link to my research paper that explores multipile topics based on manga.

Man*a as Education, Recreation, and Emotional Intelligence

Note: Since this project is a manga, a japanese form of comics, it is read from right to left, therefore, please scroll from top to bottom for now. Thanks!!

Click image to see book

Here are some of the photos of my drafting process. I used manga paper and different sized pens to draft and ink my graphic novel. I used a notebook to draw all my mini storyboards and to write down ideas for this project. There are also googl docs of what I needed and what applications to use adn so forth! THe whole process was long and tedious, but was also fun to experiment with!