Our visual narrative project at Freestyle involved us practicing how to communicate character and story arc through digital art, storytelling, and animation. We learned to deepen our understanding by working with Wacom Drawing Tablets, Adobe software such as Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and more. One thing I valued through this process is learning how to “show, not tell”, and being able to create new ideas and worlds through group projects and my own writing.
In English, we were tasked with creating a Flash Fiction story with effective characterization, plot, and stylistic elements. Going into this project, I had the idea of writing my story about one of my OC’s named Dante. I’m someone who enjoys creating new characters but struggles slightly with crafting backstories and lore for them. I saw this project as a good way to practice and enhance these skills within my writing.
I started off with a Character Questionnaire to try and piece together who Dante was as a character, both visually and personality-wise.
- 17, male, Hispanic
- Wears winter clothes, a thick jacket, winter boots, black pants, very heavy layers
- Sort of stern, but softer with family
- Tan skin with a few beauty marks on his face
- Hair is a little above the shoulders, but long enough to put up in a small ponytail.
Then it was time to work on writing! Dante’s story takes place in his village, where one day it started snowing heavily, and the next it never stopped, plunging them into an eternal winter as their village crumbles. Without a father figure in his life, Dante had tasked himself to take care of his sick mother and little sister Isabella. Still being a teen himself, he struggles with the burden of needing to provide for his family, which ultimately led to his little sister’s demise after he stubbornly left to get firewood to protect them, and came back to her passing away from their roof collapsing from the hail storm. My first draft was rather short and messy. With the number of events I threw into the story, it made the plot seem like too many things were happening at once, confusing my readers. I eventually cut it down to a clearer path and lengthened the story to reach the word count. Overall, I feel like this process helped me to visualize who Dante really is as a character, and helped me creatively by giving me a better understanding of the process of creative writing. I titled it Summer as a way of saying how Dante viewed his little sister as one of his key reasons to keep going, but like the summer, she won’t return. We then took our stories and recorded audio readings of them in Digital Media.
Summer
I don’t remember the exact day when the winter started, but it never left. It was a whirlwind of theories as to why it’s been here for years, but to me, it felt like a curse. Our crummy little village falls apart day after day as the snow continues to pile up, the innocent white fluffy look almost feeling like a devil in disguise. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I miss the summer. I miss the warmth and calmness it brought to not only me but everyone else’s now pessimistic expressions here. Heck, even the stereotypical “fun in the sun” sounded appealing after I’d dismissed it countless times, opting to stay inside due to my own stubbornness.
As the weather became permanently cold, Mamá became ill for some time. As she recovers, I’ve been in charge of taking care of my little sister, Isa. Despite everything, she seems to like the massive amount of snow even through the constant chills and teeth chattering it gave her. It hadn’t brought her spirits down the way it did to mine and everyone else’s. Was it cause of her childhood innocence, or was it the fact that despite it all, she was stronger than me? I’d come outside each day to find a new snowman or snow angel she’d leave behind before I’d walk her to school, nagging her about her tendency to forget her gloves at home, causing the redness of her fingertips to become more aggressive.
Intense weather became something we struggled to get used to. When an intense hail storm hit unexpectedly, our home’s roof was half destroyed from the impact. Mamá weeped while hugging Isa in an attempt to comfort her, yet without saying a word, Isa managed to comfort Mamá instead by simply just being herself. Maybe it was wishful thinking in believing that this eternal winter would ever end, but Isa was our summer.
I couldn’t stand the idea of my family spending another night shivering while attempting to sleep through the pain. I found nails and a hammer in our small storage, but we needed more wood to repair the roof. Our only source of getting wood was deep within the woods. Mama begged me not to go because of the hail storm still being active, but my stubbornness got the best of me. The last thing I remembered before leaving was the sight of Isa shivering and Mamá’s concerned expression clearly wanting to say more.
I left with nothing but an axe and my cloak before heading to the woods. It was my purpose to be their provider afterall. I just wanted to feel useful. By the time I got back home with the large amount of wood, the devil in disguise finally showed its red. The red of our summer, the red of our Isabella. The entirety of the roof and parts of the wall had broken while Mamá cried with a shell of a once bright and happy girl in her arms. I was too late. As the days passed, Mamá’s hopes were now shattered. While she tried to hide it, I could hear that slight hollowness in her voice because I had it too. I remember the exact day the summer ended, and it never came back.
Pro Tools Short Story Audio File
Illustrator Short Story File
I think as my story progressed, I started getting more “in character” as I read. The music and SFXs help to create a darker mood as you listen, and can help you visualise what it would be like to be in the character’s perspective of everything. Overall, I think the music and SFX help the listener to be more immersed in the story. I am most proud of being able to tell a story more entertainingly. I also felt that this project was a good practice in voice acting, as I tried to get my voice to sound more upset as the story progressed. Seeing the final results piece together in the end was very rewarding, and I found that sound can really make a difference in engaging someone’s reactions. I value and appreciate learning how to work with sound to make a scene sound more dramatic, even if you can’t visually see it. Audio-only stories have a certain charm to them, which helps you visualise a picture of what’s happening to the characters in your mind. Personally, I sometimes struggle to visualise what is happening when reading a book, but hearing someone read it to me, as well as with sound effects and music, makes it clearer to me.
Around this time, is when we started learning how to work with Adobe Illustrator. I mainly prefer working with Photoshop, but Illustrator was a fun challenge. I had done previous illustrations such as this.
Experimental Music Cover
After learning how to use Illustrator, we were assigned the Exquisite Corpse group project. Essentially, the project involved working with 3-4 people to create a “body” by assigning everyone a certain half of the illustration, and then drawing anything onto it without the rest of the group knowing what they’re drawing. This results in cool and unique designs, as you don’t know what your group is drawing. I was given the middle part to draw. My original plan was to make a race track similar to Sugar Rush from the movie Wreck-It Ralph, but ultimately scrapped it in favor of something simpler. The way the line was curved reminded me of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, as I had a patch of it on my backpack. I ended up drawing it, and to my surprise, so did one of my group mates! Another funny coincidence was how my first plan was somewhat incorporated into the end of the body, with the rainbow race track drawn by another one of my groupmates! I guess great minds do think alike!
Illustrated Exquisite Corpse by Kayla R, Adriana O, & Kristin I
My Short Story Album cover sort of contradicts itself. It’s titled “Summer”, but depicts lots of greys, whites, and blues to symbolize the eternal winter within the story. I wanted to make it simple, but nice-looking. The hexagons are supposed to give it an “icy” sort of feel to it, and I tried to make the border look like it was frozen.
Short Story Album Cover
For my Illustrator Project, I chose to do a print of some of my favorite Vocaloid characters. For this process, I first started by sketching out a concept of how I wanted the standee to look. I wanted it to look a little chaotic as a lot of things were going on at once. I ended off with a rough sketch, looking like this.
Rough Sketch of Character Standee
When importing into Illustrator, I started with line art, followed by coloring it in. As I progressed, I started noticing how the line art was rather thick and made the final product look a little off. Curiously, I turned off the line art, and honestly, I really liked how it turned out! It has a paper-like sort of feel to it, and looked really pretty! Although it was a little annoying that I spent time on line art that didn’t get used, I’m still really happy with how the design turned out.
Final colored in Illustrator Design
After finishing the design, it was time for printing. The final result turned out like this! I really like the shine the paper has, and I think it’s really cool seeing the final product come together like this.
Final Illustrator Project Product