Tutorial 1

After meeting with Sweii and Zui during the first tutorial session on last Friday (25th December 2011), here are some feedbacks and suggestions that both lecturers gave to me:

1. The story too cliche, can try to change the ending part of the story or enhance the questions of the interaction parts.

2. Some panels from the storyboards were not dynamic enough

3. Graphic need to enhance

4.Try study the dynamic pose and color from "hell boy", "Metal Gear Acid"

Hypercomic References

The idea of hypercomic is to allow users to read the comic online with some interactions.

To give an idea of how I want to design my hypercomic, here are some references which are similar to what I want to design for my project.

The Jerk-A hypercomic which users need to read from up to down, left to right. Some panels can be interact by clicking them and the pictures will change.


Five ways to love a cockroach-A simple hypercomic with simple story line by clicking left and right buttons to read.



Nike: Liu Xiang-More than a Flying Man- This is the style / execution i want to archive. Interesting scene transition and contains few animations inside the comic.

Initial Main character Design

After several sketches, i decided to design my main character that looks skinny so that people might though he is weak.

Image1: initial character design

Credit goes to my peer from illustration class BDI085-1, Yen Ee for guiding me in drawing the character and later on scenes.

Rough Story Board

These were the rough storyboard that I have done earlier.

Part 1




Part 2




Part 3

Main Character Design Sketches

Here were some rough sketches and design for my main character.

Picture References- Art Style

Below is a list of picture references of art style i wish to archive in this project.
All the picture references were credits to cheeks-74 from Deviant Art





The reason of choosing US comic style is because teenagers are familiar with US cartoon drawing as most children watch American cartoons in Cartoon Network or Disney Channel when they were young.

Survey

This survey was done by 10 teenagers aged between 12-18. The aim of the survey is to find out from the target audience if the storyline(4th edition) is workable and does it make them think about the message that I want to bring out from the story .


From the survey, there are several things need to refine.
1. Interaction part (make it more interesting so that the audience expected the answer)
2. Try make the story more special.

Storyline (4th edition)

Part 1
Walter is holding a doctor’s certificate and wearing motaboard in the University of UK. He is laughing happily and taking photos with other students. After the graduation ceremony, he took a flight back to Malaysia.
Interactive part
Do you think that his result was good during his secondary school since he is now is a doctor?
Yes: Do not judge a person’s result just by looking at his current job. Having a good job does not mean he has excellent results in his studies.
No: You are right. He did not obtain good results when he was in secondary school, but….
(flash back to 20 years ago when he was in secondary school…)
Walter was a student. His results are below average and almost failed his studies during the first 3 years. All his friends and even teachers think that he is a weak student and might fail his studies in the future. He entered the enginnering class in his year 4 (senior 1) in school. In that year, his life changed as his mother passed away due to brain cancer. He felt that the doctor did not do his best to save his mother and he thought that if he was a doctor, he would have give it his all to save his mother and other patients. So, he decided to become a doctor after he graduated from the secondary school. He went to United Kingdom a doctor majoring in the surgeon course.
(back to the plane)
The plane engine burned down and the plane fell down from the sky. He was scared and in that split second, he managed to resuscitate, and felt that life is short and weak, so he promised himself that if he was able to survive this incident, he will use his knowledge to help those in need.
Part 2
He was lucky enough to survive the plane crash and joined the “International SOS” to work as a battle field doctor. He told himself that “a doctor can earn a lot of money, but life is too short, I want to do something more meaningful.”
He was sent to Iraq to in his first mission. In the camp, most of the members of “International SOS” in the camp looked down on Walter, because he is the only Asian (Chinese) there. Some of them thought that he came from China because they perceived that Chinese is only from China. Their mission is to save people from the battle field whether the army or people. They have to work more than 15 hours a day and stand by in case of emergency. One day while they were performing a surgery, some violent soldiers tried to attack all the members of International SOS by shooting on them. US armies tried their best to defend and protect both the camp members and victims. Walter was lucky to survive but few of his teammates passed away during that incident. He cannot save them but to watch them die in front of him. He never felt so scared and stressed before, during the night he cried in his bed and thought of giving up to return to Malaysia. The next morning, they were being gathered by their leader, who told them that they are allowed to return to their country if they cannot tolerate such incidents in the future. Few of Walter’s teammates rose up their hand and said they want to quit.
Interactive Part
What decision do you think Walter will choose? Quit and return to Malaysia to work as a normal doctor? Or Stay?
Quit: Do not interpret that people will give up when faced with a bad situation. You should believe in him and support him.
Stay: You think highly of people and believe in them not to give up even though the situation is tough and hopes are low.
Part 3
Walter decided to stay in the team although he knew he might face the risk of dying any time. Few months later, he was sent to Haiti to continue his job as a battle field doctor. In the camp, there was a female victim who was pregnant and was about to give birth to her baby. However, the nearest hospital from the camp will take 4 hours minimum to reach and there was no obstetrician at that time. Other doctors in the camp were sent to the battle field to help others. Only Walter and a few members stayed back in camp as backup doctors, but the other doctors dare not take the risk to help the pregnant lady.
Interactive part:
Do you think Walter will take the risk to help the pregnant lady?
Yes: You chose the right option to trust Walter as a brave and daring doctor although he does not have much experience. Walter took up his courage to help the pregnant lady.
No: Do not assume that Walter is the same as those selfish doctors who refuse to help a person in need even though the risk and dangers are very high.
Walter decided to take the risk to help the lady give birth to her baby. He kneeled on the ground together with 3 other helpers and performs the operation. It took him around 5 hours to finish the operation, and both the lady and baby were safe. She thanked Walter who saved their life and decided to name her baby after Walter. After that, the news spread all over the camp and all the people there were impressed with Walter’s brave performance, including the whole of US. From that day onwards, he became “famous” in the camp and changed the view that “Chinese” are not weak.
 

Multimedia Degree Project Gantt Chart

Project Rationale

A short description regarding what is my Multimedia Final Project-Little Big Hero is about.

“Little Big Hero” project is a website based interactive hypercomic that is intended to create awareness about how do people judge others just by the physical appearance, background, academic result and so on. Through a certain stage, questions will be shown to user and user will need to make decisions in order to reach the end. At the end of the story, a message will appear: “Don’t judge the book by its cover” to let the audience think or question about it.

Rationale

The reason for creating this project is because in the society, most people will first judge a person by his/her physical appearance, result, etc. This kind of practise is also used in media to shape a protagonist’s looks and affect the younger generation’s perception on how to judge a person. Using web as a platform to execute the project is because today’s generation – Generation Y and the younger generation are using internet as part of their life. They use Google search engine to get the information and use Facebook as their social platform. When some news appears in Facebook, it will easily get their attention and start to discuss and argue about it.

Using hypercomic as a form to deliver the message about “don’t judge a book by its cover”, I believe that is easier to convey the message to the users and easy to grab younger generation’s attention especially teenagers, and question about how to judge a people and do not look down on someone that is weak.