Final Piece: Ignorance is Jeff (Episode 1: Ask a silly question, get a silly Jeff)

 

Evaluation

To help develop ideas for my final piece, I have studied a range of cartoons and comics, particularly to help develop the style in which I planned to draw my final piece; since the beginning of the unit I had planned to do a teenage romantic-comedy-style comic, so the art style was the element I felt needed focusing on the most.  Because of the amount of study I did on character design too, I feel that the character designs of Jeff and Billy are the strongest element of this final piece.  It was the first time I had inked a complete comic in not just fineliners, but India ink, and I am pleased with the outcome; it has encouraged me to use India ink more often in my future works.  It was also the first time I coloured a full comic in Photoshop; in retrospect I feel that I could have done a better job.  Although I was pleased with my colour schemes on some of the pages, I think I could have made it more consistent throughout.  Furthermore, if I were to do it again I would have used shading instead of simply block colour. 

Because I was so focused on the style and layout, I do not think I spent enough time developing the story, and feel I could have developed and improved it greatly.  However, I am pleased with how I portrayed the actual way in which the characters Jeff and Billy act and talk, especially with each other.  Moreover I am particularly pleased with the construction of ideas of how the comic would run as a series, and how I presented this on the second-to-last page.  I had a lot of fun coming up with titles of (fictitious) future editions to the "Ignorance is Jeff" series, basing them on well-known proverbs and phrases but replacing a key word with "Jeff".  I even ordered them in a way that I felt would have suited the course of the ongoing story, and I think I would have had fun developing "Ignorance is Jeff" as a series if I had had the time. 

I based the final two pages on the after-story information pages I had seen in various comic books, particularly manga, and attempted to make them look as authentic as possible, which I feel is evident.  I enjoyed creating a mysterious persona for the "About the Author" page, too.  Although if I were to do this final piece again I would probably have done a lot different, I am still pleased with the outcome and had a lot of fun making it.

Inks

Photos

For the "About the Author" page, I decided to do a mysterious, cartoony persona along with a headshot that reflected this.  So I got out my dad's old bowler hat (which went over my eyes nicely!) and an old sheepskin coat and got my mum to take some photos.

We tried in front of a simple background (living room curtains), with an angle and pose:

We tried a similar thing, but with white gloves on this time for a more cartoony look, as well as more poses for variety:

Here I'm holding a pencil... but it's difficult to tell:

Then we experimented with some different actions and scenarios...

 

But it was decided that the in-front-of-a-curtain look was the way to go. 

I made a shortlist, then greyscaled and cropped them:

Final Piece Plan

 

Front Cover roughs

I knew I wanted some sort of action- or videogame-based theme for my front cover.  First I just played around with the idea of Jeff in some kind of duel with Billy - if drawing someone holding a katana sword at such an angle hadn't been so difficult for me to draw, I might have stayed with this idea.  

However, I decided instead to reference poses used in action movie posters than involve two people in dynamic fighting poses.  The best I could find was the "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chung-Li" poster, which is apparently an awful movie but as for action-pose references, it did the job. 

Giving the comic a title and Final Page roughs

At first I struggled to think of a title for my final piece, but as soon as I came up with the idea of using a proverb which I would then replace the key word within with "Jeff", I was on a roll and I had a lot of fun coming up with all sorts of alternate titles.  

Once I had achieved an extensive list to choose from, I then got the idea to use one of the altered proverbs as a main overall title for the series, and then use some of the other titles I had come up with as individual episode titles for each issue that would be in the series, altered proverbs that involve the name "Jeff" being the running theme.  Believing it to be fitting, I chose "Ignorance is Jeff" (based on the proverb "ignorance is bliss") for the main overall title, then printed off the others, decided which I considered to be the best ones, then messed around with the order that they would appear in in relation to which episode they would be the name of until I was happy.

Then, in an attempts to make the final piece as professional and authentic as possible, I planned a final page with a summary of episode 2, along with a list of all other episodes that would appear in the "Ignorance is Jeff" series.  

Notes and References