I&P: Time Capsule, Part Three
Ideation
For the final part of this project, we had to tell a visual story related to how/when/where our time capsule was found, 125 years into the future. I had never made anything I would consider a comic (other than UX storyboarding… which is very different from a comic). I was really inspired by chapters 4 and 6 from Understanding Comics, so I thought “Why not give it a shot?” I began by sketching out a super rough outline– I know I tend to get carried away, so I did limit myself to the suggested two-page spread in black and white.
The relationship between me and my objects is very familial, so I wanted to keep that theme in my narrative. I calculated that in 125 years’ time, my great-great-great-great granddaughter would probably be around my age today.
Process
Some questions I asked myself before starting to sketch included What kind of world does my future family live in? Are their relationships similar to the ones I have with my family today? Will this story end happily or sadly? With these thoughts in mind, I jotted down a simple plot and started sketching.
The idea was simple: after 125 years, I posthumously request that my entire family meet to finally open the time capsule. I wanted to focus on my hypothetical great-great-great-great granddaughter as the protagonist, and show the events from her point of view. I didn’t want to make it too lovey-dovey or dramatic, but warm. They open the capsule and the request is essentially that they should hang out more often. Honestly, not sure how plausible this is... Even right now, my family is huge and I don’t think we’ve ever all been in one continent, let alone in one house.
I turned to a new page to refine my ideas. Some things did change between the first sketch and the second sketch. I changed how the map looked, included a step by a step-by-step scene of someone opening the time capsule and, most notably, decided to include an image of my objects. You can see here that I had initially started to sketch in pencil and outline with a felt tip marker. However, before I got too far, I decided to go digital; I really wanted to include half tone patterns in my comic, and Procreate has a neat filter tool that allows me to do just that.
Here’s a timpelapse from where I inserted the image to Procreate to the end result.
Reflection
At first I felt a bit overwhelmed with this part of the project. It felt like they were too many phases to do in one week. But once I started working on it I realized that all the parts flowed together very well and I actually enjoyed sketching by hand and then using Procreate.
I’m really glad I limited myself to the two-page spread. I know that if I had made it any bigger I would've spent way too much time “inking” it up on Procreate. I do wish that I had been more creative about thinking up my story, I think it's kind of boring and there's no real climax. Looking back I kind of wish I would've used the random dice from the class activity a week or two ago to create something silly and lighthearted… my final result feels a bit heavy vs. what I had imagined initially. Additionally I wish I had left more space in my comic. If I were to do this again I would definitely make it a longer story line, even if it only meant spacing out the frames a little more to play with time and motion much like in Understanding Comics.
I really liked using Procreate’s halftone filter/tool. There was a bit of a learning curve in planning the grayscale before even getting close to the halftone, but I feel comfortable using it now. I'm sure there are better ways and that I could've looked up a tutorial online, but I kind of enjoyed learning on my own as I went.
I kind of regret not telling a story about what happens after my time capsule is opened, but I don’t regret telling a story about how I led them to open it in the first place. So it goes.