Storyboards & Renders
Chosen Short Story - Kaleidoscope by Ray Bradbury:
- Characters with dialogue: Hollis, Stone, Stimson, Applegate, Captain, Lesperes.
- Location: Space.
- Super quick summary: A group of astronauts are separated in space after their rocket blows up. Each communicating their last words and thoughts with each other as they all embrace death in different ways.
Important Events to note:
- The rocket being cut open like a can opener by a meteor & the astronauts being scattered into space.
- Stone heads towards the Moon, Hollis towards Earth.
- Hollis grabs one of the screaming astronauts by the ankles and pulls him up alongside him to smash his mask with his fist. Killing him.
- Meteor takes Hollis's hand off
- Lespere having flashbacks of all the money and woman.
- Hollis now loses his right foot
- Stone is in the Myrmidon cluster that goes out past Mars and in toward Earth once every five years. I’m right in the middle. It's like a big kaleidoscope.
- Hollis observes the diamonds and sapphires and emerald mists and velvet inks of space while listening to Stones last words.
- The remainders say their farewells.
- Hollis heads towards earth thinking if anyone will see him thinking he is a shooting star.
There went the captain to the Moon; there Stone with the meteor swarm; there Stimson; there Applegate toward Pluto; there Smith and Turner and Underwood and all the rest, the shards of the kaleidoscope that had formed a thinking pattern for so long, hurled apart.
Quotes:
- “Stone, this is Hollis. Where are you?” “I don’t know. How can I? Which way is up? I’m falling. Good God, I’m falling.” - (After the rocket splits opened)
- “I wonder,” he said, “if anyone will see me?” The small boy on the country road looked up and screamed. “Look, Mom, look! A falling star!” The blazing white star fell down the sky of dusk in Illinois. “Make a wish,” said his mother. “Make a wish.” - (As Hollis Falls towards Earth)
- “It’s Earth for me. Back to old Mother Earth at ten thousand miles per hour. I’ll burn like a match.” Hollis thought of it with a queer abstraction of mind. He seemed to be removed from his body, watching it fall down and down through space, as objective as he had been in regard to the first falling snowflakes of a winter season long gone.
Story Book Order:
“I wonder,” he said, “if anyone will see me?” The small boy on the country road looked up and screamed. “Look, Mom, look! A falling star!” The blazing white star fell down the sky of dusk in Illinois. “Make a wish,” said his mother. “Make a wish.
The first concussion cut the rocket up the side with a giant can opener. The men were thrown into space like a dozen wriggling silverfish. They were scattered into a dark sea; and the ship, in a million pieces, went on, a meteor swarm seeking a lost sun.
“Hollis, Hollis, this is Stone.” “Stone, this is Hollis. Where are you?” “I don’t know. How can I? Which way is up? I’m falling. Good God, I’m falling.” They fell. They fell as pebbles fall down wells.
“We’re going away from each other.” This was true. Hollis, swinging head over heels, knew this was true. He knew it with a vague acceptance. They were parting to go their separate ways, and nothing could bring them back.
“Hey,” said Stone. “What?” Hollis called across space; for Stone, of all of them, was a good friend. “I’ve got myself into a meteor swarm, some little asteroids.” “Meteors?” “I think it’s the Myrmidon cluster that goes out past Mars and in toward Earth once every five years.
I’m right in the middle. It’s like a big kaleidoscope. You get all kinds of colours and shapes and sizes. God, it’s beautiful, all that metal.” Silence. “I’m going with them,” said Stone. “They’re taking me off with them. I’ll be damned.” He laughed.
“It’s Earth for me. Back to old Mother Earth at ten thousand miles per hour. I’ll burn like a match.” Hollis thought of it with a queer abstraction of mind. He seemed to be removed from his body, watching it fall down and down through space, as objective as he had been in regard to the first falling snowflakes of a winter season long gone.
After doing some extremely rough sketches in my visual diary. I'm not looking into stylising anything just yet, I'm focusing on getting a draft storyboard together at this stage.
Comic 1st Page:
I want to show the rocket being split open by asteroids.
I'm working with the opening scene, I feel the first one is more effective and has a better flow.
2nd Page:
I want this page to open up the characters and give light on their current situation and a bit on their personality. Hollis being calm, while the others aren't so much.
Dialogue:
- Captain?
- Hollis, Hollis... This is Stone.
- Stone, this is Hollis, where are you?
- I don't know. How can I? Which way is up? I'm falling...Good God, I'm falling!
After I received feedback, I knew I had to redraw certain scenes to capture the true fear in the fact they are all falling through space and separated from each other. Rather than a front on Hollis who literally shows no emotions.
I went with drawing Stone falling with fear.
3rd Page:
It opens up with Stimson having a panic and being told to calm down by Hollis as Applegate chimes in to be annoying. Hollis pipes up and is then tested by Applegate once again.
- Oh its a long, long way down... It's a long way down. I don't want to die!
- Stimson?
- ...Yes...
- It's a bad dream.
- Shutup!
- Come and make me, come and make me shut up!
I don't use enough angles and it is starting to feel flat. I think this scene is really important in showing the emotional trauma for each of the astronauts, especially Stimson in this case. I first wanted to show him yelling with tears but I feel it lacks any emotion without showing the fear in his eyes.
I asked my friends which characters suit their personality traits the most, Stimson was seen as a little boring, so I'm redesigning him.
Introducing a terrified and scared Stimson:
With the final text "Its a bad dream" This is the first text associated with Applegate, I was going to leave it with just text but after getting people to read through my comic They didn't get the transition for this page to the next so much.
Getting pages ready for InDesign, all the previous images are just copied over from illustrator to save time. Now that I'm happy with the layout I'm going through and now saving them as tiffs and removing my placeholder text
I also eventually removed the peach comic speech and drew it up in Indesign so I could use my paragraph and object styles throughout.
4th Page:
On this page, we are introduced to Applegate and the Captain. Applegate has a snarky and provoking personality. The captain tries to maintain order but fails as he has no power.
I used what I had done for my character sheets.
There's a bit much going on and it's looking really flat, I think especially with Hollis yelling shut up! needs to be a bit more expressive.
5th Page:
I want this to be one whole image with very little text. I think I will have it focused on Hollis as I want readers to resonate with him the most. At first, I like the idea of having them all fall, but after drawing my second sketch I prefer that one.
Dialogue:
- They fell. They fell as pebbles fall down wells.
6th Page:
7th Page:
8th Page:
I rendered it before sketching anything out which was a big oops because it looks really bad :I And I didn't really have any idea on how I was going to do this page.
I had the idea of showing the reflection in the helmet or a reflection of Stone from the previous page but less panicky and almost serene.
9th Page:
10th Page:
The final page I want to imply Hollis did look like a shooting star from earth. I want the final scene to be one illustrative page and not heavy on text.
Dialogue:
- “I wonder if anyone will see me?”
- The small boy on the country road looked up and screamed. “Look, Mom, look! A falling star!” The blazing white star fell down the sky of dusk in Illinois.
- “Make a wish,” said his mother. “Make a wish.
Working on The Title Page:
Satin look?
Or keeping it consistent throughout?
Photoshop Paint Style?
Thinking about Title layout and text:
I'm not a fan of that type, I want the cover to be completely different to the aesthetic inside.
Take people by surprise but also stays relevant to the story.
Also
Illustrationed isn't a word and I spelled my last name wrong :/ how?
Back page:
I used elements I already had and I wanted it to be a close up of what was happening on the cover page.
Feedback:
Images look a bit flat, different variations of the face (angles)
Eyes, give them some life! highlights, pupils
Indesign setup:
Pages are saved as.tiff @ 300dpi
Moving scenes around:
I'm unsure of the yellow speech bubbles, I initially thought white was too overpowering. But now that I have been looking at this every day in over the yellowish color. Ill ask Tania on Thursday during the interim.
Getting ready to put my text in:
Changing the speech bubbles:
I changed the bubbles to color to go with each character, so its easier to follow as well as little flicks towards the character.
Final Renders:
Printing!
Thank goodness for test prints, I think looking at the screen for literally hours on end you miss a lot. Which I noticed when I printed, Like random speech bubbles that I left and should have been deleted.
A big thing was having my files RGB because Im thick and Printing in CMYK and we know how that goes. So I converted everything and printed again, I didn't print on my good paper which was good.
I used 176GSM Matte A3, I was going to use SRA3 but they didnt have the matte which I was dead set on using. It printed perfectly bound which I have never seen done before and that was cool.
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