Module: NCI546Digital skills evaluationSam McCoy 1041323

For this project we were asked to at first plan a proposal and treatment for how we were going to produce our work either by animating a few scenes or illustrating panels.

Proposal and treatment 

For this project I have decided to produce a storyboard based on my own personal characters so as to not only introduce my second villain but to also produce a second volume to my first comic.
Like I have said before in my previous project the main plot of this story is introducing a mutated intelligent gorilla named Grill who at first seems jolly and willing to lend a helping hand to humanity until he reveals his true colors of despising humans which leads to a confrontation with the heroes where he had planned to make a hostage crisis with a powerful bomb. This eventually causes him to lose his entire right arm to the bomb thanks to Colm the frog’s quick timing with his elastic tongue.

Just like my previous comic I’ll use the same styles that I used last time with a few more added additions to help fully construct the background and the design I have chosen to produce my gorilla character with.

To help with the coloring and toning I plan to use both Illustrator and Photoshop software to finalize the scenes.  



Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6
Proposal + treatment  /
Script                         /
Concept designs                  / /
storyboard /           / /             /            / /
Final piece /           /               /

For me I chose to produce a storyboard to help create my comic book, which featured the introduction of my second villainous character, Grill the gorilla from a previous project. At first I started with my script to help narrow down the scenes and properly explain the story’s plot, following that I produced a fast sketch stickman storyboard to help me plan the frames more accurately, I then sketched a more recognizable fully illustrated storyboard breaking down parts in scenes that weren’t actually required such as the exterior of the glass domed building. 
Just like I said in my proposal I used the former styles that I originally used in my first volume for example there’s Mark Bagley, (who designed the ultimate Spiderman comics) George Jeanty (who designed the buffy the vampire slayer comics), Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman (who designed the teenage mutant ninja turtles comics), along with a few new additions such as changing the character Furry’s appearance to make him look more child-like and cute.  To help me set up the environment I looked up a few images that were related to the scenes I was producing such as Kirkley hall zoo’s animal enclosures, buildings with glass dome roofs in Newcastle such as Jamie’s Italian restaurant, the interior of the metro centre that influenced my design for the second floor balcony and there’s the local scrapyard. 

Episode 2
Grill Goes Bananas

By Sam McCoy

Version 1

Ext. Kirkley Hall Zoo Ponteland modern day Newcastle, time 12.00am

A gorilla is seen sitting in his enclosure ready to eat a bunch of bananas.

Cut to

2

Unbeknownst to him a small crystal fragment has somehow ended up in his bananas where upon touching it becomes mutated from the radiation.

Cut to

3

Scene shifts to Dec’s house where everyone is waking up for breakfast and grooming themselves at 9.00am in the morning.

Cut to

4



 Percy can be seen attempting to feed Furry in a highchair in the kitchen.

Percy (with a slightly firm and amused look on his face)

Come on now, Furry it’s time to eat your breakfast it’s the most important meal of the day.

Furry (who is half awake and not sure about what he likes?)

What’s wheakfast? 

Cut to

5

 Colm is seen scoffing down toast.

Cut to

6

Dec is seen reading the paper, and listening to his headphones.

Cut to

7

Lee is seen doing pull ups upside down under a door frame, holding a juice bottle in his tail.

Cut to

8

Flobby is brushing his mouth even though he lacks teeth.

Cut to

9

The scene shifts back to the zoo

Where both vets and scientists are baffled at grill’s increased intelligence, understanding and the ability to both walk up straight and speak perfect English.

Cut to

10

Television news and radio broadcasts reveal grills condition to the public, both catching the attention of the team and Doctor Cheetah at his warehouse. Dec finds it too suspicious and coincidental that grill has gained the same effects as the others within the few short days after their own mutation. Lee proposes that they keep an eye on him just in case.

Cut to

11

Grill becomes a celebrity over night via newspaper headings revealing the activities that he has been doing by helping engineers with developing technology and professors with scientific topics. This leaves a few people wary of his nature.

Cut to

12

11.00pm moonlit sky

Grill is seen sneaking out at night wearing a hoodie trying to avoid any human detection.

Cut to

13

 He is unaware that Lee and Colm are trailing him from the rooftops to see what he’s up to.

Cut to

14

He then disappears in to a shadowy shop and doesn’t come out until an hour later (Colm looks at the clock on his phone) carrying something concealed within a bag.

Cut to

15

Colm (with a curious expression)

I wonder what he’s been up too.

Lee (with the same expression)

Me too, more importantly what’s he hiding in that bag?

 Cut to

16

7.00am next morning 

The next morning the group of scientists announce that they’ll be having a grand party to celebrate grills progression and induction in to human society.

Cut to

17

Seeing this as a chance to discover what grills hiding, the gang disguise themselves in fancy dress.

Cut to

18

As everyone attends the ball grill makes a grand entrance in a white shiny blazer welcoming everyone with what appears to be a jolly smile. The gang can be seen mingling in the crowd keeping a cautious eye on grills every movement.

Cut to

19

A few more hours into the night grill checks to make sure that the entire building is locked and secured then makes his way to the stage where he makes an announcement. At first he thanks everyone for attending and being very kind to him, then he starts insulting everyone and revealing his true colors that he despises humans, wishing to take revenge for not only a tragic past experience involving poachers in Africa, but also for how humanity mistreats every primate as nothing more than inferior lab rats.

Cut to

20

This is where he pulls out what he retrieved last night out of his blazer, a small but very powerful mechanical time bomb, which he plans to use for a hostage crisis holding everyone  present, so that he can threaten the outside community to release every single primate within the zoo and laboratories free.

Cut to

21

Just as he is about to enact his plan, the heroes reveal themselves( tossing their jackets and top hats aside).

Lee expressing a serious face with his legs widened and clenching his fists

Colm expresses a nervous expression putting up his shaking clenched fists

Flobby can be seen taking off readying himself to strike from the air.

Cut to

22

The gang can be seen running towards grill who has ripped of the sleeves of his suit prepared to fight.

cut to

23

Lee, Colm and Flobby keep him busy while Dec has Furry help short circuit the correct security panel to deactivate the buildings lock-down allowing the hostages out.

Cut to

24

After a brief struggle the heroes seem to be gaining the upper hand, then in a fit of rage and last ditch effort Grill activates the bomb, swiftly grabbing Lee and throwing him into Flobby rendering them unable to stop him. He then throws the bomb downward and makes haste for the glass domed roof.

Cut to

25

Underestimating the team grill doesn’t realize until the last minute that Colm, thanks to his elastic tongue has grabbed the bomb and thrown it precisely back up to his right elbow where the fold-able magna-clamps become embedded into his skin.

Cut to

26

This little distraction causes him to miss the roof and land on the second floor balcony with only 10 seconds left to detonate. With not enough time to remove it, grill only has enough to reset the settings to a minimal explosion taking his entire right arm off.

Cut to

 27

Everyone outside rejoices and is ready to thank the team for their rescue but find out that the team has already swiftly snuck away. Back at the house Percy is seen with the washing basket asking how it went and if anyone fancies a cuppa.

Cut to

28

 As the team sits down and reflect on what happened Colm

can’t help but shake the feeling if grill survived the blast, but Lee assures him that if he did they’ll be ready for him next time.

Cut to

29

The police are seen scoping out the building looking for any sign if grill is dead or alive, after a complete search they find no body or remains what so ever.

Cut to

30

 Meanwhile at the Gateshead scrap yard grill can be seen sitting on a scrap pile wearing a cloak and holding his bloodied wrapped shoulder. From around the corner coming out of the shadows he is approached by none other than Dr. Cheetah who has been tracking him since the explosion. Seeing the potential he has and that they share both a similar goal and enemy, he offers grill a partnership, a new mechanical arm and a chance at revenge. Grill wastes no time in to accepting the deal and the two-hand shake on, it sort of.

Cut to

31

Scene shifts to the warehouse where doctor cheetah can be seen building and attaching a robotic arm to grills vacant right shoulder. After testing out the flamethrower Grill says that the next time that he and Colm meet he won't be so lucky.

The end.

Stickman drafts and Storyboard concepts

As I was trying to find a way to properly illustrate buildings, my tutor introduced me to risographing, a technique used to help overlay images with backgrounds that when combined create a mixture of colours. I was planning on using this for my backgrounds that included night-time silhouetted buildings but I figured it might have taken a while so I just decided to stick with a regular silhouetted distanced building block, my inspiration for this came from a collection of city illustrations. Another scene in my story that I had trouble with, was sketching the interior of the building where I couldn’t get the distant angle of the ceilings dome and support beams accurate.

Risographing  

City silhouettes

Apart from my comic book I was also given a few CAAD sessions using the software Cinema4D that included real life environments to be the main backgrounds, with added planes extruded to help create the illusion of the distant angles. At first there was an alleyway and then a forest which both had little success and then there was an ice cavern that became more of an improvement since I was able to make it look like the two shapes that I had placed with a light-bulb appeared to be submerged in the water.
Another short experiment that intrigued me was animating 3-D small shapes within a much larger shape e.g. my capsules floating in a pyramid attempt.
Out of all of the CAAD classes the one that I found much easier to remember and work with was animating and recording the movement of replicating the channel 4 logo along with adding an image that slowly comes together within the logo’s gaps. I chose a bunch of banana’s since they were the most simplest to work with.    

Cinema4D experiments

As for my final piece I was hoping to get the whole comic book together but due to having to redesign a few scenes and amount of time I narrowed it down to three pages that were the main focus of the story.

There’s the first page where Lee, Colm and Flobby keep Grill busy while furry helps Dec short-circuit the buildings security systems, to save time with producing additional characters that represented the panicking crowd all I did was place black and grey spots in rows that are shown desperately trying to break down the sealed glass doors. 
Then there’s the second page where Colm uses his elastic tongue to throw the bomb back at Grill latching onto his right elbow distracting him to miss the glass dome and land on the second floor balcony with only 10 seconds left. The only option that he has is to push a button that resets the bomb to a minimal blast, which takes his entire right arm off. For the explosion scene I decided to use a traditional comic book explosion creating an orange/yellow blast with the outlines completely coloured in.
As for the final page I have portrayed Grill being taken back to Dr Cheetah’s abandoned warehouse where he has offered a partnership and can be seen attaching a new robotic arm onto Grills shoulder, where Grill tests out the flamethrower mode and makes a personal pledge to get revenge on Colm blaming him for his current condition. I was going to overlay the flamethrowers flames but had difficulty doing so since the outlines were attached to grills entire arm, which would have covered his entire design. All illustrations were finalised with Photoshop and printed out on A3 sheets.

Final piece

Rumble with Grill

Here comes the bomb

A new arm

Overall I found this project both interesting and challenging especially with the Cinema4D sessions. Even though I find the CAAD classes inspiring to learn from, I still find the Cinema4D program’s steps and multiple icons difficult to remember. I’m glad that I was able to produce the second volume of my comic, being able to continue the story, redesign the appearances a little and find the correct styles to bring forth my characters again. I hope to continue this sort of work more professionally in future projects so that I can produce the rest of my characters that have yet to be fully illustrated. 

Twice weekly report   

During these two weeks I have mainly used Photoshop and Cinema4D to produce two separate pieces of work for the project. For my first piece I have slowly been animating four tablet shapes within a 3D pyramid in Cinema4D tracking the animation by dragging the shapes along the line while pinpointing the keyed sequences.

As for my second piece I have chosen to just produce three pages from my comic since the whole story would take too long to publish so I have decided to reduce it to the team’s confrontation with grill, the bomb explosion that takes grills entire right arm and his partnership with Doctor Cheetah who gives him his cybernetic arm.

SWOT analysis

• Creating a script was easy since i have kept it in mind since i was young.
• Finding the correct style for the character and city didn't take too long.
• Once again took a while to get back use to using the tools in Cinema4D to successfully animate something.
• Didn't have enough time to edit and colour every single page strip reducing it down to three pages.
• If my work has a positive impact on the local community i can continue to publish more volumes so i can produce the rest of my characters along with looking for new styles and improvements.