Module Evaluation

The FMP module was useful in giving me a focus for a project that I am passionate about, which made it enjoyable to develop, produce and reflect upon. By starting to professionally produce my own graphic novel during the course of this module, I received experience in how I will later produce projects such as this in an independent fashion and in my own time. Using the first novel to inform my practice, the development of this project is an example of the process that I will use to produce comics/graphic novels in the future. I intend to create the other three graphic novels that I had planned for this project after university, and will refer back to the novel I am currently producing to see how much I have improved as an illustrator and a storyteller.

Throughout this module, I saw noticeable improvement with my drawing skills, planning and page/panel layout for sequential illustrations. I believe that the depth and variety of the compositions and camera angles used in my project is appropriate for my current work and shows a clear understanding of the importance of pacing and flow in a graphic novel. This is important as it means that I can effectively judge when the intensity of the action should be portrayed, in tandem with the quiet of the still moments in a story.

However, I believe the development and concept work for this project was lacking and showed only the basic ideas with little expansion. If I dedicated more time to the developmental stages, there is a chance that I could have created a more realised and well-drawn set of characters and environments that added to the immersion of my story. Ultimately, this came down to re-scheduling after the drastic changes in what I wanted my final project to be, and how much time I would need for each stage. In the future, I will be sure to take more time to thoroughly plan how long I will need to complete a project. If I missed deadlines in a professional market, then I would be penalised and could result in me rushing to complete illustrations and not produce my best work.

As my project stands, I do not believe that I could sell my current work at market or get it professionally published by an external source. This is because I need to improve my practical drawing skills in order to be able to visually depict characters and environments in a realistic and illustrated way. When I feel like I have significantly improved on these basic skills, I believe that I will be confident enough to get the graphic novels of this project publish. This will also allow me to revisit my current novel and recreate it to objectively reflect on my improvement as an artist, and encourage myself in seeing that I am making progress as an illustrator.

Overall, I am pleased with the skills and processes I have learnt during this module, as well as the level of improvement with many different skills needed for the project. On the other hand, I need to dedicate more time to idea development and improving my personal illustrative skills for future projects. This will result in having work that I feel is good enough to publish and has a story worth telling.