Our class was told to think of a very simple story for our first project and compose 9 sentences for each panel to be made.

Here are my 9 sentences:

1. Woke up early in the morning. Excited.
2. The sun is up. It’s a good day.
3. Riding the bus to school. Expecting.
4. Met everyone.
5. Went for lunch but no one seemed to remember.
6. No cake. Sad.
7. On the way back home. Disappointed.
8. Reached home. Greeted with loneliness and darkness instead.
9. Switched on the lights. Surprise!

It took me a while to come up with the 9 sentences since the story I thought of was very simple it only needed about 6 sentences.

The next step was to draw a sketch of the 9 panels that we are going to make so that we have a clearer picture of what every panel is going to look like.

Here is my sketch:

First panel:

I tried going for texture for my first panel. Instead of simply cutting white paper for the blanket, I folded it as well on the sides to create a 3D effect which made the blanket pop out. I also offset the window and made it align with the bed diagonally.I used white lines to outline the window and bed to represent as shadows from the sun’s light.

Second panel:

At first, I wasn’t sure how I was going to do the sun’s rays. In the end, I decided to use black strips of paper for contrast. I centralised the sun to make it the centre of attention of this panel. The rays are also alternating from long rays to short rays. I used black paper for the bottom part of the panel using the 1/3 rule for contrast with the brightness of the sun.

Third panel:

My final third panel was totally different from the original one as I felt that the original one was too simple. I wanted it to be more interesting. So for the third panel, instead of using linear perspective with one vanishing point on the right, I placed the vanishing point on the centre. I also used lines to from the letters N, T and U for emphasis on the protagonist’s destination.

Fourth panel:

The fourth panel was different as well. I wanted the people in my panels to be consistent so I decided to get rid of their hands and take advantage of their posture and facial expressions instead. Here, you can see the protagonist in the middle with a big smile on his face. He’s excited to meet his friends in school and is also expecting birthday greetings from them. The protagonist’s friends were placed symmetrical to the protagonist with him being surrounded in the centre. I wanted to use up all the space on this panel to show the closeness of the protagonist and his friends leaving almost no room for them to move. In addition, the protagonist and his friends are overlapping.

Fifth panel:

I utilised the 1/3 rule for my fifth panel on the protagonist’s 3 friends. I placed the protagonist a little bit to the left instead of the centre as I felt that there will be too much space on the left. Again, I wanted to utilise all the space in the panel to show the closeness of the protagonist and his friends.

Sixth panel:

I decided to change the sixth panel as well. Giving it an asymmetrical look and using the 1/3 rule again on the protagonist. I also scaled the protagonist to be bigger compared to his friends to show linear perspective that he is in the foreground while his friends are in the background. Here, I decided to use less panel space to show that the protagonist is slowly drifting away from his friends and their closeness is slowly diminishing.

Seventh panel:

The seventh panel is a little bit different from the original sketch. I decided to lower the protagonist’s head to show his sorrow more. I also gave him a subtle upside-down smile. I wanted to show and emphasise on the protagonist’s emotion so I put him on the centre of the panel again.

Eighth panel:

I wanted the eighth panel to be as simple as possible. Again, I wanted to emphasise on the protagonist’s emotions. From this panel, you can only see the protagonist, an open door, the light shining behind him and the shadow he’s casting. This shows how empty and lonely he feels inside on top of the sadness that he feels even more so that none of his “close” friends remembered his birthday.

Ninth (and last) panel (yay!):

Again, for this panel, I wanted the protagonist to be the centre of attention (along with his cake). I used texture for the confetti and a great big smile for the emphasis on the emotion of the protagonist. He feels relieved and finally happy that his friends indeed remembered his birthday. There is also symmetry in this panel to show that the protagonist’s friends are equally happy that he is happy about the surprise birthday celebration.