Practical: Testing and Development

I firstly worked off my storyboards to create a detailed, finished version of them. This was stage 1. I paid close attention to the panelling, and layout of the pages. The thick black border was something I was inspired to do from 'Elephantmen', and the practice piece I did on that. It represents the dark, caged void of depression and gave the images room to breath and talk within them. As the character started to break free of the wire, the panelling structure starts to change, to look more like a razor blade or lifeline on hospital machine. Which means when he is not breaking free and cutting himself, the lifeline is flat, representing how dead he feels without the rush of self-harm. I also considered what is in the room in the reality scenes, such at the messy room, screwed up paper (potentially letter from girlfriend concerning break up?) and smaller elements such as the dead plant, representing his current emotion, feeling dead inside. I thought this was a nice touch and link to depression. I also used a splash page for the entrance of the hope/desire character, to show awe.

I then started to think about what I could change. In my feedback I saw that a lot of people thought the Angel version brought in a religious aspect, when I simply chose it as symbolism. Although I liked the idea that people could interpret the different messages from my piece, I wanted to know what messages to give, so I started changing small details, which changed the narrative of the story. As a wordless comic, this was easier to do. I started by doing a version where I took away the wings, and added a dress to the woman ‘hope/desire’ character. This seemed to settle better with audiences, however many people addressed the fact that the woman in the picture frame looked similar, and asked weather he was depressed over an ex girlfriend. I liked this, I liked that people started reading into a history and background to the story that I only hinted at.

I liked this but it all seemed quite melodramatic, depression can have many causes, or none at all. I didn’t want this to be a large focus of the story however; I was more interested in the personal struggle of this character. So I then removed the dress, and created a version where the woman was naked, I felt this made the work more human, and focused on human emotions, with the intent to draw a character that for me as a sufferer of depression, is the reason to keep going. Beauty, sex, life, all the best parts of it. This worked better among audiences when explained, however the issue about sexuality came up numerous times, was that why he was depressed? Was he struggling with his sexuality? Was it to do with sexual deprivation? Or sexual inadequacy? This was not a message I wanted to give off either.

So I created one last version, where I removed the woman from the story, and added the same character that is chained down, so it looked like a man who was at war with himself. Fighting these emotions. But when I did this I got a lot of feedback asking weather (as I am a twin) it was about that, and the bond of brothers. Unintended but another interesting concept. People who did not know I was a twin, did not get that message, Which meant for the general population, it was the most successful version. 

The comic worked well as it was, but it felt a bit flat, so I added a gradient to the whole piece, making it feel more 3D and real, This I preferred but knew I could go further, so I took my last two ideas and started adding colour to them, and experimenting on what that said.

I firstly used colour in the scenes set in reality, as I knew it worked well from the practice piece I did, the low saturation added a gloomy realism that was worth keeping.

I then added colour to the hope characters, to show how alive they where compared to the other character, giving them an almost sunlight warmth to make the other character look even more bleak. I also added it to the chained down character when the hope character got close, to show how their influence adds life or courage to him. I also added colour to his cuts and the blood to emphasise the pain. Then only main scenes with colour are the ones set in reality, and for these I tried to use specific colours for reasons, the walls are grey in an attempt to make the room look like a prison, and the floor blue to reference one of my earlier ideas, to make the character look like he was drowning. The bed and curtains are red, a reference to the blood and his ex/girlfriend in the frame who is wearing the same coloured top, which hints that she still has a prominent influence on his life, and potentially the cause of the depression.

I finished both of these pieces and handed them round to audiences once more, and the majority of people preferred the version with the man. Many complained about sexism in the woman, and that took away from the main narrative.