Question:How can I create web comics based on video games in a new and creative way?

Fieldwork 2:

Formulate three methodologies base off of one of your questions above. Remember, you are creating 3 works from one methodology (or recipe) listed below:

Chosen and Revised:

Define the scope of investigation (purpose / intended meaning):

I will research web comics of all types, looking particularly at those based off of video games. By doing this I can observe the more technical aspects of web comics, as well as the general rules that most web comics follow. Also see which ones are most successful/popular and determine why.

Define your approach (change in studio practice(s), convergent or divergent):

I will observe the art styles and content of the various web comics, which may help me determine in what sort of style I will then portray them in as well as what sort of material or content is common.

Define your strategies (models, concepts, brainstorming, creative techniques):

I will decide which 3 – 5 games I will want to depict. I will then conduct my research, and create scripts for the different comics/projects. They will be based around different point of views of characters from these games. The characters I will choose to follow will be characters that can often times be overlooked within the game itself, or characters that are not commonly talked about or discussed as much on the internet. For instance, Chell may be the main character of portal 1 and 2, but how much insight do we get on her life? In reality, there is little known about her. I will then submit these scripts for critique, and will begin drawing out these scenes.

Which critical framework(s) will you use to critique the work and identify if it was successful. Describe:

I will most likely use feminist in order to appeal to the group of people (hopefully that will also appeal to all ages) who enjoy playing video games. I will also hope to make them general enough so that even those who are not as familiar with these games will be able to recognize them as well.

Think of the following:

Media: Digital painting

Scale (size): 5′x17″

Materials, support structure, & presentation: Posted on the internet

Formal Techniques:The images will be split by panels and done in a style appropriate of the game

Plan for visual research (include direct or indirect resources):

I will look up web comics based on games (such as Super Effective, Control Alt Delete, Dorkly, I Draw Nintendo, Penny Arcade etc…), as well as look up major plot points within games or defects of them to make fun of for the sake of content. I must also observe background characters in games as well as reactions of players and protagonists.

Timeline:

April 19: Have research done, scripts written ready for critique, a few sketches based on the scripts and decide if I want strips or pages by the end of class depending on what group members suggest.

April 24: Have all 3 projects mostly completed in order to have an in progress critique and revise as necessary. Comics will be drawn and may still be in black and white.

April 27: Have projects mostly colored in, revised from any feedback given on the 24^th. After class, revise further and submit to be printed as soon as possible.

What I will look for in critiques:

-is my presentation of the issues in the comics clear?

-Can you tell what game it’s referencing?

-Is the issue/context clear?

-Does it provide insight to the lives of these characters?

Other two methodologies:

Define the scope of investigation (purpose / intended meaning):

I will view web comics that are based on real life images of people with text added to them in order to create a similar sort of effect with the topic being video games.

Define your approach (change in studio practice(s), convergent or divergent):

I will look at comics and judge them based on what types of images they are (people, animals, objects…?) as well as what sort of actions or activities are being done and what sort of context these actions are in. This will aid me in defining what sort of images I would like in my final projects as well as the manner in which they will be presented.

Define your strategies (models, concepts, brainstorming, creative techniques):

I will sketch around 15 images for each final project, each containing different scenarios of either people, inanimate objects, or animals in order to show different scenes dealing with interactions between these characters based on video games. I will then choose the scenes I like the most to continue on with the final project(s).

Which critical framework(s) will you use to critique the work and identify if it was successful. Describe:

I will use a deconstructionist lens in order to analyze the sort of interactions happening between the characters in the images.

Think of the following:

Media: Photography and photo editing

Scale (size): 5′x15′

Materials, support structure, & presentation: They will be printed and mounted

Formal Techniques: I will use panels to separate images within the same project to indicate different scenes within the same context and project. Also I will use photoshop if necessary in order to enhance the images

Plan for visual research (include direct or indirect resources): I will research comics on the internet that use real life imagery rather than cartoon images or drawings. I will also look into the types of materials I have available to me, and what sorts of objects or people I would be able to use for the photos.

Define the scope of investigation (purpose / intended meaning):

I will look through different free source imagery of video game characters in order to then collage them together to mix different video games together.

Define your approach (change in studio practice(s), convergent or divergent):

I will combine together characters from different video games and have them interact with each other. They will be determined by what sort of game these characters are originally from, and which combinations will provide the most entertaining and interesting combos.

Define your strategies (models, concepts, brainstorming, creative techniques): I will create a list of video games that I may be able to use, and then determine which characters I will use from each. I will then find the best possible combinations of characters from different games and decide which ones would work best and create sketches of different scenes of their interactions, about 25

Which critical framework(s) will you use to critique the work and identify if it was successful. Describe: I will use a deconstructionist framework to analyze the interactions between the characters and determine if they are successful in their dialogue and setting

Think of the following:

Media: Final projects will be collage and photoshopped

Scale (size): 5′x15′

Materials, support structure, & presentation: It will be mounted on black mounting board

Formal Techniques: Panels of the images will be separated with a column and will be edited in photoshop to better blend together the images.

Plan for visual research (include direct or indirect resources): I will look through comics that also photoshop together different images to create one final series of images. I will also see what free-source materials are available to me

Here are the first drafts of each strip. They are each 16 X 5 inches. I hope to do a lot more work on them tonight

Information on Little Sister’s in Bioshock: http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Little_Sister

Info on Fallout 3 vaults: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault

Successful video game based web comics: Penny Arcade, Ctrl+Alt+Del – Both mostly deal with interactions between video game players, with some comics dealing with the actual video game characters and their interactions. Penny arcade is mostly about 2 friends who play video games, and often the content within the comic is not related to video games at all, but it is still known for being centered around video games. Ctrl+Alt+Del is very similar to this. Both comics reference more of the nerd/geeky sub-culture than video games specifically.

Another web comic I looked into was “VG Cats” which has more to do with actual in game interactions and point of views, however the main characters are all cats personified to be like people. This is most likely in order make the comics more interesting and different from other comics that would otherwise be like it. Also, these two cats are consistent characters, filling in the roles of the protagonists in games, so they are portrayed as the main character rather than the actual character in the game (for example, in a Pokemon comic, they are both trainers, dressed similarly to Red, the generic main character).

VG Cats also does a completely separate series based on the character Red from the Pokemon games. It’s told from his perspective in a humorous manner from the start of the game through the adventures that take place in the very first pokemon games for gameboy. Successful for it’s humor and nostalgia factor for those who played Pokemon as kids.

Most comics (including those mentioned above and others such as “Nerf This” or “Cyanide and Happiness”) I have found are all based on humor, making that a common theme for comics. Therefore, my comics will have more serious themes to them.

One successful web comic is Magical Game Time, which is ore serious views of characters in video games, which is more in the direction I am going in, however MGT can sometimes present it in a cute way.

When asking people about what they look for in webcomics heres are some of the criteria they list off:

The art style – if it’s not very good, they will not even consider the comic at all, so quality must be high.

Content – The words and conversations must be interesting and must make sense.

Humor, wittiness.If it is a serious series of comics they should evoke some other sort of emotion.

Some artists to use for reference:

Liz Ballie: http://lizbaillie.com/?page_id=4

Liz Prince: http://comicnrrd.livejournal.com/

Zac Gorman: http://lizbaillie.com/?page_id=4

Basically I have decided to use these three games.

Portal scripts, version 1:

Chell is in a chamber, running a test with glad0s, and discovers an escape route through a tile, uses the portal to get out. Possible statements for the panel: “I know this place better than she does”

She comes across a room with a very old work desk, and sees a picture of herself as a younger child on it. Consists of her at a science fair being held in aperture science, next to her potato battery with a banner in the background reading ‘Bring your daughter to work day.’ “After being here so long,its hard not to know this place so well”

Portal, version 2:

Show chell struggling in a chamber.

She dies after getting hit by turrets (or falling from a large height)

Show her arm as shes thrown into incinerator, and a new chell coming out of a machine in the background.

Fallout:

1:

-Focus on the life of a traveling merchant, show the dangers he faces, the sort of people he interacts with (raiders, travelers, other merchants, the government)

2:

-Shows people entering vault 27. Focus on one woman in particular. “They told us life in the vault would keep us safe from the war”

-See an overly crowded area of the vault with the woman crouched against the wall. “We had no idea they would pack us in here. With a vault for 1000, why would they load in twice that amount. How could they?”

-Show her looking over at a knife with a crazed look

-Panel of her standing with even crazier eyes in front of what looks like a massacre, holding the knife “There was no other way”

v3:

-Focuses more on the life of a boy and his family living in the wastes.

-Show his family struggling, how parents talking about an inhabitant from vault 101 changing things, trying to bring clean water to the area.

-outer view of house, with giant fire ants approaching. Talk about recent mutations sprouting in the area

-Show his parents being overcome by the ants, and the boy running out of the house.

Bioshock:

version 1:

- Show the point of view of someone whose gone crazy over getting adam

- They are walking around, trying to find any sort of adam to inject into their arms, as they come across a little sister harvesting

- See them try to capture her, but a big daddy shows up

- he gets killed

version 2:

-Show a little girl with her parents, happy scene in Rapture. “Until the adam started running out, everything was fine. It sustained us, kept us living”

-Now show men intruding to take the little girl away. “But that changed when harvesting it became more difficult”

-They tell her parents “She will help save Rapture”

-Then show her being conditioned to see big daddy’s as her new “father” and strangers as her new “mother.” Strapped to a chair, forced to watch. “Girls where taken from homes, forced to become the instruments that would harvest more adam”

-Finally show her as a little sister with a big daddy. Gray and mutated. “I have a better family now”

3:

-Show the perspective of a woman whose gone mad after losing her daughter to become a little sister. First panel shows her having a flashback “She was the only thing that kept me living”. Second panel shows her as she is now “Now im forced to roam the broken pipes of rapture”. Third panel would be her coming across a big daddy and a little sister who looks like her daughter used to. Next panel shows her attempting to reach the little sister, and then the next one of her getting pushed away by the daddy. Show her point of view as shes closing her eyes for the last time looking at the little sister, who seems happy “Maybe this will end my torment”

I will be using games that are a bit more popular so that even those who may not play video games may still be able to recognize a few. Here is a list on the possible games I can use:

Fallout 3: Inside view on one of the vaults and how they were tortured by social experiments conducted on the vault dwellers without their knowledge of it.

Portal 1 : Chell’s struggles as well as the possibility of her being cloned over and over again. OR go somewhere with the idea that she was someone’s daughter on “bring your daughter to work day” before Glad0s took over, cloning erased her memories.

Bioshock: A little girl’s perspective before becoming a little sister/as she becomes one.

Assassin’s Creed: Reactions of store keeper who continuously sees assassins killing.

Batman Arkham Asylum: Perspective of one of Joker’s lackey (has no choice but to be on Joker’s side, fears Batman)