What inspired me is one of the comic I saw on the internet with gif having 2 frames keep switching to each other. The only thing that are different between those 2 is the pattern of the fire camp, this create the effect of fire animation while everything else in the frame is still. After seeing this, I thought that the idea was really cool so I did it with electric. In addition, the other idea of mine is to paint each frame with only one color, but the colors I chose were based on the atmosphere in that frame. For instance, when the main character lost his temper, the whole frame turns red in order to shows his anger.
My comic has a vertical layout. With one single big frame only show up one at a time, the reader can scroll down slowly with the mouse wheel, this kind of layout makes a lot of sense for me so that is why I chose it. Furthermore, I also make sure it will have an interactive element, a thing that can only be done in web comic. For that reason, I added hover boxes in some frame, which means readers can point their mouse to the frame to see a different image. To inform the audience with this feature, I put a note in the beginning of the comic about the icon which I added to show which frame can be interacted later on.
I tried my best to organize the layout in touchscreen device, but it still looks a little bit off. The hover box lost its feature in these kind of device. Instead it only shows the images when the mouse is hover on it. For this reason, my comic will not make a lot of sense on a smartphone so I guess my project is only optimized for computer. I believe my comic fits McCloud definition of comic well since it contains multiple frames and together, they tell a complete story.
For this final project, I used my Wacom tablet to draw in Photoshop. I have a feeling like I did not really utilize the potential feature of Photoshop since most of them are just organic drawing, so that is one flaw that I wish I know how to fix. But there are something that I could not complete without Photoshop. To make the gif, I drew the guy in the electric chair, used the lighting picture put on top of it and then set that layer as overlay. The result came out great as the lightning pattern was drew in that picture. After that, I spun the lightning pattern so that I have the second frame. Finally make a gif out of those 2 then I have my favorite frame of the comic. In addition, I added the bubble text and words to show the character’s speech.
Wix was what I used for this project since I used it before and realized of how easy it is. I only need to export the frames to JPEG and then add it to the website. Since Wix gives you the feature of drag-and drop ability, it was very convenient for me to organize the layout. Wix also let me add hover boxes so I was able to make those interactive frames.
On the whole, I am very proud of the project and happy of how it turns out. One thing I learned is how to make gif so as to getting more experience building website on Wix. The project just helped me more comfortable with building website which is a big help as I believe I need to make a website portfolio on my senior year in order to graduate.
Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU 