Mini Narrative Panels

In this exercise, I had to create a 3 to 5-panel comic that tells a story without using words. The example used said, "Imagine an everyday scenario."I took that to heart and imagined what I do every day. (Imma show it before I tell anymore)

Ever like, do something, and think, huh... This came out very pessimistic. I wasn't really thinking too deeply about this whole thing till I started working. Mr. Williams mentioned something about cyclical narrative. So my head went to do god awful shirts with the whole "wake up game sleep repeat." I tried going super minimal to make this project much easier. But as I was working, I liked how dull everything started feeling and leaned real hard into that.

The little man is made in Blender with 4 lighting scenarios. (The last shot is a mix of the day/bathroom.) Everything else is Photoshop. I used Creative Challenge 2 as the foundation for the background elements, but lifted a few of the restrictions. The cloud is the only time I broke away from using this mentality.

The bed shots are entirely based on how I wake up. I used to wake up at 6 in the morning when I was in the military, but since I've gotten out, I've been enjoying my sleep a lot more and only wake up when the first light comes out.

The bathroom shot came out a lot better than I expected and turned out to be my favorite shot. 

This was meant to be very open-ended, but for those who want to compare what they got versus what I intended, it's in the hidden text.

The character is Bill (he just has a Bill vibe). The setting is a typical day for Bill, with all the mundaneness that comes with it (we all have days like this). The conflict is stagnation. I use the same framing and cyclical narrative to emphasize this point. The colors are subtle, reflecting sameness, but blues to represent sadness and warmer tones for comfort. The resolution is open-ended, leaving it up to the reader to decide if Bill breaks the cycle or keeps reliving the same day. (In my head, I like to think he goes out with a friend the next day. If I had more panels, I would have literally made Bill break the cycle, but it's hard to demonstrate monadade without a lot of repetition. So I made the repetition the subject and PRAY that people lean towards "breaking the cycle".)

As for the future, I could have done the lights on the character a bit more circular (to fit the whole cyclical narrative and make the passage of time more apparent). Showing this to my friend made them think it was a cry for help (no, I'm fine, but please do buy me food). One said it reminded them of a segment in SpongeBob, and I think this is the best animated example of what I was going for. (I was so hype) I MUST EMPHASIZE THIS WAS MEANT TO BE SILLY. It's evolved and feels more fitting, especially with the panel limitation. I really liked doing mixed media, so I expect to keep doing that. It's fun just to see how far I can go (Sergio thought I made the whole thing in Blender). I've gotten quite faster at coming up with ideas, but I find myself getting distracted by overthinking details. Luckily, I got awesome friends who just tell me when I am, but I would like to not rely on them always.