EXERCISE 4: Action and thought   "This work is based on the narrative structure of a comic page showing one or several characters in an outside place with a climatic atmosphere" "Work on the landscape, the weather, the character integrated in the setting" "The theme of this exercise is action (sport, game, trip, tragedy) or reflection (walk, test, memory, discovery, revelation). Action and reflection can be combined and worked together." "The page will contain at least four panels: a very long plan of a place with a climatic state, a long shot with one or several characters a medium shot on the character(s) in action a close-up on the nature, on a vegetal or mineral element" "Think of a situation, an action, an outside place that can be a landscape, mountain, plain, countryside, seaside, river, road, big street. One or several characters are in a situation of action, of reflection, with the corresponding climatic atmosphere. Indeed, there must have a connection between the weather and the action, the reflection. The climatic atmosphere will serve or intensify the dramatization or the trivialization of the situation." "The reflection can have a connection with the action, but it can also be: dialogue, monologue, thought, feeling due to the place or the climatic state, due to a memory, a noticing, a revelation." "You will set up the mood of the story, narrative progress, dramatic, humoristic, symbolical, physical or psychological by the organization of the panels of the composition of the page." "The definitive work must be made on an A3-sized page (30x42cm). The techniques are free, black and white or color, but think to play on the matters, the scraping, and the fade out, the climatic effects." "The climatic mood can be unchanging, progressive or lowering. The climate is linked to the rain, the heat, the storm, the tempest, the fog, the wind, the snow, etc." "A narrative text will appear with the situation or the action. It can be from one of the actors or someone outside of the situation. The text is short, well structured, descriptive or suggestive." ___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Personal comments So, this is my page for this fourth exercise. I’ve taken advantage of this to feature my own characters: until now my chars were just figurants, they hadn’t their own story and life. I also wanted to show I can be nasty with my own characters, he he >:) (just to show I’m not so soppy!)   The story The story takes place in a Middle-Age/Fantasy world. The sky is in anger, it’s railing, a real deluge, the storms are rumbling, the clouds are black, heavy, threatening. The action takes place in a little road near a village hidden under the high mountains. Lucie is a little female rabbit; she’s livings an horrifying moment: a wizard that has come from far far far away, is chasing her so as to get an item she doesn’t even know its value. However it seems she knows her chaser. This wizard has set fire to her entire village, annihilated her family, and now he’s chasing this girl that has managed to avoid the fire. But this wizard is powerful, very powerful, he’s fast, he wants to achieve his goal…   The characters Lucie –now you know her- is this little female rabbit with a long tail appearing in some of my drawings. Here she plays the role of the victim, innocent, fragile, that doesn’t know what’s happening to her. However this is neither the true story of this character, nor her definitive universe: this is just a test, a setting of the personage in a universe among numerous other universes… The wizard is a character invented during my “narrative image” course. He looks like a reptile; his skin is green, big shining orange eyes, a black and gold jacket, a mauve shirt, and a scepter with three energy balls. This wizard is powerful and has no pity. We don’t know if he works for himself or for a superior. We don’t even know his name… (in fact, I haven’t found any good name for my wizard, but shhht…)   The technique An A3-sized page, black and white, made with frames to imitate the volume and the texture: the clouds, the rain, the wood, the bark, the mud, the folds, the fire, the immolation, the speed lines… It’s a long long long long loooooooooooooooooooooooooong work!  And I’ve been crazy enough in my brain to do it, eh. I wanted to imitate the manga style, usually printed in black and white with a lot of frames/patterns: however a manga page describing an action contains only two or three panels. But in my exercise, I had to gather, to concentrate all I wanted to show in only one page: this is why my page looks so heavy, so thick, so detailed, while some panels would be deserved to get more space for more hard-hitting effects. Dura lex, sed lex… Moreover, I haven’t been able to reproduce the thinness of the frames in this scanned version: that looks kind of blurred -_- The original page is much more impressive than this version!