Educational strip 

The brief: 

You have been asked to produce an illustrated strip of up to five frames for use in schools explaining to young people how to cope with the onset of puberty. You can decide on which aspect you want to tackle. Due to the subject matter and the intended age group it is suggested you use metaphor and humour when conveying the message, The client would also like you to provide a single illustration of your character for the use on the front cover. 

Research: 

Out of my depth here I started to look at how a strip is put together, I collected a number of examples to observe: Simple and fun characters. Not all in colour. Wording, but nor too much. A narrative. Square of rectangle boxes. It is so lovely to have the opportunity to look at the 'Snoopy' Strips by Charles M. Schulz. 

Ok, so here I studied a more relaxed, humorous style of illustration by Purple Ronnie: Very simple, child like people that are readable and fun. There is a little colour. The font is simple and funny. I think I need to decide who I am talking about in order to work out the best way to communicate my message. The brief asks for humour.  

I decided I need a focus. So I designed my character. I have decided to base my educational strip on a girls experience. I want to make my strip easy to understand with a clear message so I will focus on one gender. 

Spider Diagram: 

According to the NHS website, the average age for puberty in girls is 11. 

My character: 

• Francesca. 
• She is the eldest sibling. 
• She is 12. 
• In year 7 of high school. 
• She has long brown hair, plaited to the side. 
• School uniform. 

Whilst thinking about my character, I thought about the words to describe growing up. Muddled. Fuzzy. Me. Moody. Growing. 

As learnt from previous exercise 'Text and Image', I wrote the words in an expressive hand drawn font. 

What also happened here was 'SUPER GIRL'. So I will research 'Super Hero' clip art for inspiration. 

Font research: Clip art. Super hero inspired: 

Thumbnails: 

With a real emphasis on my words, I wondered if I could make the words a character in themselves, I key part of the page. 

Here I used all 5 frames.

Now the brief recommends metaphor and humour. Around each thumbnail,  wrote a story in notes for my own narrative through the thumbnails. However, I am unsure whether to use them in the actual educational strip as metaphor has been requested so therefore maybe enough. 

My narrative for each thumbnail reads as follows (words are my own); 

What is happening to my body? It's all going mad! 

Frame 1.'Sometimes my tummy feels achey and funny, 

And my fanny feels really quite furry and fuzzy...

Frame 2. Sometimes my hair won't stop growing and growing, 

Like a lawn of grass that needs tending and mowing...

Frame 3. Sometimes my head feels muddy and muddled, 

And my thoughts feel crazy stupid and troubled....

Frame 4. Sometimes I feel rather stroppy and moody, 

With my hormones constantly bubbling and brooding...

Frame 6. Sometimes though, I know when I get there I'll see, 

The beauty of bits my boobs and all that is me...'

Challenges I face here are: 

1. To include my wording or to only use my descriptive fonts as metaphors? I do want to include my poem, however this maybe seen as conflicting with the brief. 
2. If I work in portrait, is there enough room for my words? 
3. To make my key words descriptive and expressive. 

Cover stand alone visual: 

Francesca in despair. I have used the superhero design influences to position the title words. "It's all going mad!" will be typed along the bottom. 

Mock up: 

The cover... 

The cartoon strip. 5 frames:
 "Fuzzy, Growing, Muddled, Moody, Me" 

Client Visuals: 

Still uneasy about including my verses, I decided to add text boxes as used in the cartoon strips that I researched. Rather than my full verses, I included bite size snippets from it. I pinned each frame to a large sheet. 

Mock up: 

Here I added colour using coloured pencils. I also developed "me" a little further as I decided I wanted to tie in the other frames into some kind of finishing conclusion.. I added a little piece of each frame into the final "me" frame. A close up sits below. 

Reflection: 

Getting to know Francesca has been my very favourite part of this. Initially daunted by this, using character development I then found a way into this and have enjoyed the journey from there on in. 

Also using 'Text and Image' as a guide, I really liked using my key words as characters on the page. 

The exercise suggested the use of metaphors for this. I am still unsure as to whether my verses would have worked as part of a strip, my heart really wanted to run with the full verse, however I wanted to concentrate on interpreting the brief correctly. 

This has been my favourite exercise. Experimental, completely new territory and a character I really like.