Developing great visual stories

[Asyas_illos]

Hey guys I’m working my way through will terry’s new class developing great visual stories. Assignment 2 is creating secondary stories, I chose the prompt “the storm was getting much worse” and am roughing it out but not sure I actually have any secondary stories?

I guess I’m not sure still what constitutes a secondary story, like how much is considered the original story?

I’ve got the storm, to show it’s a wind storm, I’ve bent over trees and bushes. The story to me is the wind picked up so much the kid grabbed onto the lamppost, then we’ve got a chain reaction, friend grabs the kids foot, and is also holding onto the dog as it’s being blown away.

Is that all one story? Or is it like three? I guess I would call the bird clinging to the lamppost a secondary story if anything. Has anyone else completed this course yet? Thanks for any feedback!

[AngelinaKizz]

@asyas_illos great rough! Your perspective is awesome. I love the feel and the movement …. It’s going to be fabulous.

Did you see that mays prompt is storm? Looks like you have a perfect start for may.

I need to take this class!

[Asyas_illos]

@angelinakizz no I haven’t seen that yet! That’s a happy coincidence I guess I have to see it through now!

[Asyas_illos]

@angelinakizz it’s a great class! I’ve finished all the videos and now working through the assignments.

[demotlj]

I am working through that class too so I might not have the concepts entirely right but I would guess that the two kids and the dog are the primary story and that the bird is a secondary story. I would also think that to make it a clear secondary story you might want to flesh out the bird's predicament a bit more. You could, for example, have a nest on the post with mother bird trying to hold onto her babies or some additional element that gives that secondary story a little more dimension without it overshadowing the primary story.

[Asyas_illos]

@demotlj ok thank you I had been going around in circles in my head wondering about it.

[AngelinaKizz]

@asyas_illos
Ok, I just watched the course. I agree with demotlj, in that the secondary would be the bird, and to flesh out a bit more story of why the bird is where he is.

[Asyas_illos]

Made a little progress today, still not sure how I want move forward with the birds for a secondary story, I did add a couple more, but I don't think it quite does it yet.

[Asyas_illos]

I think I'm going to move to color, after watching Wills videos multiple times, its pretty vague on now detailed your secondary needs to be, or it can vary at least, and I think for this particular illustration any more detail would distract from my main story. So ima leave it be, it’s a good start for learning about secondary stories and my next one I will focus more on it.

I think I’ll take away a bird too now that I’ve stepped back and looked at it.

[DoodleMick]

I'm assuming that's a wall or fence behind them. I pictured a cat on top of the wall, with its back hunched as is its scared, plus being blown across the wall leaving claw marks.

[TessaW]

I just started this course too. I'm a little bit unclear about the secondary story as well. I had a hard time identifying secondary stories in many of his examples. A possible secondary story for this piece would maybe be the dog being happy with his tongue out and looking at something blowing by him with interest? Or maybe the birds are flying closer to the dog and are surprised there's a dog in their territory? Or maybe a kid with goggles and scarf on a playground airplane in the background? Those suggestions would completely change the tone and the focus of the piece though. Maybe one that would keep with your current mood would be to have the dog trying to keep his toy from blowing away, so you have one more element in your chain reaction. It's so tricky to find the balance between what will enhance a piece and what will distract from it. Currently I do think your piece is clear, there's fun interest in the chain reaction, and nothing seems to distract from it, so you are successful on many fronts.

My only suggestion at this point would be to reconsider the gesture or expression of the girl hanging on to the fence. She looks a little nonchalant and relaxed to me. Maybe more tension in her grip- maybe it looks like her hand are about to slip- maybe her body is at a sharper angle or her expression looks more strained. There's probably a few ways to go about it, but I think it would help the viewer relate to the tension of the moment.

[Asyas_illos]

@tessaw you’ve got some good suggestions! I had thought about slipping fingers too this would allow me to change the angle of her face so we could get a clearer view of her expression. Maybe a bird is also trying to help her hold on? I’ll have to revisit that idea. Thanks for you feedback

[crispalomino]

@asyas_illos I love the little birds hanging on.

[Asyas_illos]

@crispalomino thanks!

[demotlj]

I finished watching the videos and I want to change what I said before about secondary stories. I think what Will Terry is saying is that the primary story is a simple depiction of the text so in your case, any painting of a growing storm would be the primary story. Your could just paint wind whipping through trees and you would have satisfied the requirement of the text. The secondary story though is what the illustrator adds that is not necessarily in the text but that creates a new narrative within that scene. Your depiction of the kids and animals affected by the storm then would be all part of the secondary story because they are not explicit in the text and it makes you want to know more about the characters, and the storm’s effects on them, as well as the storm itself. There’s nothing in the text that says anything about kids or birds or people trying to hang on to a post but you created your own story within the story given to you by the text and that secondary story deepens the storytelling, engages the reader’s imagination, and evokes more emotion.

I may be wrong but I think that’s what he was saying in which case, all of the characters, including the birds are secondary stories. Does that make sense?

[Asyas_illos]

I have a duplicate canvas that I am trying other positions out for the girl but I still like this one the best so I moved onto color yes I went with my penny colors again… still working on additional foreground color scheme

[Asyas_illos]

Doing some coloring today,

[Asyas_illos]

So I revisited my second canvas to play with the first kid in the chain, I’d like some opinions on which version you like better

[demotlj]

@asyas_illos The second because I like being able to see her face.

[Asyas_illos]

@demotlj thank you for the feedback!