From Disney to the Brothers Grimm, fairytales have been invented and reinvented for centuries. There have been princes and witches, evil stepmothers, and little pigs. But what if there was something new? In this project, students were tasked with creating their own series of narrative illustrations to feature in a fairytale-inspired comic book, made to be displayed in the Newcastle branch of Mr Wolf Toy & Book Shop.
Supported by: Mr Wolf Toy & Book Shop, This Means Waugh (Andrew Waugh Illustrations & Comics), Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival
Mentored by: Helen Turner (Illustration)
Project Contributors: Andrew Waugh (Illustrator and Comic) Chloe Green (festival coordinator at Thought Bubble), Bethan Woollvin (Author and Illustrator)
Project Outline:
Creating character design that reflects the narrative is an important skill for any illustrator, whether they work in children’s book design, comic books, or elsewhere. Our students developed their character design, narrative image-making, hand lettering, and more, to design their imaginative comic book pages.
Comic books and graphic novels have exploded in popularity over the past decade, and this project is an exciting opportunity for students to create their own, retelling a fairy tale how they think it should be told. Should Mr Wolf be the hero of the story? Should The Little Mermaid return to the sea? The story, the design, and what happens next is all in the student’s hands.
The Brief:
This project is for those who love storytelling through visual narrative illustration. After learning all about the wonderful world of fairytales, getting inspired by influential illustrators, and learning about comic book /graphic novel formatting and production, students will use professional illustrator processes to generate their ideas. After all the tasks and challenges to explore concept and illustrative style, students will create their final comic book illustrations. Each student’s individual illustrated stories will be added to a collective magical comic book.
Project Results
Please view the final results of the students’ work from: Millie Oliver, Martha Walton, Georgia Peterson, Holly Bailey, Alice Morgan, Mikey Sproat, Nell Robson, Lucy Guy, Lily Nugent, Bridie Heslop, Louise Montgomery, Phoebe Little and Imogen Baker from Marden High School, and Louise Mills from Longbenton High School.
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Thank you & well done!
All we have left to say is thank you and well done, not only to the students but to the teachers at Marden High School & Longbenton High School, North Tyneside Learning Trust, to the parents who helped along the way, the companies that have supported and contributed to these briefs and the TICE team that plugged away at the project week after week.
To the students – we hope you have enjoyed this project, we hope in years to come that you can proudly present an industry written project you did, achieved, quite frankly smashed. Well done and congratulations from everyone here at TICE.