What Can I Do? (Open Sequence, Final)

December 7, 2023

For our last project in Time, we were allowed to choose any medium to explore a concept that we were introduced to throughout the semester. Going back to our sequential art practice from the beginning of the semester, I chose to make another piece of sequential art in the form of a mini-comic.

The topic for my comic was the culmination of this entire semester which was based on memory. Throughout all of my classes, I’ve related a lot of my projects to my dog who passed away several months ago, and along with my final essay and zine in my seminar and studio classes, respectively, I chose to dedicate this piece to moving on. To make it a little easier and more personal, I also used a song that I like as the “narration” for the comic. Below are my sketchbook pages in which I plan the comic, from choosing a song, separating the lyrics into panels, storyboarding the panels, and assigning panels to different pages.

After I had a layout, I took reference photos and drew and measured out my panels on smooth bristol paper. Afterward, I sketched out the panels using my reference photos. I wanted to keep the sketchy feel, so instead of erasing the pencil before inking, I left the majority of the pencil to give it a layered look. I chose to use liquitex acrylic ink in the color of muted pink instead of black for two reasons: the album cover of the song I chose (What Can I Do? by Hot Freaks) is bright with pink and purple, and I also wanted to be in the middle of love and sadness, pink and blue, hence a muted pink with purple tones. I also think pink reminds me of my dog because in pieces I’ve made of him previously, I tended to use pink as a base color, and he also had a red collar. I inked the panels with a dip pen nib for the line work and a brush for the washes of ink.

Below is my comic.

In general, I’m very proud of this piece and I’m glad I got to make this as a final project. I was able to make most of my final projects very cohesive with the concept of moving on, so being able to have the creative freedom to choose what method and medium to portray this in was very beneficial. I enjoy making comics a lot, so the method wasn’t new, nor the medium, but I’m slowly getting out of my comfort zone with drawing people, anatomy, and even choosing different inks and inspirations (I’ve never based anything off of a song before). It wasn’t too tedious because I’m now used to the process of creating multi-paged comics, but it was a bit more work than my first sequential piece in this class, so it’s nice to me my growth in that regard. I feel like this was a great culmination of Time.