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End of the Project:

The article "From the Northeast" focuses on the independence of living abroad; it analyses from a positive perspective that living abroad can effectively improve people's degree of freedom, whether independent thinking or self-care ability. Also, present the project as a picture book, a fantasy story about becoming independent. The book is positioned as an "illustration picture book for teenagers." It is designed for all countries and ages (under 18). It is a form of communication between people living alone and abroad. The point of this article is to encourage people to get out of their comfort zone and push themselves forward. If you feel lonely, scared, and anxious but have taken the most challenging step out of your comfort zone, nothing is impossible for the rest of your life.

With the conclusion of this thesis and my graduation project coming to an end, I will review my three years of university study life. I have been through a lot and missed a lot, but I have gained a lot in these three years. During AUT, I learned the knowledge in books and the experience of facing different content, which is invaluable. After two busy months, my graduation project is finally ending. For these two months, I have been working, gathering materials, finalizing plans, designing, practicing, editing, revising, printing, uploading, etc. time flies. Although some places are unsatisfactory due to personal ability and time, I do not regret it. Because the most important thing about design work is my practical process, I don't have to care too much about the result; what is valuable is the experience I learned in the process.

One of the most beneficial experiences and knowledge is that I learned that a clear storyline, solid characters, and a good illustration style are also ways to attract readers' attention. My initial character design, under the premise of insufficient preparation, always felt that I needed more souls; all the character design drafts， and background settings failed to satisfy me, and I fell into a state of confusion for a long time. While I like the look of this picture book, and it's good enough for me, there is room for improvement. The final character adaptation is based on my personal experience, so the best way to express my identity is to incorporate the overall illustration style into my traditional culture (the Khitan language). Also, like Khitan, it's not pop culture, and I want readers to see and understand this beautiful tradition (patterns, culture, costumes) from my picture books. Due to time constraints, this is my first attempt at picture books, and many things need to meet expectations. However, every coin has two sides. Through this project, my drawing skills have improved significantly, drawing 40 pages quickly and improving my level.

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Project Review: Part five

The fifth part can be called after the change. After people become independent and confident, everything begins to develop in a good direction. The last few pictures depict the life of the protagonist Kana on Huoata island. Although she has no wings, she can climb to a high place to do activities together under the guidance of her friends. Friends will also accommodate Kana to have a picnic on the grass. Although Kana has integrated into the new environment, she has not forgotten that she is from far away, Blackfield. She enthusiastically introduces the customs of her own culture to new friends, such as lighting bonfires with her unique spark magic.

The picture image had returned to the original bus stop, and the girl, Kana, walks over to introduce this beautiful island warmly to the girl, and the two smile at each other. The story ends.

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Project Review: Part four

The fourth part is a turning point. After a period on Huoata island, the protagonist Kana finds that everything deviates from what she imagined. 

The different languages kept her silent at the tea party, and the combination of incomprehensible invitations and unacceptable food made her feel excluded. Since there are no wings, Kana can only watch from a distance at the party. A series of encounters made Kana feel extraordinarily lonely and uneasy, and it also caused her to fall into severe self-doubt and question her own choices. Lack of belonging and inner self-confidence caused her to be depressed for a while. But as time passed, Kana didn't want to give up the integration or be surrounded by such negative emotions; she was determined to change her status quo. Day and night, she studied the language and culture assiduously, tried to accept new knowledge, and began actively participating in activities. Finally, she gradually became confident and cheerful with the changes and progress every day.

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Project Review: Part three

The third part is my favourite part of the whole picture book. The protagonist, Kana, bids farewell to her family and prepares to embark on her dream voyage.

Kana rode a bull across the clouds, first to the continental border of Blackfield and then to Huoata island on a sailboat at the port. After a few days in the company of silverfish and the sea, Kana finally arrived on the island. The island is like an infinitely magnified garden, and the vast plants make Kana so small that it can devour her instantly. The inside is full of things Kana has never seen glowing stamens, shimmering amethysts, exaggerated green plants, and girls with wings. It was also under the girl's guidance that Kana began to explore and learn about the island.

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Project Review: Part two

The second paragraph mainly describes the protagonist's life in his hometown of Blackfield. The picture shows this nation's simple life attitude and bold national habits of dancing around the bonfire, talking, and laughing.

The protagonist Kana and her friends play carefree all day, and one day they discuss what the other side of the continent will be like. They addressed the sea and the island innocently, and driven by an intense curiosity, Kana decided to go on an unprecedented adventure.

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Project Review: Part one

I divided my content into two parts, the life in my hometown and the exploration and change in the voyage: detailed decomposition, about 2/3 of the content ratio.

The first part presented in a narrative and reminiscence way. The protagonist Kana met a girl who had just come here on the way home crying alone. This scene brought back memories of her hometown and what she experienced when she first came to Huoata island. In the memory, the line of sight passed through the vast Blackfield prairie, and the protagonist Kana rode a lizard horse and returned with his father's team. Mother welcomed their return home; the sun was gradually setting, night fell, and the life of the Blackfield nation had just begun. The mother lit up the bushes with the nation's unique spark magic, the flames raging, and the people sang and danced, laughing and laughing.

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Cover Design:

During the printing process, I found that this pearlescent textured paper was unsuitable for printing, and the effect could have been better. Because I didn't want to give up the pearl effect of this paper, I chose to hand-paint the words on the cover, and I am satisfied with the results. When I finally pasted the body and the glued inner page together, there was a little deviation, and I exposed the edge of the red internal page a little, but the whole thing was OK.

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Cover Design:

I thought a lot about the design of my cover, whether to use a pattern or a solid colour textured paper. Since my final inner page print is A4 size 210 x 297 mm so 297x2 = 594mm is adding the spine; if you want to print the cover on a complete paper, you need to use A2 size. It is also where I made a mistake; the size of 500mm or more in the print shop needs to be re-ordered online. Due to lack of time, I chose plan B to make it myself by splicing two 300x300 pieces. In the end, I decided on 305mm solid colour paper with pearlescent light for the final production.

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Background Design:

At first, I thought about using ink smudges to make text or cover background, but the effect is too messy and unsuitable for a background image. In the end, I adjusted it through liquefaction and made the picture into a rolling pattern. I am delighted with the effect, it adds a hazy, dreamy feel to the whole picture, so I use this technique throughout the book.

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Week 12 Process and Printing:

All my painted images have been processed more than three times, from line art to outline drawing, inking, photography, and Photoshop for adjustment. About printing Due to the experience of the previous two projects, this time, I decisively chose to do the binding in the printing house to avoid the failure rate being too high, and many of my plans needed to be adjusted during the printing process. Initially wanted to set the size of the picture book between A5 and B5, but through the printing effect, I found that keeping the wide margins looks more delicate than cropping; the visual product is also better, so I finally decided to print the size of A4 in pure 250gsm on white paper.

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Process of making each image:

1 step: Sketch with pencil

2 step: Line with line pen or marker

3 step: Inking

4 step: colour on detail, also redo the pencil sketch

5 step: final check and fix 

6 step: scan and edit on screen

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Material and technique:

At week 12, I finally finished all my paintings. Look back, I went from the thumbnail sketch to the draft layout at the beginning to determine my base layout. Then go through countless tweaks and exercises to accurately convey the story. At the draft stage, I finally decided to present my painting in black and white because my colour was too rich, and the overall picture looked cheap. I used Inkling as my primary technique. 

When I started using Inking, I had an 80% failure rate on one of my paintings; I've repainted it many times. Since I had studied Chinese ink painting before, it was an easy task; however, it turns out that there are better ideas than Inking when it comes to small and ultra-detailed sketches. I had to stop using the brush for line drawing. After researching and learning videos of other illustrators' pictures and techniques, I realized that a better medium is line pens and markers. While I spend much time on drawing problems, I also have a more comprehensive approach.

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Week 10-11 Sketching Process:

Working by myself at week 10-11. Because my progress needed to be faster, I didn't go to class for the last two weeks and frantically rushed to draw at home.

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Image Reference:

After a series of adjustments, I was still unsatisfied with the scene of my Huoata island, so I chose to use the pictures of the mountains and forests I took as the basis for the creation.

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Week 9 Draft and Material try out

At first, designing and creating picture books is easy to develop content. However, after a period of production, telling a story with a few pictures requires a lot of pre-preparation and revisions. My biggest problem in the painting phase is that I need to improve my painting. I needed to improve my control over the character's expressions and body proportions, which also resulted in many of the emotions I wanted to convey better.

There are a lot of storylines that need to be tweaked after the comments. Whether a story is good or not, the two most important points are the content of the story itself and the way the story is expressed. A simple storyline is essential; from the beginning of the story to the climax to the end, all three stages require constant attempts to achieve the integrity and rationality of a picture book. I could have done this better, being too self-centred regarding story-linking and rationality.

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Week 8. Planning and final positioning

The formative feedback pointed out a lot of my inadequacies, especially in terms of storyline links and plot. Combining both fantasy and studying abroad elements at the same time, makes me quite stressful. After adjustment, I modified many places.  I am willing to use ink and markers as my main media, so the whole book will be in black and white for this stage. Because I am unsure about the colour set, I don’t know how I going to do at this stage so I will just leave it for now. For the binding I have so many ideas, however, the time is limit so I want to finish all my illustrations first, then if I have more time, I will make my book designed more interesting. For now, I want to make sure it is finished first.

For creating, I had given myself 4 weeks to finish the illustrations, and a week and a half for the binding and final blog writing. I roughly estimated that I need to complete about 30 pages of illustrations, some of which can be skipped quickly, and the limit can be completed in about 28 days (21/ 09 - 19/ 10). Then booked the print shop to print and customize it directly after completion.