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Coming up with the idea

In the end, I had a peer tutorial with Sasha Shevchenko, which told me to do what I really like to do. She suggested to think of the beginning and the end of the comic. Recalling what Victor said I thought that it would be helpful to give myself the borders.

So, I thought what I really wanted to do is gangs. Kameela also suggested me to look at “The Warriors” film. It reminded me that in GTA gangs have the marks, which presented their gangs. They  have specific color clothes, which differ them from the other gangs.

At this point, I was combining all the pieces of research together and coming with the story. I took myself as the prototype for the main character. It would be based on my camp experience. I would took my memories of misspelt nickname, changing color of the pen, achievements and my willing of justice and put it in the other content. 

It would be based on my camp experience. I would took my memories of misspelt nickname, changing color of the pen, achievements and my willing of justice and put it in the other content.

I had the idea of rest of the gang has the colorful parts of the clothes, which highlight them from other gangs. I thought it would be nice to make each of the character in the gang responsible for type of the crime.

So, the raw idea of the comic was to show main character joins the gang and then leave because he disappoints of them.

It was hard to come up with the concepts quickly, but I had to because of the time limits. All in all, I took the descriptions of people from the one of the stories from the interview. I collaged first characters, which became the base for more detailed designs

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Firstly, I was having another project «How To Draw» together with my final project. So, I decided to use the topic of HTD to sketch something related to scouts. At this point, I thought it would give me some additional ideas because most of the time I was working on the text files, interview and research. However, It was hopeless again, besides it dictated me the colour palette and I did the very first sketch of comic just to begin with. 

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MY CAMP EXPERIENCE

Asking myself the same questions, I found out that I was really stubborn as a kid. I was also looking for success and being the part of the team and work hard for it. My camp called English Club. It was a camp with the social levels by naming leaders of troops - lords, popular guys- celebrities and so on. People who work hard were given the certificate of nothing but the phrase “Activity”. It means that you are cool now. There is a ceremony each session, where “lords” were naming nicknames of the kids, who are celebrities or activities now. The only thing I was thinking about is to get all of these activities. Those piece of papers.

There were concerts every day which called “parliaments”.  I remember clearly how one of the guys farted on the parliament and everybody praised him like he is funny and smart. He was given this stupid Activity card. However, I was thinking about all the ideas, thinking about names of the troops, thinking about concepts of the plays, but I was not given this achievement. So, for me, each time was a hard work to this activity card and each time I wanted to achieve it fairly. Along with that, I had a diary where I wrote what’s going on each day. Looking through it now I noticed that: - At the beginning of a diary I was happy to see everyone, be the part of the group. -Positive - Text was written with the simple blue pen - At the end I was dissapointing that I am not the part of the play, concert or activity and hate everyone -Negative

-The text was written with different colors of pen.

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INTERVIEWS

So, the next step was to find people, who’d be like to be interviewed about their camp/ scouting experience. I interviewed around 10 people - 2 of them had been scouting as kids. Overall, I found some funny moments in the people’s stories. However, I was expecting the story, which would inspire me to show but I found out that I don’t really like them too much as well. Of course, many characters in this stories are funny and all, but i did not want to show it from the beginning to the end. At that moment I was stuck with the whole understandings what I am going to tell in my comic, but this stories kept me return and listen to them over and over again to come up with something. Here are some translated interviews posting anonymously. I asked questions individually depending on the story.However,  in general questions were like that: •The most memorable positive/negative moments from the camp? •Tell me about the troop. Which people you could remember? What’s so memorable about them? • The schedule of the camp. Which activities have you had?  • Why have you been there? Was it your choice?

PS. I expect to hear detailed stories and description of people you met if it’s possible. Focus on that firstly.

De

My grandfather was the headmaster of the camp. So, i’ ve been there many times when i was a small kid. I was living in their house and witnessing all the activities from there. The camp called "The Wave». It takes place in Anapa. And once, after the death of my grandfather, I went there on my own. So, I had never experienced being a «pioneer» till that moment. Firstly i thought that it could be fun, but at the end it turned out I am being an antisocial guy like from anime. The overall experience from camp was like a Dota match- once you want to play Dota, but when you play it you don’t want to do it anymore. Second time i went there with our mutual classmate and that time was super lit.

One memorable story was when I was walking with friend outside the building. The building was divide into female and male dorms, so we were walking near the girls' dorm. I’ve seen the shadows behind the first floor window. My first idea was to do a funny thing and accidentally appear to spook them. So, I did it. They started to scream and shout, someone run out of the room. I was confused they reacted so well. After some time they went outside and said me that they were doing the ritual and I really scared them.

Another story. We had a boy called Petr in our camp. He seriously was a communist always tells the stories about Lenin. He gesticulated a lot. Other two guys always were making fun of him. They also had the phones with voice off recording options. So, once he was telling the classic stories and those two guys recorded him while he was doing it. Afterwards, they voiced over the video of him fake shouting «Go, Hitler! Go!» and «Hitler was my grandpa». That was hilarious. Like the video and sound were synchronized so well! We were watching it like two days in a row.

We also had a small gang in our troop. We tried to chase and watch what older teenagers up to do. We had our gang stories but we pretended to be like that but it was fun. Of course, we were not allowed to buy sodas and other junk food. I remember we tried to be sneaky and buy «Kereeshki» before the camp party. It was dark but we were like «Lets go faster and get «Kereeshki» before anybody notices»

Another story. Me and others were calling girls to our rooms for fun. They were like »for what?». One of the guys was hiding in the closet and when they were closer to it he frightened them to death and they run away like a madman.

A

Camp «Spets Anglis»

My friend and I were at one of the oldest troop. At this troop was a girl Sima. She was a goth and everybody was afraid of her. Se also had a gang of girls who were her bodyguards. So, nobody could have mess with her because she does occult things and rituals. One guy had a crush on my friend, Asya, but Sima had a crush on this guy. She danced with him once or something like that. So, SIma said that her gang will beat the shit out of her and I was really scared. I started bet Asya not dealing with this guy to be safe. Meanwhile, Sima and her girls started the war with pouring the shampoo in Asya’s shoes. Then they stuck the chewed gum to her hair at night once. They send her blackmailed threats written with blood, which we were keep founding in many places. Asya was a calm girl in comparison with me. However, once she was bitten for real…

Another story I remember that everybody was drink and smoke. Alcohol (whiskey and vodka) were hidden under the beds. And we were smoking in the toilets, so there was a heavy smog of cigarette smoke.

One more thing is that many girls were sexually harassed by our camp leader Snap. He organized all the girls in one line and make them kiss him. That person, who did not do that was bullied and got low marks for English classes. My friends and I closed the door in the toilet and did not want to go out. My brother arrived to the camp to talk to him, but Snep was a lying and disgusting person, so he somehow got away with it. S 

The camp «Ocean»

It has a friendly atmosphere, nobody judges you for your interests. All the people are really communicable. There are around 500 people in the camp session, which are divided by 30 persons per one troop. The camp has also different themed sessions like politician or creative. This time I was at the intellectual session. The troop if divided on 8 quarters filled with 6 people. 3 boys from my session were the most memorable guys. Their room was near mine. 

The first guy named Victor. He showed his ability to meow. He was around 1,90 cm high, a bit chubby. He also had a strange-looking slicked-back hair like from the 80s. Victor a shortsighted and wear the lenses. He was pretty much proud of it I don’t know why, but then he wears a glasses. Victor studied in the USA. He is a poet. And he was proud it as well. Vlad has an average height and was one of the mature guys (he was 18yo) He supposed to break his voice already, but it did not happen or happened not intensively. He has the strange cat-like mouth while he’s smiling. 

Grisha (I called him Zahar because once I misspelt the name) He is a blonde and shy guy with a nice face and blue eyes. He always was closed but he was the only one from my school. He actually is the son of the headmaster. He grumbles a lot but in the dining hall he was always very kind and eats a lot. 

Victor and Vlad tell us gay jokes over time. At the «ocean" phones are subduct for the whole day and they are returned back at  6-7pm.  Victor did not manage to give it in time. We also were joking about prison. Prisoners drill all the objects of other people, who are gay and it called «zashqvar». if you see something with a hole, it's a «zashqvar». Once we saw the Bassoon (Fagott) instrument at the concert and called it «zashqvar».

Lina (Eva)

Lina is a stranger from grade 11She has a  childish face and very feminine figure She wears glasses but she has a strange noseAlso, she is very shy. She came to the camp to overcome the fear of people.AgathawriterShe is always everywhere. She likes to record everything. Has a short brown bob hair and thin brows.it would seem she saw what was happening inside your head. 

Elina is very closed person. Everything makes her cry and on the entire photo she sat down on the bench and cried. However, on the final day, she was very intelligent, well-read and was very active in telling jokes Mom I remember the bright moment which was harmful enough to me. I was proud of being a pioneer and having neckerchief. Once U was entering a new school where was not the pioneer ceremony yet. So, I was having my neckerchief and telling them that I am going to wear it because I am a pioneer and that's my duty. After all of these years of being a pioneer, they said that is not allowed and they took my neckerchief saying that there’d be a ceremony for everybody. That was terrible.

She also was a leader in the pioneers’ camp.

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At that point of research, I can’t come up with the solid idea what the comic is going to be about. So, my thought on that was to interview people and look for different stories on the internet relating to the topic. Reddit turned out to be one of the place where the scouts’ experience were discussed.  I continued my research with reading some of them and marking something to work with. I ended up with some of the “not bad” stories but it was not useful enough for me.  

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Research on films.

2.

Moskva Kassiopeya

The Soviet film, which has lovely characters and funny effects in it. What i like about the film is the kitschy feel you get from it by watching it now. Love the different colours of the suits, design of the spaceship and universe in general.

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Research on films.

2. Moonrise Kingdom The incredible film directed by Wes Anderson. Talking about boy scout characters, I am amused by the concept of the individual patches for each boy scout in the troop. It is a big pleasure to look closer at these details and get to know background characters more. Lovely colour palette, like the big backpack of the main character. 

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Research on films.

1. Ladybird 

Coming of age film, which is not really relates to my comic idea but have some nice shots in it. Love the broken arm of the main character, misspelling  the name, small crimes, goth characters, relationships between Ladybird and her best friend and how it was changing. 

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Each set of badges respond to the skills and at the end make you an expert in one or another area. 

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Plenty of the interesting catchy moments were found there (like the sausages on that stick). Fun to reimagine it in the different universe. Some notes I did for myself to remember it better. Nice to know about an individual knife, troops names, oaths, some kind of coats with the patches, the list of needed things for camping and so on.

Badges («recognitions») show the skills and your area of interests. Other people would know which skills you have and could share with them.

Iris (trefoil) badge

shows the right way like the compass

there points- three fingers stands for the three parts go the Scout Oath

Two stars- truth and knowledge

eagle - freedom and readiness

scroll - Scout smiles as he does his duty

Knot - «Do a Good Turn Daily»

The neckerchief is the mark of the uniform and tells what troop you belong to

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SCOUT’S HANDBOOKS

Lots of books were found at the archieve.org website. There were books about scouts songs, handbooks, badges catalogues. From all of them, I read 2 to know more about how to get the badges and how to be a scout.

Girl Scout badges and signs 1980

Official Boy Scout handbook 1979

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Inspiration

Leaving Richard’s Valley. Michael DeForge

The comic contains a lot of different characters, which are placed in the weird trippy universe. The dialogues are daily based, there are philosophical thoughts to which in comparison with characters have a nice effect on the overall idea.

Megg Mogg & Owl. Simon Hanselmann

It kills me wit funny dark jokes and absurdness in situations as well. It has the same vibe but on the another level

Fashion Cat.   Alex Schubert

Fashion cat is one of the characters from Blobby Boys universe, which is about the punk band and street life. Relatable moments which are told through the street life stories. 

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Group tutorial with Victor Melamed

1. The suggestion on the plot was to pay attention at the process of character development in the comic. It is important to show the changing of the character.  2. One more idea was to show the coming of age story and show each achievement connected to this topic: first kiss, the first fight and so on 

3. We agreed together that the Amazing World Of Gumball could be the guiding line for me because it has the middle between the absurd story and matureness of it on the other hand. 

4. Also, he mentioned that I have to think about the presentation of it overall, it would work as the one whole thing together.

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Soviet journals appear to be really memorable and bright showing a range of lovely pictures and posters in different styles. I marked some of the favourite covers I found: some of them are realistic, some of them are stylised, but they both support the idea of the pioneer’s spirit. Plus, some of the artworks in the journals look like the instruction manual like in scout’s guidebook, which is a nice idea for me to make the part of the book like instruction of something. The similar idea was previously in my short story about the boy scout I mentioned before. 

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1 Eva Stalinski

2 Emilie Gleason

3,4  Mawil 5 Sachinteng

6 Neuwav

7 Yuki Kitazumi

8 Jack Fletcher

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I was looking at the history of scouts’ uniform. The inspiring fact to me see the different positions of the patches on the clothes, which verifies from the country and rang. Also, interesting to look through the female uniform and how it has been changing over the years.  In fact, the shape of the uniform was the motivational part for me to imagine the characters. My thoughts were like how it could be redrawn and which spot of the clothes would display the patches.

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Feedback forms from both tutorials

Both of them helped me to start working and be confident with the chosen themes. Also, it reduced the level of stress and not perceive this project as the end of the world. The important thing is to start working and not thinking about the additional outcomes. Plus it would be clear with the finalizing the project which things I need for the exhibition.