Their story, in their words…
Me and my friend, Elisha, pursued the sedulous task of making our own graphic novel called ‘Orange’ that follows the story of our main character Annie as she regains her sense of self whilst powering through the many difficulties of school life. In the end, she finally understands the wonder that is finding people whom she can rely on when times get tough.
At the beginning we spent a lot of time understanding our characters. We made character profiles for the main cast to get a deeper sense of who they were, and I made many artworks for the characters so I could build up a gallery of references that I would use whilst drawing the characters. We then split tasks between us, Elisha handled colouring and scripting whilst I handled sketching and lineart. We kept roles quite fluid, helping each other out when necessary to have things done to a standard that we were both happy with! During the process of creating the book we were contacting printers for quotes and asking libraries if we could host our book sale to ensure we were on top of things once we got the book printed.
Overall, I was quite happy with our project because we pushed through the many difficult aspects of this project – which included finishing our artwork and script in good time, or the process of supplying correct artwork to the printers – and created a beautiful book regardless. Despite it being our first time ever making a graphic novel I think we did a pretty neat job! I learned more about myself; the art that I want to create; and that I love making comics thanks to Orange. I want to continue making many more comics in the future, so I’m quite glad I could start my journey with the Mark Evison Foundation.
A word from Elisha: Working on this project, and more specifically making a comic for the first time, was a very challenging but rewarding experience. Because it was just two people working on the group, constant communication was integral to keeping tasks on track as well as ensuring that our creative vision remained throughout. It was important to maintain a light-hearted atmosphere so having the conversations between the characters that built their friendship and trust was really important to me. In the end, working on this comic allowed me to stretch my creativity beyond my comfort zone of drawing only for leisure. In the future, I aim to use my improved knowledge of planning and design for more long-term projects like Orange.
