That Blue Square Thing

Creative iMedia 2024

This page is for the new iMedia syllabus for 2024 onward. I'll be adding stuff to this section from September 2023 onwards.

R097 – Characters and comics

First an introduction...

PDF iconA short history of visual storytelling

The Coventions of Comics

1 – Basic Conventions

Keeping to standard conventions is really important when making products like comics. And it'll get you marks too!

This starts from knowing what's on the page and why it's there.

PDF iconPage layout conventions

PDF iconJust the tasks

Then we move on to text conventions.

PDF iconText conventions

There are some practical skills to develop here.

PNG iconPanels to use – these are about 80mm by 80mm square

JPG iconImage to work on

PDF iconPreparing assets slides

PDF iconPreparing assets for print

PDF iconWord balloon method

PDF iconWord balloon – method 2 (Curvature Pen Tool)

2 – Creating pages and panels

You're going to have to be able to create your own panels. Fortunately this is easy.

PDF iconPreparing pages slides – slides from class

Instruction sheets:

PDF iconBasic panel creation guide

PDF iconMore advanced panel creation

3 – More asset prep skills

Another two images to work on – prepare and then use:

PDF iconPreparing images quick guide – use with the piano image

PDF iconRemoving backgrounds – use with the firedrill image

Here are the images:

JPG iconPiano image

JPG iconFiredrill image

4 – More word balloon skills

PDF iconAdvanced word balloons – slides from class

PDF iconText gallery – examples

Some more detail on joined and linked ballons:

PDF iconCreating joined balloons

PDF iconBasic linked balloons

PDF iconAdvanced linked ballons – using the curvature pen tool