The Apartment Project
Overview
For this project, we had to create small papercraft apartments showing a view inside the window. These were attached to a fake tower to make a really cool looking apartment complex full of interesting views. Once we finished the apartments, we had to make a 2-page comic that was set in and told the story of the room we had made.
Stage 1 - Planning
When coming up with ideas for this project I had a lot of initial thoughts. A room that tells a story could mean all sorts of things. I thought the scene of some sort of crime could be interesting since I could fill it with clues or maybe the room of somebody who makes potions or an apothecary. I also liked the idea of doing a room belonging to a child who had been playing make-believe all day since I remember all the interesting mess I'd leave behind when I was younger.
I decided on this final idea because I knew I could make it bright and colorful and I also had a lot of immediate ideas as to what I'd fill the room with. I also chose it because I felt it would be unique since I thought a crime scene would be a popular choice since it gives a very neat way to make a room tell a story.
Once I'd chosen my subject I spent a little bit planning my medium and deciding what I wanted the comic portion to be about, I decided to make the room how it looked at the end of the day and have the comic showing a child gathering items from around the house to build a fort and play make-believe in the room. I especially loved the idea of them taking Christmas decorations down from the attic to act as jewels in a dragon's horde.
Stage 2 - Making the Apartment
In order to make the papercraft apartment, we first went to the laser cutting workshop in order to make templates. There was a set template and we learned how to work the laser cutter to make cuts and scores that let us easily fold the card into the right shape.
The next step was to make preliminary sketches based on the dimensions of the template. I could have pained or drawn directly onto the template after this but I decided to use paper from my favorite sketchbook to make something I could glue to the inside of the template and then fold alongside the original flaps. This meant if I made a mistake I could start again and gave me more options for the kind of art supplies I could use since I didn't know the strength of the card the template was made from.
I used my gouache paints to make a limited colour palette that I tested out, I wanted it to be cheerful so I used a complementary blue and orange scheme with pink highlights. I also added a black lineart to define things since while my guache is very opaque I didn't trust my ability to line with my paintbrush.
I was tricky to make the final product and cut out the extra pieces for the windowsill but overall I'm pleased with how it turned out although I wish I'd made the external pieces at the same time as the interior so they'd match better.
Stage 3 - Making the Comic
I decided to make the comic digital both to save time and because I enjoy how simple I could make it look, although I'm curious how it may have looked in gouache.
I did all the sketching digitally to get a feeling for the layout and then jumped in with the larger panel layout and the sketch layers. I used a slightly textured inking brush and filled everything in with flat colours I colour picked from some of the photographs of the finished apartment. The shading was all done on a single layer in order to meld well with the entire comic and I used a running watercolour brush since it made the whole piece have a little more texture.
I wanted the whole thing to feel simple and like a children's book which I feel I accomplished pretty well overall though had I spent more time on it I might have played with a few more compositions and mediums and possibly have run the draft by multiple people. I'm also happy that I decided against dialogue since I don't think it could have added much to the comic overall.
Finished Product
